Fancy Friday: Flapper-esque and Floralized Fluevogs, Flashbacked

Happy Friday the 13th, my friends! I hope you're all hugging your lucky black cats today! 

In this post, I have an outfit to share with you, plus I finally got around to customizing a pair of Fluevogs (with roses!) and we'll also have a little Flashback on that pair so you can enjoy some more old pics of me. 

Outfit time! I met up with my bestie from way back in the day, Janet, for dinner after work on Friday, so I wanted to look fancy for her. It's Fancy Friday! 

We're suffering through another heatwave, with temps going up to the mid-30s, AND we're getting haze from the forest fires on the mainland drifting down and obscuring things and affecting our air quality. The sun is an orange glowing ball and it feels rather apocalyptic out there! 

• Dress - Bottega Venetta, thrifted; first worn here in April with lace under it
• Shoes - Wonders, consignment; last seen here with a Hawaiian dress for a July Mom-Day adventure

This dress seemed like the perfect solution. When is a jammy dress NOT a good choice? Uh, like, never?

As I wore the dress without a camisole, I added another safety pin to the plunging neckline. KLASSY. 

I layered a vintage slip under it so that I'd sweat on the slip, not the dress. 

I also wore my little cotton petit-pants under it for thigh separation. 

I like this dress way more just worn on its own vs. with a top layered under it as I did its first outing, so as I'd suspected then, this will be a "depths of summer" dress. I'll be wearing a few of those in the near future. 

It was lovely and loose and flowy - if only it had pockets! 

Masked up - this is one of my first masks, bought way back in spring 2020.

A few people are trickling back into the office this week; my company is keeping the "masks on unless you're at your desk" rule, even though our province has eased up on mask-wearing. I'm happy that we are being extra-careful, as it's a gradual return to socializing for many of my colleagues, and wearing a mask helps us all get used to more people being around. Plus, cases are rising from the danged variant.

• Mask - Mangos

I'm still wearing my mask whenever I go into a public indoor space (shops, restaurants, etc.), even if the stores don't require them. I'm just going to keep on doing what feels comfortable to me. 

I wore my sunnies for my walk to the office, but no coat (I'm sunblocked). The sunlight has an orange quality to it that is very eerie. 

The stuff: 

Comfy shoes for my stroll down to Fiamo for dinner after work with Janet. We had such a blast, catching up - we've been friends since 1980 and it always feels like no time has passed at all whenever we get together. 

Green bling: 

I love the flapper-esque lines of this dress, so added gobs of necklaces to enhance that. 

• Chain/pendant - POLY, thrifted
• Green glass bead necklace - vintage 60s, Mom's
• Gold chain - vintage 80s, Grandma J's
• Hinged enamel bangles - thrifted
• Glass bangle - thrifted
• Art Deco - Ripley & Gowan Co., vintage 1930s, vintage mall; purchased here for $35.00
• Silver/aventurine ring - consignment
• Brass/jade ring - vintage 70s, Mom's
• Snake front/back earrings - Betsey Johnson, gift from L 
• Collar clips - German, vintage 80s, Charmaine's; purchased here for $15.00

First wearings of my Art Deco bracelet and my vintage collar-clips. 

Going back a day... On Thursday, I ventured outside to do my groceries, hoping that the air wouldn't be too smoky, and that it would be cooler by the water for my Mental Health Walk. I was out of luck on both counts. Smoky and hot. 

So hot...

"I can barely rouse myself to bother you."

Poor Vizzini has been flopping everywhere, including on the kitchen and hall tile floors. 

When I did a Fluevog Flashback on my last post (here), and linked back to the Fluevog party where John Fluevog signed my shoes (here), it reminded me that I had yet to Zentangle/decorate them. So I did! 

I'll be showing you my process and the results on one shoe (for now), and then we'll have a Flashback on my funky outfits featuring them since they joined my wardrobe in 2011. 

I Drew On My Shoes

So, this is what I started with - the Listen Up O'Hara shoes that I got signed by John Fluevog. You can see the signature on the toe, and John in the act of signing them in the above pic. 

I viewed a tutorial for drawing henna roses (this one here, link 'cause I love, no sound needed) after I watched the third season of "Glow Up" on Netflix (a UK reality make-up competition show - I love it!). I'd looked at tattoo-style roses a few months ago, but the method is more complicated and intimidating, so when one of the make-up artists on the show did henna-inspired make-up, I thought it looked a bit easier. 

And this is what I ended up with after about four hours of work. 

