Category Archives: Clothing Reviews

A Dress Named Alika

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When I was but a newbie pinup–when I was tentatively attempting to craft a retro look out of cheap dancewear circle skirts and still scared of red lipstick–there were 3 dresses I saw in my online wanderings that made me swoon and sigh with want and desire: the Pinup Girl Clothing Monica dress, their Sailor Swing dress, and the Tatyana (then Bettie Page) Alika dress. The Alika dress runs for $150 in the US and in the UK around £120, sadly out of my typical budget, so at the time I yearned and gurned and craved, stored it in the not-so-little part of my brain that houses my dream ‘one day’ wardrobe, and moved on with my life.

Until this summer, when I happened to have an upcoming wedding to attend, and the Alika dress was marked down to $120 in a sale. Our time had come! This would be the perfect opportunity to treat myself to this dress. The Alika, that black elegant goddess of glamour and style, was going to be my lady.

Now that we’re together I am so glad our time finally did come, because we were meant to be. Alika and I went for a little stroll together in the woods to share with you our love.

alika6 Continue reading →

The Classic Trench With A Little Extra Swing [Collectif Dietrich]

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I am a lover of big skirts. Not just big, massive. Gathered circle skirts so roomy I can fit two petticoats underneath. Which is all well and good in summer when I can flounce around as circumference-ly bloated as I please, but come winter it becomes a problem when I need to find a coat that will encompass such voluminous extremes without awkward gaping. There are a few retro repro brands which produce good quality coats, and even ones with a full swing skirt, but I wanted a coat that was classic and weather adaptable without being a super heavy fabric or out of this world glamorous (I know, that’s probably the only time you will witness such a sentiment being expressed by yours truly.) Basically I wanted a classic trench coat but with a big ol’ skirt.

Enter Collectif. This Dietrich swing coat of theirs has been around a while and available in a few colourways. I’ve come close to buying it a few times before but always when it technically was not the right season to be spending £95 on a coat. Collectif are pretty good at having regular sales, though, so at the end of summer I snapped it up for £60. Who doesn’t love a third off? Well you’ll be thrilled to hear that right now it’s on sale for an even smaller sum of £47.50, less than half price. Good luck resisting that!

This coat has all the classic structure and detailing of your timeless trench coat, with a swing skirt that really will keep your skirt entirely covered. I took one of my beautiful friends and her camera out with me on a dreary Saturday to show you just how well this coat will protect your precious pinup duds this winter season, including testing its capabilities of wrangling my infamously double-petticoated dress beneath.

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The Best Kept Secret In Lasting Lipsticks

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I am a long lasting lipstick junkie. I try almost every lipstick or liquid lipstick I can get my hands on that claims to be touchproof, wearproof, budge-proof, kiss-proof…on and on. More often than not they do smudge. And when they don’t, as is the case with liquid lipsticks, they have a tendency to flake off as you eat, which can leave your lips not only patchy but also your teeth covered in little red flakes. Just what every girl wants! Except not.

I’ve covered the Lime Crime Velvetines, their Make Up Academy Luxe Lip Lacquer dupes, and Maybelline 14 hour Superstay lipsticks on the blog before, and these are all great products available across a decent range of prices with brilliant staying power.

I was doing some online beauty shopping the other day and needed to add a couple of quid worth of products to my basket to qualify for free delivery. There’s not much a couple of pounds can get you from the makeup aisle, so I chose a Collection (formerly Collection 2000) Lasting Lipstick in shade Queen of Hearts, thinking that for £2.99 I would at least be getting a nice shade red lipstick even if it didn’t last, as I suspected it wouldn’t.

But Oh. My. God. I am in love. So unexpectedly in love.

