New Blog-Time Travel with Kates Kitsch

So I've started a new blog on wordpress:

https://timetravelwithkatekitsch.wordpress.com

I most likely will blog only once or twice a month but we will see. It's entirely focused on the 1950s

Golden Girl-A Vintage Outfit Post and a Review of Piplotex's 1950s Cigarette Pants

Obviously I dress up all the time, but I always try to wear something a bit extra special on my birthday.  This year for my 39th it was Piplotex's cigarette pants in gold lame.  

I figured I should celebrate the beginning of my last year in my 30s with something a bit wild and outside my comfort zone, and gold lame pants are definitely perfect for that!

These pant's are just amazing, I adore them.  They are cut just like the 1950's originals with a high waist and slim cropped legs.  They look like they came straight out of a late 1950s Frederick's of Hollywood catalog

except they are much better.  Piplotex sells the in a range of sizes but they will also custom make them to your figure.  Since I'm short that is the option I went for.

 I wore my new pants with my Freddie's of Pinewood Beatnick top, which I've personalized with a genuine 1950s letter K sweater applique, 1950s style gold hoops from Mrs. Polly's lucite, remix flats, and my beloved 1950's novelty cat purse.

I don't usually wear anything as fitted as these pants so I was a bit nervous ordering them,  however Piplotex has absolutely amazing customer service ad worked with me.  The pants arrived amazingly fast and while they are fitted I was pleased that they are not skin tight  and they are super comfortable.  

The gold lame version of these pants has now sold out and I'm so glad I nabbed them when I did, but they are still available in a wide range of fabrics and beautiful colors and for a great price just $64.00, which is amazing for a hand made garment.

I'm hoping my style will get ever more eccentric and wild with every passing year and these pants are certainly a step in the right direction.

Weasley's Guide to MST3K 5 Essential Episodes

Everyone who knows me knows I just love, love, love Mystery Science Theatre 3000.  The 90s cult show about a guy in space forced to watch bad movies with his robot palls.

It combined to  of my absolute favorite things vintage (in the form of cheesy old movies) and sci-fi, in one cute and quirky package.   In fact I'm so crazy about MST3K that for Weasley's 5th birthday one of his gifts was a Gizmonic jump suit like the one MST3K host Joel wears. 

Deb from Pug Possessed made it and she did an amazing job.  I decided Weasley's jumpsuit is the perfect segue way into an MST3K essential episodes post.  Now as you can see I have a lot of MST3K box sets:

and would you believe I don't even have all of them!  Some are really hard to find.  So it wasn't easy picking 5 essential episodes and these aren't even necessarily my favorites, they are just 5 I really like (this blog feature may have to be ongoing).  Here they are in no particular order:

1) Manos The Hand's Fate: The uninitiated bad movie viewer who asks the questions How bad can a movie really get? and How funny can a bad movie be?  Needs to watch this crazy thing.  It was made on a bet by an insurance and fertilizer sales man, he also plays father in the film.  I guess he won the best because the movie is pretty famous now..   The resulting film is completely incoherent and totally hilarious.  It also features a black toy poodle though he comes to a tragic end.

This episode also features the hilarious Chevrolet short, Hired!  Manos The Hands of Fate is available on Amazon for $12.99.

2) Cave Dwellers  This 1984 Italian fantasy film was featured in the first episode of the third season of MST3K.   It is a swords and sandals type film and a pretty dreadful rip off of Conan the Barbarian, but boy is it funny.  Along with a brain dead hero, a mute side kick, and heroine that looks like she is on the way to the mall, it features a snake that growls.  That alone makes it worth watching.  Here is Joel introducing the episode for a Turkey Day special he did in 2013.

Cave Dwellers is part of the volume 2 set of MST3K and is now horrifyingly expensive, but you can rent it from Amazon prime for a reasonable price.  Also Cave Dwellers is part two of a trilogy, yes there are three of these dreadful things, and part 1: Ator, The Fighting Eagle is now available on the Riff trax website.  It does not disappoint.


3) Laser Blast-This 1978 sci-fi film was aired during the 7th season of MST3K.  It has Roddy McDowell of Planet of the Apes fame in it and some seriously awful clay mation effects.  The bots and Mike make plenty of jokes about the fact that revered film critic Leonard Matlin gave this turkey two stars.   Mike also has a fun segment where he pretends to be Star Trek Voyager's Captain Janeway

Laser Blast is available as part of the MST3K 20th anniversary pack 
and it can be streamed on Netflix.

4) The Giant Gila Monster- This cheesy 1959 monster flick was shown during the shows 4th season.  Unsurprisingly there are a lot of giant (insert animal) movies shown on MST3K but this is my favorite.  The plot is typical 50s monster fodder, peppy teens are plagued by a giant Gila lizard (a very obviously normal sized Lizard walking past toy cars).  The songs and doofy dialogue make this a classic episode.

The Giant Gila monster is available as part of Volume 10.2 (now rare and pricey) or you can stream it on Netflix. 

