So as per usual, I heaped as much as possible onto my plate to get done before heading down to Whangamata for the Beach Hop.  Which meant we left quite late, and arrived at the place we were staying by about midnight, to get up again at 6:30am to go set up our devel men and women stall for the day.

I was lucky enough to have the help of my friend Renee for the day, with set-up and manning the stall while the boy and I were busy with models, sourcing last minute items for the fashion show and its make-shift changing room for the ladies!  It was full-on, and the day just sped past until it was time to move to the stage for the Retro Fashion Show.  We roped in the help of all the guy models available to help build the changing room, and unpack everything from the van.  I was getting messages all over the place from models who were getting lost or unsure of the time, and I was running around like a headless chickadee!  Everyone ended up getting there just in the knick of time, had their instructions barked at them by yours truely, and went on to make an awesome, interesting and exciting show!  But oh dear god the panic!

To see gorgeous shots from the show, courtesy of the talented Nic Fletcher, click here.

So the show went well in the end, and we packed up all our stuff again, as I tried to calm back down after the insanity.  And lo-and-behold, we were trapped in by the thousands of people who'd gathered to see who won the Mustangs the organisers were giving away.  Which, by the way, was our amazingly HUGE crowd for the fashion show, yay!  But that meant poor Renee was left at the stall back on the main street for much longer than we anticipated, after having very little rest beforehand, and with very few people coming through to keep her occupied, because they were all busy at the stage area blocking our way out!

We finally got back to the stall, packed that up, and went for some wood-fired pizzas at Nero's for dinner.  Great food, but as the rest of the town would have found, with the volume of people that come through for Beach Hop, it makes every process take ten times as long.  So we finally got out of town around 10pm, with a couple of stops on the way for safety's sake, getting back home by midnight again, to get up around 6:30am AGAIN for set up at the Scroungers' Hot Rod Blowout.

The Hot Rod Blowout was a more relaxed day, with everything close-by, so I got to see cars and bands while never really leaving the stall.  Oh and it was such a scorcher of a day!  We were lucky enough to be under the shade of the stall for the entire time.  It was nice to be amongst a smaller crowd as well, after the day before at the Beach Hop, where every man and his dog within driving distance attends, blocking up every space, and sometimes even starting unneccessary trouble on the streets. I suppose you always get that with big numbers, and people drinking all day.  So the Hot Rod Blowout on the Sunday was a nicer, calmer way to finish up the weekend.

Continuing on from last year, there was the crowning of the next Miss Hot Rod Blowout.  Devel Women was one of the sponsors of the first prize, giving a devel women shirt or t'alternative of choice, and custom handpainted handbag of choice to the lucky lady.  Miss Sticks was the lovely winner this year...

All in all it was one great  big important, tiring weekend, which was also fun and absolutely worth every moment!  

What's next?  Who knows...  Maybe we'll see you at YOUR place for a Pin Up Party with the girls ;) email RitaSue for more details.

dan. xx

Cos i'm in the last minute stages of organising things, here's a cut'n'paste of all the info you will need to start your mouth watering over the exciting possibilities of this big hot rod weekend in NZ... bottom line: if you can, COME!!

devel men and women is proud to announce that they will be at BOTH the Beach Hop in Whangamata (Sat), AND the Hot Rod Blowout in Avondale (Sun) this weekend!!

Whangamata's Beach Hop:

50s/60s hot rod and cultural festival, with hot cars, stalls, hot cars, loads of bands day and night, HOT CARS, fashion show, HOOTT CAAARRSS, beauty pagent (with hot girls!), HOOOTTT CAAARRRSS, and plenty of venues to get pissed at :D
You can see already that the weekend is gonna have sweeeet weather, so make the day trip down to enjoy the huge buzz of this completely FREE event. Oh, and if just seeing hot cars wasn't enough, they're giving away THREE 1960s mustangs!

devel men & women has a stall along with RitaSue, which is situated on the main road of Whanga, next to the Westpac. Come say hi! :)
AND at 3:30pm on Sat we are putting on a Retro Fashion Show, with good looking guys, good looking gals, in extremely good looking threads! ;) The show is held in Williamson Park, next to the Surf Club, on Ocean Rd.

Hot Rod Blowout:

Annual hot rod event hosted by the Scroungers, at Rosebank Speedway & Kart track in Avondale (West Auckland). Live bands, retro culture displays will feature with refreshments and food available also. The day will conclude with honourees being inducted into the Scroungers hall of fame and then an auction. This event gets bigger and better each year with traditional hot rods, midgets, drag cars, stock cars being the main event.

