Stuff

Conway Savage

Our beloved Conway passed away last night. A member of Bad Seeds for nearly thirty years, Conway was the anarchic thread that ran through the band’s live performances...

Girls behaving themselves in The Vampire’s Wife No. 11

I’m sorry but I couldn’t resist putting this up. Mums in minis with matching kiddies...

To call myself beloved

I received a sad letter today from Deborah, who lost her younger brother, Tyrone, a beautiful soul...

GIRLS BEHAVING THEMSELVES IN THE VAMPIRE’S WIFE NO. 10

She walks in beauty and makes the air shudder as she goes! The forever lovely and brilliant Thandie Newton...

Yeats in the morning

“What’s your favourite poem today?” That’s my husband at the kitchen table and it’s eight o’clock and I’m rushing to get to an early meeting...

I’d swallow the comets!

Today, I received the most deep and probing letter from a lady called Ashley that spoke very poignantly about the death of her uncle Edmond...

Elvis the King

It’s that time of year when the husband grows quiet and the house is full of the sounds of that voice! It’s the time of year we dream...

Remembering the Shangri-Las

The Shangri-Las were the brainchild of the shadowy Shadow Morton, who wrote many of their songs and produced their records...

GIRLS BEHAVING THEMSELVES IN THE VAMPIRE’S WIFE No. 9

Beautiful Chloë Grace Moretz wore The Vampire’s Wife Red Lamè Mini Festival Dress on the James Corden show last night...

Letter from Unicorn Girl

I am the Unicorn Girl (someone who believes in Fairytales) -- but you are the Unicorn Goddess! When I think of you I can’t help dreaming...

Warning. Listen at own risk no. 2

“Hi, again.” That’s me talking to my husband, who is sitting at his desk. “You’ve got that look on your face again,” he says...

In deep praise on The Runaways

I found this picture of the great Joan Jett and, well, I’d never seen it before and it just reminded me how much of a woman of pure outrageous force she is...

The erotic art of Egon Schiele

We love the beautiful drawings of Egon Schiele here at The Vampire’s Wife. It’s the ‘male gaze’ gone berserk! The women he draws are so broken...

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Someone sent me the message below after seeing a clip of The Bad Seeds performing Distant Sky in Copenhagen...

It is all beyond us

received a letter from my Brooklyn friend, Janine, yesterday, and she talked very openly about the feeling of premonition around the death of her brother...

Flannery O’Conner – ‘Bring the boy to me’

“Lord, I believe; help my unbelief” is the most natural and human and agonising prayer in the gospels, and I think it is the foundation prayer of faith...

Let it be known that we love Cat Power

Let it be known that we love Cat Power. Let it be known that we love Cat Power...

In praise of wonderment

As a little girl of seven and eight, I used to watch Wonder Woman on the TV and to say that she was a role model would be an understatement...

Marilyn – like ‘gradations of light’

Dear Susie, We hope that you're doing well and wanted to send our love along with this great line from Joyce Carol Oates' Blonde...

Motherhood

I said goodbye to my son, Earl, this week. I took him to Melbourne, Australia where he has a part in a film. He turned eighteen on the plane...

The wheel of becoming

My husband did a series of on-stage ‘conversations’ in the States a while ago and a friend of ours sent him these words in an email as a response...

“I want to put up a song that is savage and raw and defiant and completely racked.” That’s me talking to my husband. He is sitting at his desk. “Why?” he says. “I don’t know. I just do.” “You mean you really want to blow everybody’s mind unconditionally and forever?” “Yes, I want to put up a song that has an impact beyond what we can expect from a song. Have you got any ideas?” “There is a song I know that will take people to a place from which they may never return. How does that sound?” “I’m ready!”...

A lovely letter and Martha Graham

Thank you for the gems of beauty you are offering us on the Stuff Page. One needs to be reminded from time to time that there is beauty in this world...