I used a couple of permanent black skinny Zentangle markers (one thin, one thicker), and a red, a light green and a dark green marker from my art stash. I also ended up needing spray matte lacquer (which I fortunately already had). 

I freehanded all of it, and didn't really pre-plan. I followed along with the tutorial a couple of times on paper and looked up more images of roses and leaves to get a good "toolkit" of ideas, practiced a few of them (you can see my scribbles in the first pic), and then just went for it. I probably should have started somewhere less visible, but *shrug*. I did what I did.

My rosebud didn't turn out that well, but it's not a huge deal. Part of Zentangle's philosophy is that there are no mistakes. Just let it go and move on. 

I continued up the sides of the shoe. The ink took quite well on the bone-coloured leather. No smudging.

I spaced the roses apart in sections that felt right, and connected them with a thorny vine, interspersing bunches of leaves. 

Up around back of the heel. 

I didn't centre the rose there, as the buckles and tongues on the sides overshadowed it. 

The heel is moulded plastic and didn't take the permanent ink as well. It blurred a bit in places, and I had to be really careful how I held the shoe while I worked on it.

I wrapped the vine around the heel - there are two leaves on the inside of the bottom. When I do the other shoe, I'll put a layer of matte lacquer over the black ink to keep it from smudging and then add the colour over that and spray again to seal it. Lesson learned! 

Now onto the other side. 

I rotated the roses so that they weren't all facing the same direction. You can see a bit of the leaves I did on the heel there. 

Up the ankle. I avoided areas that would be covered by the tongues when the shoes are done up. 

I did a much smaller rose near the embossed "John Fluevog" signature, which you can faintly see there. 

I sat in the "cuddle bench" area so that I'd get lots of natural light from the window - it was far too hot on the deck to work there - and listened to the neighbouring seagull teenagers squawking at me. I also had cooking shows on in the background. 

"Hey, lady! Whatcha doing over there?"

Vizzini was keeping an eye on them too, while flopped behind me on the benches.

Before I finished all the roses, I thought I'd better  test out the marker colours to see how they worked. Relief! They looked great. I always approach "modification" projects with the attitude that it's okay if I f**k it up. But I didn't! 

You can see that I've used a thicker black marker to create shadows on the roses, and to add depth on the leaves. I originally drew all of the leaves with a smooth edge, but tried a jagged-edged leaf on this rose. It felt much riskier for messing up doing that free-hand, though, so I decided to add the jagged outline with the thicker pen later. 

I used my own rose arm tattoos as guidelines for colouring, leaving a thin "white" space to create curve and dimension on the petals. It really gives them that "tattoo" effect. 

I tested out the colouring for the leaves here too. I used the lighter green for the entire leaf, then did dark green down the centre and on one edge. Again, I used the leaves on my own tattoos to guide me. 

Happy with how it looked, I continued adding the thicker lines and shading to the original line work. 

So cool! I was getting excited by my own handiwork.

I did the heel all in one go, and then put the shoe into a plastic bag with just the heel hanging out and gave it a couple of light coats of matte lacquer spray.

It dries really fast, and I was really pleased with how well it worked in reining in the smudges. 

Vizzini lurked around behind me on the benches while I worked, until we got close to his dinner time.

"I'm feeling peckish - isn't it time for food, Woman?"

After he bashed me in the arm a few times, causing my pen to skitter off (grr), I fed him. 

"What? I'm just being affectionate!"

I chatted with Mom while I worked after that, and then my grocery delivery showed up - I finished the first shoe about an hour later. 

John's signature - oops, I see I missed colouring in some stem there! I'll have to fix that. 

Here's some views of the "finished" shoe, modeled with my hand. 

Seriously, I LOVE this. L said I could charge to customize people's shoes...or I should be a tattoo artist! 

The back: 

I am really happy with how it looks.

I left the straps and the platform bare. 

So here's the big question: Should I do something on the straps? On the platform? I thought of one of the Fluevog classic quotes, like, "Know You're Weird," "No, You're Weird", or "Unique Soles For Unique Souls." 

I kind of like the idea of "No/Know", "You're/You're" "Weird/Weird" with a word per strap, going down, in a Gothic-y type of font.

What would YOU do? I'd love to hear! 

Flashback time! 

Flashback: Listen Up O'Hara, Fluevog

L bought me these shoes on our very first trip to the Gastown Flagship Fluevog store (where John and the design team work) here in March 2011. This is in the days before I photographed everything that I bought, so I didn't reveal them until a couple of weeks later. 

