Where you saw us...

We've been all over the UK introducing Off With Her Head to new customers lastyear as well as our regular spots at Whitby! Here's a little review of  the last few stalls of 2011!

The later part of 2011 saw me journey over 2 days to get to the fantastic Bridport Hat Festival. The journey started at 10pm on a Thursday night with an overnight coach to London. The next day saw two further coach trips, one from London to Bournemouth and then finally on to Bridport a small town in Dorset that hosts the annual Hat Festival. Now in its second year, the festival sees the town come alive sharing a love of hats all thanks to resident Mad-hatter Mr Snook who runs his hat business from the town.  I wasn't alone in my journey with other milliners coming from Ireland and visitors from as far as Australia. I sat up my little stall on the Saturday in the Art Centre to a great reception. It is always so nice to get feedback from people and those I met seemed to really love what I'd produced. I showed of the newly finished Tattooed Heart range for the first time too, and was really happy with the comments I got!

On the Sunday before the mammoth trip home began I got the chance to have a look at some of the other designers showing their pieces. I met an amazing group of young women all having just finished at college including the very talented Holly Gaimen (yes, they have talent in spades in that family) who's caligraphy inspired piece I'd much admired in the Stephen Jones/Talenthouse competition we'd both entered earlier in they year. In fact it was Holly who one the public voting portion of the competition!

A little closer to home, in Glasgow, I met up with the University Steampunk Society for Glasgow by Gaslight II. The cabaret section of the day saw jugglers, magicians, belly-dancing and a guy playing classic game themes on a laser harp. I thoroughly enjoyed having a stall at this event and it gave me the change to dress up in my best Victoriana too!

Then came our bi-annual trip to the Yorkshire Coast and the little town of Whitby for Halloween. We had our usual stall at Alt Fest, but after a little accident and a trip to the towns hospital to determine if I'd broken my wrist we decided to call it a day on the Sunday and headed home instead, getting back just before midnight.

We'll be staying a lot closer to home for 2012, as we plan to spend a lot of time building up the on-line business as well as sourcing some retail outlets for our designs too!

Happy New Year!

Ooops... seems I've been a little absent from this blog for a few months too. One of my New Years Resolutions is to make sure I'm posting a lot more regularly on this and my personal blog!

So its time to ring in the new and I'd like to wish all my customers and friends a very Happy 2012! I hope she brings you a year of happiness and beauty!

There has been so much going on with Off With Her Head in the last few months, so much to tell you all, and so many hopes for the next 12 months too... so I'll start with a little look at a couple of the custom pieces I had the pleasure to create last year!

 I love the challenge that comes from creating custom pieces, from being asked to work outside my comfort zone. Well last year I had two very challenging pieces to work on. The first for Laura, who came to me with the idea to recreate the look of Sharpe (played by Sean Bean in the TV adaptation of the novels by Bernard Cornwell) for an event she was attending. The costume was being made by Marie from Forever in Black Designs, but Laura a previous customer of mine, knew to come to me for the hat. She wanted a miniature Shako Hat in the style worn by Sean, so after much research I set to work to create this piece! It was not a style I'd tackled before and I was very pleased with the result!!

The second piece was for the Pin-up for Heroes Calendar 2012. I was heavily involved in last years calendar and this year the organisers came to me looking for a very special piece. I was told that one of the shoots was to recreate this piece of artwork by Gil Elvgren and that they needed the hat! 

What a challenge that proved to be. With a deadline of little over 2 weeks to complete and ship the piece I set to work. The first version proved disastrous as I have miscalculated one of my measurements, but after some careful planning and mathematics I was able to finish the project on time... and look at the resulting image from Egner Photography... stunning! The calendar is available to purchase at  Pin-up For Heroes

and as always proceeds from the sales go to the Help for Heroes Charity!

The Dragstalgia Fascinator

A few months ago a received a lovely email from burlesque and pin-up model Miss Phoenix, offering her modelling services for Off With Her Head. We got to talking and when she told me that she was going to be the official flag girl for this years Dragstalgia (http://www.santapod.co.uk/e_dragstalgia.php) I offered to make her a fascinator for the event, and what we came up with is the Dragstalgia Fascinator.