Testimonials Galore

Thank you Susie for making the most beautiful dresses in the world. My latest photo shoot of my organic vodka would not be complete without your yellow and pink silk dresses...

Camille Paglia on charisma

“Charisma is the numinous aura around a narcissistic personality. It flows outward from a simplicity or unity of being and a composure and controlled vitality...

God and Job and Jung

My husband and I received a letter from a friend. The letter had a lovely Carl Jung quote in it...

Maya Angelou – A Brave and Startling Truth

Maya Angelou composed the poem, A Brave and Startling Truth for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations in 1995. This beautiful and genuinely astonishing poem flew to outer space on the Orion spacecraft. I think the poem is very much in keeping with this present cultural moment, our moment now in time and space. Read it an unhurried pace. The final lines are so charged with hope and aspiration and wisdom – the whole poem shorn of irony and cynicism to present us with a brave and startling truth; that ‘we are the miraculous, the true wonder of this...

Stuff post love No.1

I just wanted to say thank you so much for the Stuff Page. I go to this discovery every day with great curiosity and joy. The way you propose life gives me wings!

Girls behaving themselves in The Vampire’s Wife No. 8

The divine Sienna Miller wears the Yellow Silk Hummingbird Dress while attending the Chaos party in New York City...

The Holy Trinity – Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach and Hal David

Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s songs are some of the greatest songs ever produced and Dionne Warwick was the divine cypher that stood there and let the songs roar through her. Her performances of them are extraordinary. I was looking for her amazing TV performance of A House Is Not A Home from 1964 (which is an exercise in almost Zen-like stillness) and stumbled upon her performing Alfie on Dutch TV in 1974 and I was completely floored. I have always adored this song of existential questing with Hal David’s beautiful lines, As sure as I believe there's a heaven...

Thirty Questions for Susie

How would you sum up what you do in a sentence? I am stardust zooming through space that sometimes makes dresses...

In eternal praise of Debbie Harry

I don’t know what it was about Debbie Harry that me fall in love with her when I was a young girl. There was a kind of dreamy, erotic nonchalance about her voice that had me (and all my boyfriends) weak at the knees. But mostly I just wanted to put up this amazing photo of Debbie and celebrate the astonishing forethought of wearing matching red boots, lipstick and knickers. Such vision! IN THE FLESH Darlin' darlin' darlin' I can't wait to see you Your picture ain't enough I can't wait to touch you in the flesh Darlin' darlin' darlin'...

In praise of Jane and Serge

Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsburg created some of the most radical and perversely gorgeous pop songs ever recorded...

The last of the girls – Girl No. 5

In the beginning we promised you five girls. The other four girls were devoured within minutes...

All things must pass – Teresa of Avila

I was reading John Donohue and he wrote something about the wonderful poet and Spanish mystic, Teresa of Avila...

Sappho of Lesbos

Little is known of Sappho but that she lived on the island of Lesbos, wrote lyric poetry that was honoured and praised by Plato....

Nothing Compares 2 U

Prepare to be blown away. Little Jimmy Scott (1925 – 2014) was an American jazz vocalist famous for his high countertenor voice...

Walt Whitman on nature

“After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on — have found that none of these finally satisfy...

Lee Miller

Lee Miller’s life was as extraordinary as her photos. A Twenties fashion model who became a Surrealist and later the only female combat photographer in Europe...

Langston Hughes and Billie Holiday

What can purge my heart of the song and the sadness? What can purge my heart of the song and the sadness? What can purge my heart...

Krishna steals the garments of the unmarried gopīs

Here is a little story from the tales of Krishna and a gorgeous painting from a beautiful book on Krishna Art...

Merilee Rush sings Angel of the Morning

I love this song. I heard it first back at school but it was released in 1968. It is a simple pop song, but the lyric was astonishing and radical in its day – various radio stations refused to play it – and even today the words seem strangely uncomfortable; the story of a woman leaving her stranger-lover’s home where she has spent the night and walking into the streets in the morning and wanting nothing from the man, casting no blame and taking full responsibility for her actions. It has that gorgeous line, “If morning’s echo says we’ve sinned,...