This picture amuses me - I've hefted my leg up onto my current "stuff" table to photograph the shoe. 

The "Listen Up" is completely gone from the soles now. 

But it was pristine once! I'm pretty sure these were around $300 new, so let's go with that. The original Fluevog listing for them is here (link 'cause I love), and if you expand the reviews, you'll see mine at the bottom. 

Here's the debut of them in March 2011. I had just started at my current job and was dressing very wacky (for me at the time). That's an oatmeal (patooie!) cardigan over a silk scarf-print top, which I belted, with a cream corduroy pencil skirt and burgundy tights. Needless to say, only the shoes remain. 

I sent that silk top to Lorena from My Every Day Wear a few years later - she's one of my longest/oldest blogger friends! How funny that she just put up a post where she's wearing another item I sent her - check it out here. 

Another work outfit from June 2011.

Oh, gosh, I loved those silky satin pink/navy blue pajama pants so much! They were a Dots sample of Noa Noa, and I think I gave them to Caro. I still have the obi. 

I was very much getting into the steampunk look, here in November 2011.

I spy a teeny weeny Vizzini in the background getting up to no good - he was only 6 months old there! 

I included the shoes in my June 2012 capsule for my "30 For 30 For 12" year-long wardrobe challenge and wore them three times. This outfit still appeals to me - the sequined top very much had a "flapper-esque" vibe to it. 

Unfortunately, I grew out of it (and the satin pajama pants), and moved it along, like everything else in this ensemble.

This is a really pretty outfit - also from June 2012 - that I would wear today. I love the soft pinks here. 

I adored that mushroom-coloured skirt - I had it for several years before I got a Case of the Blergs over the dull shade and moved it along. I recall I wore this outfit to the dentist: Clothing as Armour! 

And last wearing of the shoes in June 2012 - it was an all-neutral capsule month, enlivened by coloured camisoles, accessories and tights. I had that cream blazer seen above and below for years before I found an upgrade in September 2012 (my Le Chateau brocade blazer - Flashback here). Always be upgrading! 

And my love for leopard skirts has not abated over the decade since I wore this. I've upgraded multiple times over the years from this cheaply-printed one. 

In July 2013 I wore the shoes with a blue dress and an obi Megan Mae made out of two of Ally's ties. 

I moved the obi and the dress along many years ago, but I still have that brooch and earrings!

Ooh, this is a fancy outfit, from November 2013. This was for the Unlimited Woman Awards, when my dear Winesday Women nominated me for the "Unlimited Stylish Woman" or something like that. I didn't win, but dammit, I looked fabulous! 

You might recognize all of my accessories, which I still still have. I passed the dress along to Yvonne and it looks amazing on her. 

I liked the above outfit so much, I wore a variation of it to my company's Christmas party in December 2013.

I changed it up with blue accoutrements instead of dark red. I no longer have the blue underskirt, but I still have that vintage leather belt. 

And then there's a gap in my wearing of the shoes - I'm not really sure why? Maybe it was the four-inch heels? This outfit was a total misfire from February 2015.

I tried to build the outfit around that coat (which I passed along to Caro), and it did not work. After that, the shoes languished high up in the "archive" area of my closet where I mostly forgot about them. 

And then in May 2019 I hauled them out again. I think I might have been stuck for what to wear with this striped Dries Van Noten skirt (which I still have). 

The thin black coat is still in my wardrobe too, but these shoes felt oh, so high...like my feet were going to fracture. And as that's a risk for middle-aged women like me, I put them aside for good. 

Or so I thought! 

When we went to the Silver Style Party at the local Victoria Fluevog store in September 2019 (loads of pics here), I remembered these and thought, "Maybe if I wear them, I can ask John to sign them?"

I created an outfit to showcase the O'Haras, and of course, John did sign them! I wore a different pair of shoes to walk to and from the event, as even a few hours in these is just murder on my feet. 

Mathy stuff: That is only 12 outfits in 10 years, which is $33.25 per wear, not exactly a good average!

However, they remain in my personal Shoe Archive, and now that I'm motivated to finish decorating them, I think I'll craft up some sort of stuffed sock so that I can properly display my floralized Fluevogs, and show off my handiwork. And who knows? Maybe the Fluevog store will have another party and I can show off my custom shoes to John! 

Have you ever customized a piece of clothing or pair of shoes? How did it go?

And now, my friends, I'm off for the weekend! I hope you all stay safe and sound.