If you saw my last blog post about Jenny January or follow me on Instagram then you’ll know I created a hashtag event encouraging Pinup Girl Clothing fans to wear their Jenny skirts and/or dresses during the week of 12-18th January. The idea was to use the tag #JennyJanuary on their posts to interact with the fellow participants to share styling tips, stories of their first Jennies, their favourites, their wish lists, etc, having fun in sharing the PUG love and meeting new ladies.

Beforehand I was excited just expecting only a handful of my own followers to get involved, but before it started Micheline Pitt from Pinup Girl Clothing was lovely enough to share an image of me in one of my Jenny skirts and news of the hashtag on the  PUG Instagram, inundating me with a few hundred new followers and lots of new ladies getting involved who I had yet to Insta-meet. That alone felt like a highlight.

The week itself was wonderful. Right from the start it was great fun to hear stories of fellow Jenny lovers detailing their first Jenny purchases, the Jenny prints that didn’t grab them at first view but grew to a love that had to be purchased; the Jennies they were wearing on their favourite vacations, Disney trips, when they got engaged(!) Women were complimenting each other on flawless outfit pairings and proclaiming they had been given inspiration to pair their own Jennies with certain prints or colours they hadn’t thought of yet themselves. Many ladies’ minds were made up that now, yes, they did need the Dancing Horses prints, or the Castle, or the Paris…It was chatty and kind and supportive and fun. It was exactly what I had hoped it would be.

I personally saved my newest Jenny, the Dancing Horses print, for her first wearing during this week, as well as saving my Cinderella shoes that I had handmade (and blogged a tutorial for here) for their first outing, quite obviously saved to be worn with my Castle print Jenny. I look forward to wearing a new piece of clothing or pair of shoes for the first time, so it was lovely to be able to have those small doses of excitement scattered amongst the overall joy of the event. Pinup Girl Clothing featured me again encouraging women to get involved and to share stories of which Jennies grew on them over time, and meanwhile I dashed from profile to profile, overjoyed at the ladies taking part.

There were participants from Australia and New Zealand,  America and England, and places in between, an array of ladies of every size, race, hair colour and fabulous level (from no less than ‘damn fabulous’ to ‘holy hell fabulous.’) I was excited to see some of my fellow British Belles take part, Miss Fifi Von Fosse and Atomic Amber, as well as Deadly is the Female owner Claudia, DressedApp creator Kara, Miss Pinup UK 2013 Miss Scarlett Luxe, hair guru and all around pinup model beaut Diablo Rose, and awesome retro blogger Pinup Persuasion. I loved seeing entries from some of my favourite Instagrammers (hey-o M.Loisel, Nadiafaye, Viviennelace, Luluswonderland, and my style hero Str8outdafridge) and found some lovely new dolls to follow.

I’ve added a gallery below of just some of the entries this week, but with over 300 entries in total you should go see the full range of lovelies on Instagram by searching the hashtag #JennyJanuary.

This is definitely something I’ll be doing again next year and I’ll be starting another new hashtag to encompass all the brands, prints or colour themes we will be picking to internationally twin together in future. #OurSharedCloset will host days, weekends or weeks devoted to style themes that will be both broad and narrow so that everyone will get a chance to get involved, and next up I’ll choose a colour or a print rather than a brand so that retro ladies who don’t wear a lot of repro brands won’t get left out. I’m open to suggestions as to what themes or brands you’d like to see in future, but next up I think I might be feeling a little bit…red 😉

Check out the ladies below, give them a follow on Instagram if you’re not already, and share the love. Thank you to everyone who took part!

Love you, mean it!