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Collection 2000 ‘Queen of Hearts ‘Lasting Lipstick Continue reading →

Getting to Know Bernie (Ms Dexter If You’re Nasty)

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Anyone who follows me on Instagram knows I have a fairly extensive repro wardrobe, but one popular brand missing from it until recently was Bernie Dexter. Going all out, for my first Bernie Dexter purchase I bought not one but three dresses. Typically the lovely dresses designed by this international pinup model fall outside of the per item budget I will allow myself to spend on a dress, but I happened to find that a host of dresses in the clearance section of her site were down to $80 a few weeks ago, almost half their usual price tag. So for the sake of this blog, and not at all because I am a dress buying fiend, I splurged.

Splurged is the right word, not so much because of the dresses but because shipping of these 3 lightweight items cost an astounding $70. SEVENTY DOLLARS. This is the first problem I had with my purchase, and it came very close to me refusing to place an order at all because even for international delivery that is outrageous. Continue reading →

The Sweetheart Pinup Top by The Oblong Box Shop

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I’d seen The Oblong Box Shop Sweetheart Pinup Tops online a few weeks ago when reviewed by the gorgeous duo Junebugs and Georgia Peaches, otherwise known on Instagram as modernjunecleaver and ameliajetson. At the time I loved the idea but didn’t want to pay for the international shipping for one top, which is all I had left of my monthly budget.

Not long ago I thought of the tops again and went back to the site to check them out. At $20 a top with the current USD to GBP exchange rate that puts each top at £12-thereabouts, which is a downright bargain. Considering I was tempted by about 5 colours and that the international shipping was now being offered at $17 flat rate USPS, I decided to place my order.

Available in 9 colours, I narrowed down my lust list to the canary yellow, cobalt blue and white, resisting the urge to pick red, black or navy, as would be my usual default wardrobe staples. I was trying a new product from a new brand, so why not try some new colourways. The USPS shipping said it could take up to 21 days and was untrackable, so I placed my order and prepared to wait out the full term.

pinuptopall Continue reading →

Beginner’s Guide To: Retro Clothing Brands

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In the retro clothing style arena there are two clothing shopping options: true vintage, which is when you purchase clothing made in the original era, and reproduction or ‘repro’ clothing, which is clothing that has been designed and produced (often on a mass scale) in the style of the fashion from a bygone era by a modern company. The benefits of buying one or the other type of clothing depends on your clothing needs, budget and your taste.

Vintage clothing can vary in price and quality, depending on where it is purchased and how well the item has been taken care of over the years, and while many people proclaim it is perfectly possible to find plus-sized vintage clothing, I myself have always struggled to find items I like within my budget that would actually fit me (and I’m a modern UK 12/14, technically not even plus-sized.) This problem with sizing is one of the main benefits of reproduction clothing, as modern designers realise that the modern woman typically doesn’t fit the same proportions as our glamorous 50s counterparts. Thus, repro clothing is thankfully made in a variety of sizes, and it is repro clothing brands that I’ll be providing  a summary of in this post. I’ll be telling you what kind of items each brand produces, the size scale, the price scale, where the brand is based, and where you can buy their items.

I’m going to use a price scale here to give you an idea of what the typical price point is of these brands. For a clothing range that typically costs £30-50 across their range I’ll say ‘Low,’ mostly over £50 but nearer £100 is ‘Med,’ and typically £100 roundabouts or over is ‘high.’ Continue reading →

PUG Monica Dress — The One Dress To Rule Them All

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The Monica dress by Laura Byrnes for Pinup Girl Clothing is one of those dresses that is so classic and so flattering that near every woman who sets eyes on it wants to own it. At $140 a pop and so glamorous that the first instinct is automatically to classify it only as evening wear, it’s understandable that the average woman, and even the average pinup, often feels she cannot justify buying such a dress if she feels she won’t often get a chance to wear it. Still, the I-must-own-it lust generally still perseveres even after good sense has spoken it’s piece, as I can personally attest to having drooled over this piece for nigh on a year before I finally took the plunge.

So for those of you who are curious but undecided about this beautiful frock I’m going to give you the full ins and outs of this dress –let’s talk sizing, quality, styling, and most important of all, if it’s worth it.

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Doris May Day, looking so damn delicious in this dress that it is near illegal. Photographed by Laura Byrnes Continue reading →