Party Dress Season: Queen of Heartz

The Brenda dress by Queen of Heartz is one of their staple dresses they’ve made in multiple colourways over the seasons. Their Ivory sateen colourway immediately struck me as a beautifully simple and classic option for a vintage style wedding dress, particularly for ladies who are on a budget. It would also be a lovely White Christmas option for a party dress, and it was with that in mind that I shot this dress as part of this party dress series, sticking with the white and only adding silver in my accessories like this outfit was all frost and snow.

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Pinup Halloween: Witch

We’ve reached the final Halloween costume in my series of outfits that have a pinup spin. I debated whether or not to even bother including a witch in the series, as it’s widely regarded as one of the laziest of Halloween costumes, alongside the devil and a black cat. That though, I decided, was the beauty of it. If you put a lot of effort into them, even those over-used characters can produce a great costume. You can go to town with intricate makeup on a level akin to face painting, you can craft and create detailed accessories that flesh out the character. Or you can do what I did, which is grab a bunch of black things out of your wardrobe, add an old broom you had lying around from a Harry Potter costume for your niece a few years ago, and a 50p witches hat from Asda. A pinup witch is an excellent option if you’re on such a strict budget that you don’t want to spend out anything at all to make your costume, because I bet you have enough black pieces in your wardrobe to put something together, and also a great option for a last minute costume you weren’t prepared to need.

Personally, even though it’s predictable, this was my absolute favourite costume of the bunch. There was something so fun about layering as many black items of varying texture as I could to make this costume, probably because I’m typically a girl who loves to wear bright colours and tends to overlook plain black pieces as they can feel more formal to me. I enjoyed the change to take on the bad witch character in contrast to the sweetness of my other earlier costume ideas of Snow White and Dorothy from Oz, and that is something else I feel recommends the witchiness; in addition to being easy and cheap (how dare you!), with this costume you get to be as mean and bad as you want. Which is fun. And you also get to cackle. Which is also fun. Plus there’s this.

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Vamping Out With Queen of Heartz

Queen of Heartz is a retro clothing brand established in 2001 by owner and designer, Letty Tennant, a lover of fine textiles and classic prints that harken back to the authentic silhouettes and stylings of bygone eras as clothes used to be made. All their clothes are handmade in LA and Orange county, offering quality American-made products crafted with care, and the company even offers a custom made atelier section on their site, Letty’s own favourite part of her business.

For a while I owned a Queen of Heartz piece without even realising I did, as I had bought the navy polka dot QoH Olivia dress through Unique Vintage over a year ago, not paying attention at first to which brand made it. This dress is one of my favourites, not merely because the nautical combination of navy and white is one of my favourite colour themes, but because it just fits so well. Every time I wear it people tell me it looks like it was made for me, and I feel so good in it I begin to believe it myself. The entire dress fits me flatteringly on every conceivable body contour and the skirt perfectly encompasses my infamous double petticoats with ease and grace, something which is sure to win me over fast.

Given that I am so smitten with this full skirted QoH piece, I wanted to give one of their gorgeous wiggle dresses a try. Enter, the Vamp dress! This dress is gothic, chic, sexy and classy all at once. Considering that special dark and sultry vibe this dress oozes, I layered on the black lace and tulle to take some vampish shots especially for this post.

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