I was inspired by the idea of the chequered flag and by hot rod flames and combined them to come up with this piece. The base was constructed from heavy cotton in a chequered print with cotton interfacing ironed to the reverse side, lined with wool felt and edged in with bias (I ended up using black bias instead of the red). The flames were constructed from 3 layers of sinamay in flame colours and decorated with Swarovski crystal accents.

I was really pleased with the finished result and shipped the piece of to Miss Phoenix who, despite the windy, wet weather during the weekend, managed to wear the fascinator and get a few great shots during the day!

Miss Phoenix can be contacted at the following:

http://www.missphoenix.co.uk
http://www.modelmayhem.com/2089874
http://www.purestorm.com/profile.aspx?id...

So tell me, do you feel lucky??

This summer I've been busy working on a new range of fascinators inspired by the old school style tattoos, you know the ones... cherry red hearts with scrolls that have words like 'LOVE', 'ALWAYS'  and 'MUM' written in script across them an popular tattoo imagery such as anchors, swallows and cherries! Well I've some up with a range of 6 designs, that I hope you'll love as much as I do and I thought I'd share the design process as well as the finished pieces.

Sometimes, not always, I start with a blank piece of paper and a box of coloured pencils and fine liner pens! Then from that concept drawing I produce a prototype from cotton and wool felt.

There are 6 different designs for this range (at present, but I have a few ideas for some others!) - AHOY, LUCKY, LOVE, CHERRY, SWEET and ALOHA. Cotton print fabrics for each design are selected and each heart is cut from a template. Cotton interfacing is then ironed to the reverse of the fabric. Matching or sometimes contrasting wool felt hearts are also cut from the template and matched up with the cotton pieces which are then bound together and edged with bias.

Decorative elements for each piece are then selected. Pieces such as the banners, text, swallows and cherries are hand cut from wool felt and appliquéd to create a 3D effect.

I'm really please with the finished pieces! I think my favourite one has to be LOVE!

I took these with me to London for The Roost photo shoot with photographer, Ange Harper, and they received lots of positive feedback from both the models and photographers there. The lovely Lilah, who if you've seen my website over the years you will be well acquainted with, modelled a couple of designs for me, my favourite on her is LUCKY! Would you mess with this feisty Femme Fatale, tell me punk do you feel luck, well do ya??

Tattoo Inspired Fascinators RRP £30.00, available from the website and Etsy store at www.offwithherheadmillinery.co.uk

Introductory offer - get yours now for £25.00, offer ends 31st August.

Interview with Natasha Scharf

As a long time Goth and a regular attender of Gothic events I was really interested to hear that a new book that explores the world of Gothic from its origins in the music scene to its present day metamorphosis is due to be released at the end of this month! Written by Natasha Scarf, former editor of Meltdown Magazine, this book promises to take a good look at the impact Goth has had across the world.

I had the chance to speak with Natasha and ask her about her past, the book and her plans for the future.

Natasha Scharf by Taya Uddin

Lisa - You were the Editor of the fantastic Meltdown Magazine, Tell us a little about your writing career?

Natasha - Well, I've been writing ever since I learned how to - I started my first fanzine when I was 7 although that had a very limited print-run and wasn't quite up to the standards of my later efforts! By 16, I was writing for our local newspaper and by 19, I was editorial assistant on an international classical music magazine during my university breaks! The seeds for meltdown were planted shortly after I graduated from a journalism degree and I juggled that while working for various media institutions. These days, I'm a full-time freelance music journalist and count Metal Hammer among the magazines that I write for - a publication that I used to dream of writing for!

Lisa - And so now you've written Worldwide Gothic. What can we expect from this book?

Natasha - Worldwide Gothic was no mean feat - it chronicles the goth scene from its birth in London in 1976 with the very first Siouxsie and the Banshees gig right up to the present day, looking at how it developed around the world and how it's changed over the years. I've been listening to goth music since I was a child and have been writing about it for many years but I have to admit that even I was surprised by some of the things I learned while researching this book! The toughest part was having to condense it all down over a very short space of time - it really is a culmination of my life's work.  I've packed Worldwide Gothic with new interviews and loads of full-colour photos, many of which have never been seen before - I'm really excited about the project and I can't wait to share my findings with everyone.

