Seamless, Swinging Maria [Goldie’s Clothing]

Posted on August 20, 2015 by missamymay

Last week I featured the gorgeous Lauren wiggle dress from Goldie’s Clothing, classic Spanish repro clothing company. That means this week it’s time to take a look at one of their swing dresses.

Behold the Maria dress, a flared swing dress with a flared full circle skirt and, like the Lauren dress, a superbly flattering sweetheart neckline. It’s sleeveless, has a small gather at the bust, closes with a back zipper, and is designed in such a way that it is seamless at the waist, creating a smooth, elegant transition from bodice to skirt with no waistband to speak of.

Maria comes in several colourways, but in this post I’m wearing the lovely rice dot sheer overlay version to go for a frolic in the golden summer fields–where I made some unexpected new friends you’ll get to see later on in the post.

Goldie's Clothing Maria Flared Swing Dress Black Rice Dot Sheer Overlay Continue reading →

Gingerly Does It [Collectif Ginger Dress]

Posted on August 17, 2015 by missamymay

Anyone who’s followed me for long enough knows I’m a sucker for nautical coloured clothing–put some combination of red, navy or white together and I will probably love it. Another thing I love, but have rarely found in affordable repro, is a winged bust. So it’s time to say hello to Collectif’s Ginger line.

When Collectif launched their SS15 line I was thrilled to see they had included a winged bust in some wiggle dresses, a swing and a playsuit. And then I was sad that all those pieces featured novelty prints, something I’m very picky about and rarely partake in. The atomic flamingo wiggle dress was adorable–but not my style. The strawberry print play suit was super cute–but a no for me with that much fruit appeal.

I don’t know how it snuck by me, but I didn’t realise until recently that there was a nautical colourway of this dress, the navy and white Sailor version of that winged bust design available in both a wiggle and a swing dress. A mere week after I came across this information Collectif launched one of their infamous half price sales. Wing busted, sailor swing dress named Ginger, come to mumma!

Collectif Ginger Navy & White Swing Dress Continue reading →

Havana A Good Time [PUG Havana Dress]

Posted on August 13, 2015 by missamymay

The Havana dress by Pinup Girl Clothing is one of those dresses I’ve overlooked for a long time because it is, in no bad way, rather plain and simple. I’ve always assumed the particular neckline would look boxy on me, someone who is bottom heavy, not particularly large of breast nor slim of torso. I figured that without a lower neckline, more delicate straps or a distracting print this dress would probably give me a bit of a trunk torso and highlight my ‘flaws’ rather than flatter them.

The red colourway, the only one that had ever truly tempted me, sold out months ago, and I never wanted the olive, black or purple colourways. This summer a Midnight blue colourway was announced and I found myself reconsidering. Suddenly I came to wonder whether I should try out the cool toned cabana stripes colourway, one of only two printed colourways, because I reasoned that the stripes might be more flattering on me than any of the plain colours, as prints have a camouflaging effect for lumps and bumps. But while I lingered over my decision as to whether even the stripes might make this dress work on me that colourway, too, sold out.

So there it was. It was down to me and the coming soon Midnight Blue. A battle of wills. Who would win? Would I cave? Well obviously. But would Havana be kind to me, flattering and gentle and nice? Or would she throw me and my cake-padded waist into sharp relief and unflattering focus?

Pinup Girl Clothing Havana dress Midnight Blue Continue reading →

The Cardigan With Attitude [Voodoo Vixen Iris]

Posted on August 6, 2015 by missamymay

Cardigans are useful little things. For those of us who live in more temperate climes, they make an easy go-to for adapting an established outfit for cooler days rather than having to dig through your winter wardrobes for anything heavier or sleeved. For those who have confidence issues with their upper arms, or even their middle section, it’s an easy way to shroud your insecurities without sacrificing your outfit on the whole to said quibbles. They’re normally cute, sometimes plain, often simple. Rarely, though, is the useful cardigan sassy and sexy.