In further praise of Julia Margaret Cameron

I just found this photograph as I was looking through an old book I had of Julia Margaret Cameron’s photography and, well, I don’t know...

CIRCE BY H.D.

Circe is a goddess of magic, sometimes portrayed as a nymph, witch, enchantress or sorceress. Circe was renowned for her vast knowledge of potions...

Girls behaving themselves in The Vampire’s Wife No. 7

Tumbling-hair, picker of buttercups, violets, dandelions. And the big bullying daisies through the field, wonderful with eyes a little sorry...

On Diane Arbus and influence

I was sitting at dinner with my dear friend and Vampire’s Wife collaborator, the photographer Polly Borland and I asked her...

Clara Rockmore plays Hebrew Melody

I received this question from Elsa from L.A. who says she is a great fan of the Stuff Page and wanted to know what music I listened to...

A child crying for his mother – Part 2

A month or so ago, I did a Stuff post on the origins of the Hare Krishna chant. I had written that the chant was supposed to replicate the crying of a child...

Testimonials galore! Thank you!

Hello! Just writing to say that I am mesmerized by your vampiric world: the site, dresses, charms and the stuff section...

Daughter, be of good comfort

And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any...

My husband’s first love

I came down for breakfast this morning wearing a long, black velvet Vampire’s Wife dress and my husband commented that I looked like Morticia Addams...

Wise words from Yolandi Visser

I fink u freeky and I like you a lot. I fink u freeky and I like you a lot. I fink u freeky and I like you a lot. I fink u freeky...

The crying of a child for its mother

The Hare Krishnas say the transcendental vibration of the chanting of the mahämantra is exactly like the crying of a child for its mother...

Let the waves roll over us

“Arachne was a shepherd’s daughter who began weaving at an early age. She became a great weaver, boasted that her skill was greater than that of Athena...

A letter from Frida Kahlo

“The most important part of the body is the brain. Of my face, I like the eyebrows and the eyes. Aside from that, I like nothing. My head is too small.”

Joni Mitchell was warning us back then

Joni Mitchell’s performance of her song Woodstock for the BBC in 1970 is a form of perfection...

Jude Thaddeus - The Patron Saint of Lost Causes

There are times in any business when things just don’t work out as you want and if you were of a certain brittle spirit you may think that the entire world was conspiring against you...

I carry your heart with me

I found this beautiful photo this morning (someone sent it to me) and I had to put it up on the Stuff Page...

Tips on looking after your husband on International Women's Day

Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you will be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair...

Let it be known we love Shilpa Ray

This is a public service announcement! If you are feeling a little sluggish or just generally need a reason to be alive, check out this song...

In praise of the supermodel

“People think that modelling is a useless profession. It is so incredibly maligned. You know, the model has very little respect...

The twelve powers of a vampire

Thank you for the absolutely exquisite crimson lamé veneration dress. It is literally from another world!!!

The defenestrating model

I am sitting in the car heading back to the hotel – I’ve just been at the Gucci show – and I’m looking out the window at the streets of Milan and remembering my first Italian photo shoot...

Lace curtains

I had the honour of teaming up with my dear friend and regular collaborator Dominique Issermann to do a twenty-two-page shoot...

The fearless Joan Didion

If you haven’t read any Joan Didion I really recommend it. She is so erudite, so interesting, so fearless, so funny and so fully honest that she leaves you breathless. Look at this… Susie “Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock....

A poem from Anne Sexton

On the day of breasts and small hips, the window pocked with bad rain, rain coming on like a minister, we coupled, so sane and insane...

Be my Valentine

Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine, my husband. ❤️ Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine. Be my Valentine.