Lisa - Your cover image features the stunning Lady Amaranth. Did you have much difficulty in selecting the face of Gothic culture??

Cover Image by Taya Uddin

Natasha - To me, Lady Amaranth's image epitomises the most glamorous side of contemporary gothic and she always looks stunning. There are so many different interpretations of the gothic look and one thing I learned while researching this book is that those interpretations vary wildly not only from country to country but also from era to era so it was important to use a model who would be universally recognised as 'gothic'. Lady Amaranth's look ticks all the right boxes and I don't think anyone could argue that she doesn't look gothic!

But there are other ingredients to take into consideration too. I chose the photographer Taya Uddin to take the photo as her stunning imagery has just the right balance of darkness and light without being over-the-top or cheesy. The beautiful corset worn on the cover was made by the talented alternative designer Larysa K, whose corsetry has to be seen to be believed and the jewellery is by the famous Alchemy Gothic, who have been creating some of the most incredible designs since the very birth of goth (I recently had the privilage of visiting their factory in Leicester and was amazed to watch the pieces being crafted by hand). I should also point out that everyone involved in creating the image has roots in different parts of the world so the cover alone summarises worldwide gothic to me!

That said, there was only room for one model on the cover so I wanted to include a selection of some other well-known gothic models inside the book as well. These include AndromedaX, Fracture and Dark Morte and there are lots of photographs of goths from around the world as well as bands and musicians - this is a very colourful book that should surprise anyone who thought goths only wore black!

Bloodlust and Katie Korpse at  WGW by Stephen Milward

WGT goth by Stephen Milward

Lisa - In your time as editor of Meltdown Magazine you introduced us to a number of fantastic up and coming

bands/artists. Do you have a particular favourite amongst them?

Natasha - Oh, goodness! I never stopped writing about up-and-coming artistes even after what I refer to as 'the meltdown years' so it would be impossible to choose just one favourite. Music is constantly evolving and fashions are constantly changing - I must have written about hundreds of acts over the years (at least)! I can't deny that when a band or singer I've written about starts being referenced in blogs and other publications, I do feel a warm glow :)

Lisa - You've been as magazine editor, DJ, presenter and now author. What can we expect from you next?

Natasha - I've also done some acting, production and voice-over work! My boyfriend keeps saying that I ought to become a children's author next although I'm not quite sure if I'm ready for that just yet! Worldwide Gothic is actually the fifth book I've written so I'm rather keen to tweak my earlier efforts and see whether I can get any of those published. In the meantime, I shall be continuing with my music journalism and I have a few other magazines in the pipeline that I'm looking at contributing to.

Other than that, I'm a firm believer in taking whatever Fate throws in my path so I don't like to place too much

expectation in anything!  

Worldwide Gothic is published by ImpBooks and is released on the 23rd June 2011. For more details you can visit the publishers website Here.

Preorder your copy from Amazon for just £7.61!

Lady Amaranth and Natasha Scharf wear jewellery from the Alchemy Gothic collection

Lady Amaranth's corset is by Larysa K

Natasha Scharf's hair extensions have been dyed using Manic Panic semi-permanent hair colour cream and she is wearing make-up from the Creature Of The Night collection

Hen Party Fascinator Workshops

Off With Her Head are pleased to announce that we are now able to offer Hen Party Fascinator Workshops in the Central Scotland area. Spend an afternoon with the girls creating a stunning fascinator from scratch to wear on that special night out or for the big day itself.

Cost is £30 per head for 3 hours tuition with Lisa from Off With Her Head. She will teach you how to create different styles of fabric flowers, how to trim feathers and help you create a truly unique piece. Cost includes all materials although if you wanted to use any old or broken pieces of jewellery and incorporate them into your fascinator then this is not a problem.

Brides will receive a complimentary bottle of wine and a 50% discount voucher (for future purchases) for booking a workshop. 

A deposit of £5 per person is required at the time of booking (payable by paypal) with the remainder due the day before the party. Minimum 4 people, Maximum 8 people.

To book your party contact Lisa on 07941 139377 or email: LisaJ@offwithherhead.co.uk

Our First Fascinator Workshop!!