My Pinup Journey

How did I get here?

It seems crazy to me now but it’s been 7 years since I began dressing pinup. That term, of course, technically refers to the models whose mass produced pictures were pinned up as posters back in the last early to mid-century. These days though, for those of us within the vintage style community it’s just so much easier to say ‘Oh I dress pinup’ than ‘I love the fashion and beauty aesthetics of X decade(s) so I dress that way daily/part-time/for special occasions.’ Plus, there’s the fact that for many of us vintage-style lovers owning actual vintage is impractical, inaccessible, or too expensive, thus adding in the additional complicating factor that the word ‘vintage’ has a genuine descriptive meaning that may not technically apply to the modern reproduction clothing hanging in our wardrobes.

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Hogwarts Houses Vintage Style: Ravenclaw

This is is, kiddos, we’re at our final Hogwarts House styling post, with my OG house, Ravenclaw. While there’s endless stories I could tell about the way Potter has intersected with my life and vastly improved it, in an ode to Ravenclaw house I wanted to focus in this post upon the books more purely, and my favourite aspects and characters from them.

Miss Amy May Hogwarts vintage style Ravenclaw student pinup plus size inspired Harry Potter Cosplay disneybound Continue reading

Hogwarts Houses Vintage Style: Gryffindor

Here we are, fellow wizards, we’re over halfway through the Houses. I’ve already styled Hufflepuff and Slytherin in a vintage Amy style, and today we look at Gryffindor, along with my story of how the series lead me to face up to some of my deepest anxieties and how it resulted in my flying across the world to attend the wedding of someone I’d never met.

Miss Amy May Hogwarts vintage style Gryffindor student pinup plus size inspired Harry Potter Cosplay disneybound

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Hogwarts Houses Vintage Style: Slytherin

If you missed last week’s posting kick off my Hogwarts Houses Vintage Style series, you can find it here. I began by styling a Hufflepuff themed outfit and by telling the story of how I got into the Potter series. This week I’m focusing on Slytherin, the house for which I would be most ill-fitted, and touching on how the series lead me to make new friends and deal with my dad’s death.

Miss Amy May Hogwarts vintage style Slytherin student pinup plus size inspired Harry Potter Cosplay disneybound

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Hogwarts Houses Vintage Style: Hufflepuff

I suppose it’s possible there could be regular readers of this blog who don’t know that I’m a big Harry Potter fan, but following this post that won’t be likely. Because after at least a year of having this idea sitting in my drafts folder, I’ve finally carved out the time to create this styling series that was suggested by my good friend Mand; the Hogwarts houses, vintage style.

Once a week for the next four weeks I’ll be creating a vintage style outfit in the theme of each of the Hogwarts houses, and dedicating each post to sharing some of my own Potter story; how I got into the series, the friends I’ve made along the way, how my dad’s death entwined with my love of the books, why these books meant I traveled across the world to attend the wedding of someone I had never met, and, of course, which Hogwarts house I’m in. I’ll also be adding in snippets about my favourite characters, favourite book, and which parts of the story have most touched me.

Today, we’re going to start with Hufflepuff, the house of kindness, patience, hard work, loyalty and fair play. And, kind of more importantly, the house of yellow, because hello mustard!

Miss Amy May Hogwarts vintage style Hufflepuff student pinup plus size inspired Harry Potter Cosplay disneybound

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My Secret Brush with Alopecia

Yes, yes I am starting this blog post with a pun-tastic title name. No, I’m not sorry. Now let’s do this.

As you will see as I tell the full story, I got very lucky that the bout of alopecia I suffered in the summer of 2016 was (knock on wood) a one-off, very mild, and will hopefully not return. But from the moment it happened I had a very weird feeling that I would have to tell all of my readers and followers about it. Not necessarily because I wanted to, but because I felt with the following I have across my social media platforms that I should. That I owed it to people, not merely to be honest but more importantly to be open, to share something that is difficult and sensitive and not so typical. So here I am, much further on in time than I imagined this blog post would go up, telling you about that time I lost some of my hair and was fucking terrified by it. Continue reading

Ask Me Anything

I’m off work this week and wanted to get ahead on blogging, after a manic Spring/summer review season that left me unable to get more than a week ahead at a time in my scheduling. I wanted to do something fun and different with some of the blogs I’m writing, so I asked my followers over on Instagram and Facebook to ask me anything they wanted, whether it was about my style, the blog, or perhaps anything about my life they’re curious about. These are the questions I received.

What is your favourite dress?
The Apple Tart dress by Trashy Diva

How old are you?
Reluctantly 31 >_<

Favourite food?
That’s like asking me to choose my favourite child (which I don’t have, but still.) Um…chips/fries?!! Also Lasagna. Continue reading

You’re Allowed To Unpin

The pinup style is a very effort intensive one. Whether you wetset, heat set or prefer an elaborate set of victory rolls, the hair takes time to craft each evening or morning. The liner flicks and sharp brows and perfect pout all require regular practise and daily precision. The stockings and garter belts and corsets can all take a while to cinch into and layer up under the petticoats and swing dress or the slips and tight wiggles. All of these things are something you get faster at over time, and get used to, becoming an automatic part of your routine that you’re used to allowing time for. And part of being a pinup is that you love doing all these things, it excites you to get your glam on; if we hated doing it, then we wouldn’t do it. We enjoy it.

That being said, we don’t always enjoy it. There’s not a pinup I know who doesn’t have mornings when she wishes her liner wouldn’t take a full 10 minutes when it’s misbehaving, or that she could just wash her hair without having to plan which day it most makes sense to do so to make the most socially out of her fresh set. Sometimes there are days, weeks or even months when despite your love for the style, some of the things we do, or even all of them, just seem like too much effort.

That is okay. Continue reading

London Edge [SS16 Most Anticipated]

Last year was my first year at London Edge, an alternative and vintage style clothing trade show in London held twice a year to preview upcoming Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter lines from clothing brands. The show exists primarily for stockists to scout out the upcoming season’s offerings so they can choose what they want to stock in their in-store and online boutiques, but London Edge invites bloggers too so that they can bring the news of the show to their readers.

This year I was super excited to go to the SS16 February show, sure that some of my favourite brands would have some truly awesome stuff coming up soon. I was not wrong. Several brands, including Collectif and Voodoo Vixen, released their SS lookbooks online a few weeks before London Edge, so I had seen a lot of what they had to offer before I attended, but there were still tons of companies whose spring and summer offerings were still under-wrap beforehand. Plus, there’s something about getting to see items in person, even if you can’t try them on, which is so much better than trying to get a full sense of them online. Bearing all that in mind, I went up to London this past weekend armed with a feverish sense of clothing curiosity and my camera, with one of my pinup besties, Giselle, at my side to trade off comments, gasps and admiring groans with as we combed through the rails. Continue reading

Jenny January 2016

The start of 2016 meant it was time for our second annual #JennyJanuary, a style challenge event I began last year in which I asked my fellow Pinup Girl Clothing fans to wear any Jenny skirts or dresses they owned during the week of January 18th-24th and to share their outfits on social media using the hashtag #JennyJanuary. The aim is for lovers of these pieces to interact with each other online in order to share stories about their Jennies, the life events they have lived in them, and to provide each other with style inspiration for new ways to style and wear their Jennies.

Last year the event was a huge success, with other 300 entries and ladies all over the world taking part. (You can read up on it here.) This year, it was lovely to see women waiting excitedly for #JennyJanuary to start, sharing the preparations they were making in planning out their outfits for this year’s event. Continue reading