Malcolm McKesson - an exquisite obsession

Malcolm McKesson was a reclusive artist who created his obsessive and fetishistic art from the safety of his Manhattan apartment...

Still more testimonials - makes a hard life softer!

Just wanted to let you know that I loved my dress!!! I had so much fun wearing this gorgeous dress at my daughter’s wedding and had so many compliments...

"Dinah stands alone that mountaintop"

A couple of weeks ago I posted Dinah Washington singing This Bitter Earth in a collaboration with contemporary composer Max Richter and raved...

Girl No. 4 has arrived for Valentine's Day!

Girl No. 3 crashed the Internet at The Vampire’s Wife. We were simply not prepared for the intensity of demand for what Vogue would call...

The Infant Jesus of Prague

The Infant of Prague statue is venerated in many countries of the Catholic world. In the church where the original is housed, it is ritually cared for...

Dinah Washington and Max Richter - This Bitter Earth

Dear All, here is something for you. This Bitter Earth sung by Dinah Washington with music by the contemporary composer, Max Richter. A song that leaves little to say, except maybe just a question. How can something so beautifully desolate make us feel so alive? My God, I listen to this one over and over. I float on it, away and away. THIS BITTER EARTH This bitter earth Well, What fruit it bears What good is love That no one shares And if my life is like the dust That hides the glow of a rose What good am I...

Girls behaving themselves in The Vampire's Wife No. 6

The magical Maggie Gyllenhaal debuted her new film The Kindergarten Teacher on Friday night at the Sundance Film Festival, and wore The Vampire’s Wife as she toasted the film at the Autograph Collection Hotel’s bash in Utah. What a bold and beautiful creature she is. Thank you, Maggie!

Brigitte Bardot and the death of Argos

Odysseus fought in the Trojan Wars and after twenty years of fighting in various places against various monsters, he eventually returns home to Ithaca. Here, he approaches his palace for the first time, led by the faithful swineherd, Eumaeus. THE DEATH OF ARGOS Meanwhile Odysseus arrived along with the swineherd. They stopped in front of the palace, and all around them echoed the sound of the lyre; it was Phemius striking the chords of the prelude as he began his song. Odysseus took hold of the swineherd’s hand, and he said, “This house right here must be Odysseus’ palace. How...

A letter from Marianne Faithfull

I saw this lovely photo of the divine Marianne Faithfull sandwiched between Alain Delon and Mick Jagger and I asked my husband...

The Spinning Song

Once there was a song. The song yearned to be sung. It was a spinning song. About the king of rock ‘n’ roll...

The Vampire's Wife x Annoushka Charm Bracelet has arrived!

I have always loved ruby, sapphire and emerald jewellery - the rich depth of colour. A lot of my dresses are directly influenced by deep jewel-like colours...

Is this the most beautiful song of all time? Maybe.

How could I have done a years worth of Stuff posts and not mentioned this song, written by Sandy Denny...

Have a wonderful New Year, you beautiful people! It's good to be back!

Which dress designs, time periods or female figures do you yourself look to for inspiration?

Merry Christmas from The Vampire's Wife

Just to wish you all a very merry Christmas, we send you our most favourite Nativity scene...

Here comes Girl No. 3 and she bites!!!

British Vogue's most coveted article of street wear Girl Number 2 sold faster than Girl Number 1...

Girls behaving themselves in The Vampire's Wife No. 5

My husband who-never-stops-working photographs dearest Florence Welch dressed in a Vampire’s Wife Sparkle Festival Dress...

Finally discovered! Bryan Ferry sings The Butcher Boy

When Bryan Ferry sang the desolate old ballad ‘The Butcher Boy’ at the South Bank Centre in London, he did so alone at the piano...

Our favourite Larkin poem

My husband and I love this poem. It renews itself with each reading and the blunt truth that lives in the final lines never ceases to move us...

Dear Susie, what was the first dress you made?

I received my Dark Green Lamé Dress this morning. It fits beautifully, such attention to detail...

