Vampires, Ghosts, and Witches...

Last week I went to the Hallwyl Museum to see their exhibition about Skräck och Skrock (Fear and Superstition) during the turn of the 19th/20th century. The corridors leading me into the house were dark and filled with frightening sounds that turned this beautiful, palace-like, apartment into a house of horror! I've always been interested in old beliefs and the occult, so going through all the rooms, looking at all the cool stuff on display was very exiting! I took some pics of a few of the items, but since it was dark, and many items were placed behind reflecting glass, please excuse the quality of my photos.

The first thing that caught my eye was a Spirit phone/Necrophone, something it was rumored Thomas Alva Edison was trying to create to be able to communicate with the dead. No one knows if he actually created one, but this is a private collector's idea of what one of those might have looked like.

Ouija Board!

This is a reproduction of the first issue of Bram Stoker's Dracula...

A framed taxidermy bat had it's natural place beneath a painting of the original Dracula - Vlad Tepes.

Although I don't believe in killing friendly vampires, I still want one of these - a vampire hunter kit! This one is believed to be from the 1800s, and kits like these were often created by weapon smiths at the request of vampire fans.

They also served blood! I have no idea why it was behind glass though. By the time I had gotten this far through the exhibition I was really thirsty.

Electric shock devise from the early 1900s.

A witch's familiar. Yep, that's the remains of a cat...

Sculptures of Baphomet and Cthulhu.

A few stairs down in this Downton Abbey-like apartment, there was another exhibition with collections of different kinds. Behind a door was a tiny chamber, and inside I found vintage pornography! I guess that shows that you never know what you'll find behind closed doors. Not even in old, very fine homes... Haha!

Hat Parade

I think it was very unnecessary that hats pretty much disappeared from fashion after the 60s. But back in the good old - stylish - days, women would walk down the streets with the sole purpose of showing off their new spring/fall hats. So when The Hallwyl House let people who wore a hat get in to see their exhibition Hats Off for free, on the last day of the show, milliner Marika Smith got the idea to gather the visitors and create an old fashioned hat parade from the museum to Djurgården (The Royal Game Park), where we ended our parade with a picnic.

I wore a vintage felt hat from the 40s together with my outfit from Dalena Vintage, that I wrote about here!

The hat exhibition was fun to see. But they should have accompanied the hats with photos of people actually wearing them. These head-decorations can look so different on a head, from what they look sitting on an exhibition stick!

When leaving The Hallwyl House, we were quite a few hat-wearers that paraded away through the streets of Stockholm, meeting many smiling onlookers on our stroll.

The weather was perfect for a picnic! Not cold, but not too hot either.

The organizer, Marika, wore one of her own creations on her head...

...And she had also baked heavenly vanilla buns for everyone!

This was my first picnic for this summer, but I hope for many more!