Candice De Ville

Melbourne, Australia

“I believe that to a great extent you create your own reality and can choose to
live in a more beautiful world, even if you do spend most of your time chasing
after two small children.”

Author of the popular blog "Super Kawaii Mama" and hostess of her own vintage hair tutorials. Candice De Ville, a wife, a mother and freelance writer has a personal mission to introduce more glamour to the world, particularly the world of the stay-at-home mom.

Candice lives in Melbourne, Australia with her two beautiful daughters, aged four and one, as well as her husband, two dogs, a nursery of fish, and an acre of gardens. Aside from being a very busy stay-at-home mom, she also moonlights as a vintage and pin up model as well as a freelance writer and general socialite.

Her days begin about 5.30 a.m when her eldest pokes her in the eye to request breakfast. “So the first part of the morning is breakfast, housework, emails, and then off to the gym. I arrive home about 10.30 when the youngest goes to bed and the eldest needs to be entertained, lunch made, more housework or gardening done", she added. Her afternoons are usually filled with shopping, sewing, or crafting while the baby sleeps again.

You may wonder when Candice does much of her writing. She explains, “When the baby is sleeping and the eldest is playing.” After the children are all cleaned and feed, it is dinner for the Mr and herself which is usually followed by either heading out on the town for a social engagement or just collapsing on the couch to catch up with her favorite blogs.

Candice decided to start her blog after a confrontation with a woman at the gym, who verbally attacked her for looking the way she does. “Instead of washed out and haggard, I decided to spread my message of feeling good through daily glamour in a more public forum. I believe that to a great extent you create your own reality and can choose to live in a more beautiful world, even if you do spend most of your time chasing after two small children. I’ve now been blogging for nine months and have a following into the thousands which was a huge surprise to me!”, she added.

In her blog “Super Kawaii Mama“, Candice concentrates on her own take on fashion, style and many of her inspirations. “I’ve made it my personal mission to introduce more glamour to the world, particularly the world of the stay at home mum."

Her blog also features examples of her daily outfits, health and beauty tips, styling recommendations, style icons and inspirations, as well as discussing the ethics of fashion in a wider sense. In addition to her blog Candice is currently authoring her first book and looking forward to many more fashion filled adventures.

Her vintage hair tutorials came from a desire to connect with her readers. Candice wanted to demonstrate that “looking good is not all about having a lot of money or a team of stylists behind you.”
Most of the styles she started out with began as happy accidents that she refined. “I have since been studying different vintage looks I’d like to achieve and figuring out short hand ways to achieve the same styles with the wonder of modern products.” For example, Candice recently did a two part tutorial showing how to do a 1960’s inspired half up do without any backcombing. Then she got a little more creative and discovered a way to create a Beehive style also without backcombing either. Which was very clever.

Candice grew up watching old movies and always wanted her world to be as glamorous as the one on screen. “My favorite movie would have to be Mame with Rosalind Russell. The costumes, the opulent sets and most of all the larger than life character of Auntie Mame, who shows me that there is a wonderful life to be had when you are older. Its not all about being young and beautiful to have a great life,”

We asked her what her favorite vintage style was. She explained, “I find I romanticize about the 1930’s to the early 1950’s the most of any vintage era. This is probably due to the Golden Era of Hollywood at that time, combined with the idyllic advertising of the 50’s.”
About those Golden Years of Hollywood movies, Candice said that she can watch one and literally leave the theatre feeling like a different person inside.

She has also been collecting vintage clothing since she was about twelve years old. “Beautiful vintage clothing really speaks to me. It is as if it carries an energy from its heyday and allows me to create the most fantastic scenarios in my mind, that I can help but play out." Her vintage clothing comes from relatives, friends, Ebay, thrift stores, and specialty vintage stores. Her personal favorite store is Circa Vintage in Melbourne. She was also very fortunate to have a grandmother who kept all ofher significant pieces from the 1940’s onwards and gave them all to her. “Heaven!" Candice exclaimed.

Candice doesn’t consider herself to be a Timewarpian because she values too many developments from the modern age. However she did say, “I pick and choose what suits me to create my own version of the perfect reality.”

She also mentioned that she was quite concerned that today’s women don’t have an understanding of how fortunate they are. “The idea that feminism liberated women and now we can “have it all”, is generally abused... I respect the developments that have been made but also see that, unlike our predecessors, I now have a choice in what “it all” is. And that is why choosing to stay at home with my children, or cook for my husband is a privilege, because it is a choice. I do, however, have a lot of ideas that could be considered old fashioned, but I consider them timeless. For example, I am very keen to see my girls study deportment, grooming, and all sorts of home economics subjects. It’s all about balance.”

We asked Candice what year she would visit if she could travel back in time.

“That is a tricky question as there are so many aspects of the past that would be very difficult to live with. Social inequality of different races and sexes would be hard to take as would the absence of today’s medical developments. But with all that said, I think I would most love to travel to that wonderful space in time between the two wars, for all the technological, artistic and social glamour of it all.”

When asked to describe herself, Candice said, “a dramatic, glamouros, eccentric!”