5) Teenage Strangler-This 1968 teen murder mystery was aired during the shows 5th season.   Basically teenage couples are being viciously murdered and the prime suspect is Jimmy a high school student with an incredibly dweeby younger brother.  Then surprise!  It was the school janitor all along.  Hi-light's include the bots tricking Mike into wearing a pair of glasses that turn him into Mikey Jimmy's whiny younger brother from the movie:


  and Mike's hilarious closing song about janitors.

If you want a funny, silly, vintagey show you just cant  go wrong with MST3K it's like watching cheesy movies with your friends, if your friends where incredibly funny. 

Product Review Besame Sweet Heart Glaze-On Sale Now!

First I want to apologize if I haven't been visiting your blogs as much lately.  I've been awfully busy at work and of course when I'm not working I want to spend quality time with the dogs and cats.   I've been thinking I'll have to scale back on posts to this blog to once or twice a week, maybe less, but I just had to do today's post because I wanted anyone interested to now about the great deal on Besame's website.  Their sweet heart lip glazes are now $5.00 each!

Anyone who reads this blog probably knows that Besame is my favorite cosmetic's company.  In fact with the exception of my Burt's Bee's BB cream it is the only cosmetic's brand I  use.   First off they make gorgeous vintage inspired cosmetics that really look like the orginals right down to the packaging.  Secondly they are cruelty free, no animal testing, which is a cosmetics must for me.

I am already fanatical about Besame's lipsticks,  I love their opaque one coat coverage and era authentic colors (see these posts: post one, post two, post three)  I tend to prefer a semi-matte lip stick, and naturally glosses are well, glossy.   Still when I saw them on sale for $5.00 It was a bargain I couldn't resist and I decided to spring for the Rose glaze.   Naturally like all Besame products the lip glaze arrived beautifully packaged.

The color in the container is an opalescent pink with a faint lilac tinge.

You can see the Rose glaze is opalescent and sheer with an purple tinge to its pinkness.   I found the color almost invisible on my lips when applied alone, it just gave the faintest hint of shimmer, I didn't bother to take a picture.   Then I decided to follow some advice on the Besame website and tried layering it over my Besame Exotic pink lipstick one of my favorite colors which unfortunately is no longer in stock.   It is subtle but  I really liked the effect.

Here is my Exotic Pink lipstick without the glaze.  

and here it is with the glaze on top.  In outdoor lighting:

and indoor:

Now is definitely the time to snatch up a Besame lip glaze is you are interested for $5.00  you can have shiny, glossy, vintagey lips!

39 Feels Fine!

This weekend I entered the last year of my 30s.   

I admit to having some issues regarding the whole aging thing.   I  think it is mostly because I enjoy life so much I'm not to crazy about the passing of time.  I'm also not big on maturity, I may be 39 in body but I'm about 19 in my mind.  I think I get sillier and less serious with each passing year, which isn't a bad thing.

I was also lucky to have an absolutely fabulous birthday weekend.    I had a delicious breakfast at Tops Diner Saturday morning  

and then we went to the The New Brusnswick Kennel club dog show to see the Toy Group breeds.  I wore my Mischief Made me 1950s style dog tee since it seemed appropriate for the show.

The pugs and poodles where shown in the afternoon so we missed them.  Though we did see plenty of pugs in pens outside the breeder's RVs.  

  The best part was we got to see the Chihuahuas which is a breed I'm very interested in owning one day and the main reason I attend the show. The Chihuahua breeders and fanciers where lovely and let us attend their meeting, they where all members of the Central NJ Chihuahua club.  They were so kind and gave us lots of information about the breed.   

The accepted show size is  6 lbs and under and the good breeders breed to get dogs in about the 3 to 6 lb range.   So tiny, but some unscrupulous people try for much smaller, crazy!  

The main breeder we met also rescues large dogs and she recommended a dog 4 lbs or bigger for us when the time comes which I agree with.  It was wonderful to see breeders who love their breed so much and are really working to better it.  We also met the most adorable 4 month old puppy.  I was completely in love.

On Sunday we mostly stayed home with the dogs and cat's and I got my birthday present.  49 vintage Star Trek novels John found on ebay!  How awesome is that!

My favorite part was that someone named B.H. had owned some of the books and took notes and recorded ratings.  He or she gave several books 10 ++ ratings so I guess they are good.

I also found these two 1970s school pictures in one of the books, perhaps one of them is the elusive B.H.?  

I'm so pleased 39 is off to a fabulous start!

Leonard Nimoy-Heart Throb

My birthday is right around the corner.

and while I might not love everything about growing older, I do enjoy birthdays.  
One particularly thing I've always liked about my birthday is that I share it with one of the people I most admire, Leonard Nimoy.

I loved Leonard not just for his Mr. Spock role

but for his public profile that was always so kind and generous.  He was patient and appreciative of fans, and I really think used his celebrity status for good.  I really enjoyed reading his autobiography I Am  Spock and learning about his career and life.  It remains one of my favorite books, and certainly my favorite autobiography.   



