Jezebel’s many and varied How Tos are to be admired. This one in particular, on how to make a dress form, is fucking amazing. It also knocks any broadsheet dressmaking feature into a cocked hat; being exhaustive, ‘well hard’ and super technical. It is always annoying when you see clothes tutorials in magazines and the papers - so often they make some sort of hideous, Per Una-style, knee-length, A-line abomination in Ikea fabric; the sort of garment that puts you in mind of Lentil Surprises and quartz deodorant - totally vile and sexless. When surely the whole point of making your clothes is that YOU CAN DO ANYTHING, you are your own Haus of Gaga. I interviewed Pam Hogg once and she was ruddy brilliant, self-taught - but crucially seemed to have started making clothes out of the best kind of need. She had to create outfits that would get past the door whores at the Blitz Club. And that is the sort of dressmaking M.O. I like.
Anyway. At the moment - when I am not cursing the excellent and supremely amiable Sali Hughes for making me spaff all my money in Bootses (although really, someone needs to sort out some close-ups, it will not do AT ALL) - I am making valuable use of my indoor-time by doing divvy manicures. This leopard-print tutorial is very good, and if you buy a set of cheap nail art pens off of Ebay it is a doddle. I also want to do this newsprint manicure so that I can wear a newpaper article I wrote myself on my own actual nails. Why yes, I am the dreadest.