Until now. Say hello to the Iris cardigan from Voodoo Vixen.

Voodoo Vixen Black Iris Cardigan Continue reading →

July Outfits Round Up

Posted on August 3, 2015 by missamymay

Another month gone and it’s been a cracker! This month not only did I host Jenny July, which means there’s a whole host of Jenny centric outfits to go over in this post, but I also had the pleasure of meeting Pinup Girl Clothing’s founder, owner and head designer, Laura Byrnes. If any of you have ever noticed just how PUG heavy some of my outfit wrap up posts have been some months and goggled at how much PUG that must mean I own, I can assure you that nothing was more difficult than deciding which pieces to wear to meet the Supreme Overlord of my favourite brand.

That glory aside, July has been a weird month of temperature fluctuations, with some hottest-day-of-the-year highs and some drizzly, autumnal lows, so this wrap up should involve a strange mix for a mid-summer month. It also features me wearing my hair up more times in one month than I have probably done total for the entire rest of the year up until now.

Click on the pictures for a closer look! You can find links in the description to any item that is still available to buy. Anything not linked is from a past season and cannot be found for purchase any longer and/or is not available to buy online.

Discontinued Pinup Girl Clothing Spanish Fan Print Jenny dress, PUG cropped cardigan in mint, PUG red sateen grommet belt, and New Look mint flats

Continue reading →

The Pinup Wedding Guest

Posted on July 31, 2015 by missamymay

We pinups love to get our glam on, so you’d think an invite to a wedding would be a lovely excuse to bust out our best finery and indulge in our utmost glamour. Depending on the formality of the wedding in question, the temperament of the wedding party and the guests, and the glam level of your aforementioned finery, sometimes, though, being a pinup invited to a wedding can be a difficult situation in terms of clothes.

The 50s style is feminine, classic and elegant, but it’s also equal parts glamorous, sexy and attention-grabbing. A swing dress that displays no cleavage and little leg can still easily make you the centre of attention by pure virtue of the fact that it’s an unusual style for anyone to sport head-to-toe these days, let alone factoring in the attention a petticoated full skirt is likely to garner.

In my daily pinup life I dress however I want and it doesn’t bother me to get stares, but as a woman attending a wedding I like to look both lovely and appropriate in the photos without being perceived as attempting to upstage the bride by out-glamming her or overdressing–never something I would do deliberately, but some people can come to weddings in rather casual dress, automatically making others looked overdressed by comparison. Given that, as it’s someone else’s special day, I prefer to dress as if part of the beautiful set dressing of the day as a whole so I can focus on sharing the joy with everyone rather than dressing intentionally to wow and then worrying if I’ve overdone it.

Thus, my personal rule with weddings for my own attire is that it’s easier to err on the side of caution and find a way to represent my true pinup self without inviting strangers to cast their own opinion. If you, too, share those same feelings when you get a wedding invite, I wanted to share with you my two top tips for keeping your style on point without unintentionally eliciting sharp tendencies in others. My two style rules for wedding attire is to dress sweetly or dress chicly.

There is absolutely no reason for you to give up your pinup sentimentality when picking your outfit for a wedding or reception, but if you opt for something demure or classically stylish then you’re likely to evoke a more wedding-appropriate vintage vibe than if you go full force for the glam or the kitsch. These days people are gleefully adopting fascinators at a wedding, but when you add a fascinator to a full pinup ensemble it can look burlesque and glamorous and fabulous–three things that the stylishly-challenged can get offended by. So, you don’t have to be scared of wearing a fascinator, but be prepared to have to tone down your look in other areas to soften your style overall. Maybe swap out your red lipstick for a softer shade, or wear a smart swing dress rather than a tight wiggle. Wear lower heels. Leave off the seamed stockings. It often only takes one tweak or two to achieve a quieter but still polished version of your usual look.

I’ve been to two weddings for friends so far this year, and I took a different dressing tact for each. To attend my friend Steph’s wedding in March I decided to go soft and demure in this feminine and wistful mint spotted Unique Vintage Garden State dress.