Despite his ubiquitous link to his Vulcan alter ego,  Leonard had an interesting and varied career that spanned that later half of the 20th century.  One aspect of that career did surprise me somewhat, his 1960s and 70s status as a heart throb.

While it makes perfect sense that Nimoy's nerdy outside character Spock would appeal to angst ridden 1960's teens (see below this touching letter Nimoy wrote to a young fan struggling with her bi-racial heritage, Spock of course was also bi-racial being half Vulcan and half human)

his popularity with female fans comes as something as a surprise, because well,  lets be honest Leonard Nimoy was not exactly handsome. 

Still, from the minute Star Trek appeared on the airwaves in 1966 it was Leonard Nimoy as Spock, rather then the more traditionally handsome William Shatner playing the womanizing Captain Kirk

who got the majority of female fans attention.  Something that Shatner has admitted irked him a bit at the time.

 So surprising was Nimoy's popularity with female fans that none other then famed science fiction author and Star Trek screen writer Issac Assimov wrote an article about the phenomenon.  You can read it here.   It is a great vintage article and dream reading for any vintage loving pop culture geek like myself.  In the article, Assimov explains that his teen daughter finds Mr. Spock "dreamy" and speculates that this is because smart is sexy.  Personally, I think Shatner might have been more on the nose when he said that Spock's appeal lay in his inaccesability and the general human desire to want what we can't have.  Both are probably correct.

Personally, I love both Kirk and Spock, and possibly Kirk a teensy bit more.  I think the character get's less attention then Spock in general and I've always had a thing for the underdog.  Regardless, smart and nerdy is always best in my book.

Vintage Outfit Post-Poodle Pride from Girl In A Whirl

It should come as no surprise that I love poodles:

Both the in the fur variety, like my darling Mr. Tuvok, and the collectible 1950's variety  as seen on the purse. 

 The 1950's might not have been the golden age of everything, but they where definitely the golden age of the poodle.  Poodles where everywhere.  In advertisements, 

on skirts, sweaters,  

 



knick knacks, purses, book ends, mirrors, lamps

even toilet seat covers!.  

There is a whole book devoted to the mid century poodle collecting obsession.   I've never read it but you can buy it used on Amazon.

Maybe there not everyone's cup of tea, but to me these delightfully kitschy 1950s and 60s poodle images  just put modern dog graphics to shame.   

 So ubiquitous was the mid century poodle that I was actually shocked to learn that according to the AKC poodles where only the decade's 7th most popular breed. Regardless of the ranking, the poodle and the 1950s are forever linked.

Sadly today, I feel the poodle has fallen a bit out of favor.  Doodles are popular but poodles don't seem to get the same respect they used too.  

I am also troubled by the modern trend to groom a poodle into looking like some other breed of dog.  I have written before about how I want Mr. Tuvok to be groomed in a  traditional pet poodle style, and that can be a challenge.  Groomers have told me that most people  tell them to make their dogs look less like a poodle.   A sentiment that really kind of angers me, poodles are a wonderful breed, why would you want to disguise that?  Smart, companionable, athletic affectionate, and in a range of sizes, they really are fantastic.  Let's have some poodle pride!

With my love for dogs and vintage I can't get enough of dog themed vintage clothing, so when I saw that my favorite novelty skirt designer, Girl In A Whirl, was adding 1950's Mexican style tourist jackets to her wares I knew I wanted where my poodle pride on my sleeve with  a poodle themed jacket.  I messaged Girl In A Whirl designer,  Rebecca and told her I was dreaming of a jacket with little black poodles on it.  I wanted the poodles to have the classic well groomed 1950's look and to be wearing red berets.  Rebecca understood exactly what I meant and my new Girl In A Whirl jacket is perfect! 

I've been wearing it at least once a week since I got it and I never get tired of  it (and yes Mr. Tuvok has a red beret, it was actually part of his pug sister Ping's halloween costume a few years ago.)

 The picture's here are from two different occasions.  First I am wearing the jacet  with Freddies of Pinewood jeans and a striped top.  The second time with   with my Marie Guye western jumpsuit.   Both time's I wore my red Chatterblossom hair flower and of course my poodle purse.

I also added gold tone poodle scatter pins to the neck of the jacket.  I have had these forever and I forget where I got them but they only cost a couple of bucks and they are perfectly at home on the jacket.  Proof that it always pays to take advantage of a vintage deal even if your not totally sure what to do with the item.

Because Rebecca is so  talented the details of jacket are incredible.

The front of the jacket has red whip stitching and the poodles are wearing red bow ties to match their berets.

The pocket's have red whip stitching and pom pom trim

There is even a little K on the collar!

So the front is perfect, but the back is even better.  The poodles on the back are playing with a red and blue ball.

They have  little sparkly blue eyes and light blue bows, as well as berets:

I really think they look just like Mr. Tuvok!

Even the red ball is carefully stitched with blue ribbon to match the poodle neck bows.

I'm just so happy to have this jacket in my collection and so grateful to Girl In A Whirl for making it for me.  I know Ill be enjoying it, along with all other things poodle, for years to come.