Again, devel men and women, along with RitaSue, will have a stall at this event. There's also the Miss Hot Rod Blowout pagent, which devel women is a co-sponsor of this year.

If you don't manage to come down to Whangamata, come out west on the Sunday to drool over hot bods, either those with legs or with wheels ;)

Would be great to see you! And if you do make it out to either, be sure to come say hi! :)

xx

So this was probably THE gig for all the rockabilly folk for the past few years.
International rockin' giants Stray Cats graced our lil NZ shores for one last Auckland show before their retirement, this Tuesday.

The boyfriend and I had decided to trade-in the usual assumption of Big Day Out attendance for this gig, and were not disappointed!  Though, we did miss out seeing Dropkick Murphys play, but I tell myself I'll see them sometime in a pub, which I believe is the ONLY way to see them play.  Hehe, elitest.

Anyways, back to the Stray Cats.  We looked forward to the gig for months, and only a couple of days before it finally arrived, we got notice that our good friends Labretta Suede and the Motel 6 were enlisted as the support act for the Stray Cats.  We were stoked!  Then on the day of the gig I get a call from Labretta Suede asking if I, and another lil cutie, would like to be the onstage dancing support for the end of their set... Nerve-wracking, but YES PLEASE!  I contacted lil Rosie Sykes, she said yes, and we were ready to go!  And of course, I had to take advantage of the awesome opportunity to have devel women featured onstage at THE rockabilly concert of the year!  You can imagine the excitement.  Rosie and I threw together a lil routine about half an hour before we were due onstage, with pulses racing and knees knocking we busted out our sweet twists and shakes and had a ball!

Here's our footage from the evening, enjoy!

Beach Hop 09

Still rounding up as many female models as possible, and have all the devel men garments made.  This year Rita Sue and I are having a stall on the Saturday, as well as the Retro Fashion Show in the afternoon.  If you're heading down to Whangamata for The Beach Hop over the weekend of 27th - 29th of March, come check us out and don't forget to say hi!

I'll try to do another post before that weekend rolls around; busy busy!

xx

The 15th Annual Kumeu Classic Car and Hot Rod Festival was held in the weekend (17th & 18th of Jan), and I got to take part as a vendor, along with Rita Sue, for the very first time.

The Saturday was fantastic! The stall was full of people a lot of the day, and everyone seemed to have a genuine interest in what I've been creating over the past year or so.  When letting them know that everything they saw I had made with my own hands, they were even more impressed.  I was even visited by happy customers of past, who loved their devel clothes so much that they wore them to the show!

Below are a couple of the girls seen in devel women, Jo James and Mary-Rose Ballard:

The weather really held up well on the Saturday, with people getting quite sunbaked and wanting to hide in our stall as long as possible.  There was a slight breeze that kept us all cool, but it managed to become a little stronger at times and lifted the Rita Sue stall off it's front legs, and sent the devel rack of clothes sprawling a couple of times!  The fun of having an outdoors stall!

The boyfriend and I did manage to have a little walk around to perve at all the cars on the Saturday afternoon.  There were so many obviously loved and cherished machines there.  You could tell how much money and time would have been poured in to make some of the cars look so fine.  Of course, it was a little bit of fun torture too, seeing as the boy and I are on a constant hunt for our own hot machine!

The Sunday wasn't so easy-going.  The morning brought the forcasted rain, and encouraged almost everyone who had camped there, to pack up and go.  It wasn't 'til around lunchtime that it had quite obviously cleared up, and wasn't teasing us with periodical sunshine.  So the boyfriend and I sped back up to Kumeu as soon as possible to set-up again, and what did we find?  A sparse vendor site after everyone was chased away, and MORE wind!  This time we couldn't even put the back wall up for fear of losing the whole marquee onto one the rather hot and expensive classic and custom cars that surrounded our newly chosen site.  We only lasted two hours, before the rack had gone down enough times, and the wind was not ceasing, before deciding to pack it up again.

All in all it was such a blast! Trying out new catelogues on the customers, picking up various custom orders, and having the wind keep us on our toes; it was all another experience to add to the devel belt.

If you missed it, and are in the Auckland area, then you should definitely make it along next year!  And look out for more photos on the official event's website from this year!

Next up, Whangamata's Beach Hop Retro Fashion Show...