In endless praise of Karen Carpenter

I always loved Karen Carpenter – her beautiful, haunting voice and the exquisite sadness that lived within it and those extraordinary songs! For me, Karen was the one who erotized the idea of wholesomeness and primness. The video of her, standing on stage singing Superstar, ‘covered up’ in a gorgeous burgundy prairie dress and laying her broken heart before us, struck something deep inside me as a young girl. Karen Carpenter herself is of course the sad guitar of the final line! See the link below, a little memory-gift from The Vampire’s Wife. Love, Susie SUPERSTAR Long ago and oh...

Girls behaving themselves in The Vampire's Wife No. 4

The Guardian Style section made a claim last week that The Vampire’s Wife are at the forefront of a movement that they called The Poser Dress, suggesting that it was a new fashion feminism, because all you could do in one was stand there and look tough. We have no idea what they are talking about! Thanks for the photo, Georgia May! Thanks for the photo, Juno! By the way, if any of you have photos of yourselves out and about in Vampire’s Wife, please send them in – we’ll put them up on the Stuff Page. And if you...

We believe in the Cottingley Fairies

We believe in the Cottingley fairies. We don’t care what they say. We believe in the Cottingley fairies...

The hundredth stuff post - a little reflection

If my calculations are correct this is my hundredth Stuff post or thereabouts, which means we have been doing this page for about a year...

The Goddess Lamaštu - a letter from our friend David Tibet

Thanks so much for the two gorgeous t-shirts, which arrived yesterday. They are beautiful and beautifully printed, too...

Say hello to Girl No. 2!

Girl Number 1 sold out in a heartbeat. She was here for a magical moment and then she was gone...

On Silvia Simms, shyness and a singular vision

Interview with Susie Cave for Elle Magazine: Susie, what are the building blocks of your look? I start with my hair, if I’ve got that right, the rest pretty much falls into place...

I knew her for a little ghost

I knew her for a little ghost. That in my garden walked; The wall is high — higher than most — And the green gate was locked...

The Vampires are gathering! Lookout! Lookout! Lookout!

Dressed in Girl No 1 Limited Edition t-shirt, the charming and debonair Noah Taylor reveals a darker side. But, people, he is not alone!

Girls behaving themselves in The Vampire's Wife No. 3

So many wild beauties at my husband’s after-party, following The Bad Seeds concert at the Zenith in Paris...

In deep praise of Sharon Olds and Edvard Munch

Sometimes I can almost see, around our heads, like gnats around a streetlight in summer, the children we could have, the glimmer....

Susie on the Swing

The beautiful photograph by Dominique Issermann called Susie on the Swing on the front page of the The Vampire’s Wife website was taken in County Cork, Ireland, in a gorgeous garden called Lis Ard. In the garden there was an old house and my husband used to go there when he wanted to lay low for a while and regenerate. He invited me there to visit when we had only just met. We hardly knew each other. My beautiful friend Dominique sort of chaperoned me because my future husband had something of a reputation back then. When we arrived at...

Zabelle Panosian - we are the servants of her voice

The Crane Bird Crane, where are you coming from? I am servant of your voice. Crane, have you not news from our country? Hasten not to your flock, you will arrive soon enough! Crane, where are you coming from? I am servant of your voice. Crane, have you not news from our country? Hasten not to your flock, you will arrive soon enough! Dear All, Please listen to the Armenian singer, Zabelle Panosian, who died not so many years ago at the age of almost a hundred. She was twenty-three years old when she recorded this beautiful song. It...

Girls behaving themselves in The Vampire's Wife No. 2

The divine Salma Hayek, that dark-eyed beauty looks gorgeous in The Vampire’s Wife Orange Florus Festival Dress...

There are three things I love most - love, love and more love

I like lots of things, but there are three things I love most – love, love and more love...

Susie and Nick entering Narnia - Backstage at the O2

On Saturday night my husband and the wonderful Bad Seeds played the 02 Arena. For me, it was a proud and emotional night...

Everyone needs a Masato!

The world is full of pattern cutters. You see them here! You see them there! You look behind a tree and there is a pattern cutter...

The Vampire’s Wife limited edition t-shirt has arrived and it’s beautiful! See below!

Here at The Vampire's Wife we have collaborated with the artist-recluse Karen Constance in a t-shirt like no other...

Leonard Cohen consoles Nick Cave

Some years ago, Ben Smith painted this picture of Leonard Cohen, the sage master, serving the child-husband the blood of Jesus...

In praise of Soulfoo and the beautiful Hilda!

The Stuff Page is not a place we generally plug commercial enterprises because it is rare these sorts of places really inspire us to reach...

I don’t want to draw any more unnecessary attention towards my husband but…

I don’t want to draw unnecessary attention toward my husband but is he cute or what? I don’t want to draw unnecessary attention...

Her delicate beauty must avoid strong light! In praise of Blanche DuBois

Her delicate beauty must avoid strong light. There is something about her uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes, that suggests...

The Falling of the Leaves

Autumn is over the long leaves above us, and over the mice in the barley sheaves; Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us...

Girls behaving themselves in Vampire's Wife No. 1

Not quite sure what is going on here, but much love to the divine Greta Bellamacina for wearing the Vampire’s Wife...

Somewhere between my 19th and 20th nervous breakdown

Somewhere in 1994 between my 19th nervous breakdown and my 20th nervous breakdown, I listened to my dear old grandmother...

My husband wins 'Best Band' at the GQ Awards!

He’s my hero. He’s my hero. He’s my hero. He’s my hero He’s my hero. He’s my hero He’s my hero. He’s my hero He’s my hero...

More Vampire's Wife testimonials

I am just writing a fan letter to the clothes, and saying thank you for the stuff section. I had forgotten some of my heroines...

I am not one for idle speculation but...

Dear All Famous People, I am not one for idle speculation, nor am I inclined toward magical thinking, nor am I suggesting that...

Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Pärt

This is so beautiful. This is so beautiful. This is so beautiful. This is so beautiful. This is so beautiful. This is so beautiful. This is so beautiful....

He just pointed at the plane and told me to start screaming!

I did work with the incredible Guy Bourdin, for the magazine called Egoist. I stayed in his house in Paris, and it is one of the happiest, craziest, most interesting weeks...

I was digging through some old photographs and...

I was digging through some old photographs and found this double portrait of the husband and me taken by...

Miffy – That’s All You Have. Two Dots And A Little Cross

The Dutch artist and children’s author Dick Bruna, whose much-loved cartoon rabbit Miffy has sold more than eighty million books since her creation in 1955. Bruna devised the character to entertain his infant son after they saw a rabbit in the dunes while on a seaside holiday. He went on to relate the bunny’s adventures in more than a hundred books, sold worldwide. Miffy enjoyed great popularity. But Miffy was not an overnight success. Bruna’s parents weren’t impressed with his iconic simplicity: “They said, ‘Oh, that’s too simple. The colours are too bright and I don’t like blue and green...

Elvis remembered or else!

“How come you basically only do women on the Stuff page?” I’m in the kitchen and it’s my husband asking. “I don’t know,” I said...

Lisa Dwan - And So It Continues

Taking the baton from the magisterial Billie Whitelaw, Irish actor Lisa Dwan has become the foremost Beckett performer and a huge influence on us here at The Vampire’s Wife. What is it about her that commands such deep respect; her dedication to the process and to the form, her sense of duty to continue the lineage laid down by Billie Whitelaw, her willingness to go to places beyond what is normally required of an actor, her rawness, her naturalness, her fragile beauty? Artists, like Lisa Dwan, who by being in the world, just make us all a bit braver. We...

Billie Whitelaw performs Samuel Beckett's Not I