Unique Vintage Garden State dress in mint, vintage box purse, old Monsoon heels, handmade hair flowers

Continue reading →

Pinup Picnic In The Park

Posted on July 20, 2015 by missamymay

It’s been a couple weeks already since The Pinup Picnic in the Park and finally I’ve found some time to do a little write up of our day.

It was weird to finally be going to an event we had been organising and talking about since February–right at the beginning of the year my friend Giselle, who wasn’t yet my friend, commented on one of @thebritishbelles pictures on Instagram asking if we were open to organising a British event as an alternative to Viva Las Vegas for all we British girls who wouldn’t be going and would be jealously stalking the hashtag on IG. Way back in December when I had first met up with most of the Belles I had mentioned how it would be nice to do a public event in future where other pinups could hang out, as we Belles were already having regular friend days together vintage shopping and eating diner food. With Giselle’s request we decided we definitely wanted to make something happen, but with VLV happening in April we couldn’t think up a free idea that wouldn’t take place outdoors and, thus, possibly be in with a chance of being ruined by the great English weather that early in the year.

It was for this reason we chose to host an event in June, deciding upon a quintessentially British picnic. Holding it in London’s Hyde park meant it would be free and easy for a lot of people to get to. As of the day before we had absolutely no idea how many people would be turning up, as 600+ had RSVPd yes on Facebook but we considered that unlikely.

The pinups starting to gather by some excited BBs

Continue reading →

The Brit & The Belle…And The Hawaiian Hideaway

Posted on July 17, 2015 by missamymay

Sarah Forshaw (@Forshawsarah) and Miss Amy May (@miss_amy_may) are southern belle and southern brit pinups, respectively, who found one another on Instagram part way through their pinup transformations in mid 2013, at which point they tentatively, then all of a sudden, become devoted and divine friends. Bonding over their urge to bring full on glamour to their every day lives, their shared opinions on cake, and their fierce nerd hearts, the two quickly began to look upon one another as fabulous sisters–who simply hadn’t met yet outside the confines of the interwebs. Due to finally meet IRL to share many squishy hugs and swing-skirted spins in fall 2015, they’re opening up their friendship and their closets to you in this shared blog post while they eagerly await their meeting.

Amy: It’s been quite a while since my darling Sarah and I have been able to join forces for another installment in our The Brit & The Belle series, but finally we’re ready to share another joint post with you. Sarah and I are alike on many different levels, too many to list. Two of the easiest to focus on is our shared belief that a good dress is a terrible thing to waste by waiting for a good excuse to wear it, and our love for Pinup Girl Clothing. The combination of those two things means we both happen to own the same fabulous dress in the same colourway, the orange and purple Pinup Girl Clothing Hawaiian Hideaway dress.

We don’t want to taunt you too much with this dress because unfortunately it’s now out of stock after going on super sale at $60 down from $160–yeah, no wonder that bad girl sold out, and fast. (Such a sale is part of the Pinup Girl Clothing Online Yard Sale, where no item is over $60 and the sale section is updated regularly.) So while we’d like to focus a little on the dress and it’s fit to give you PUG newbies an idea of the brand’s quality, we want to focus as well on the parts of us that aren’t so similar; our differing sizes, shapes, colouring and styles.

Pinup Girl Clothing Orange Hawaiian Hideaway Miss Amy May Continue reading →

Vixen In Training [Modelling for Voodoo Vixen]

Posted on July 10, 2015 by missamymay

I don’t do a lot of event or experience based posts on the blog because, quite frankly, my life is just not that interesting; I go to work Monday to Friday like your typical worker bee, I spend a lot of my free time with my family and friends, and then another chunk of time on this blog focusing on the fun not-so-usual style aspects of my life. But occasionally I have something cool I get to share with you, and this time it’s my recent experience modelling for Voodoo Vixen.

My fellow British Belle Amber and I were both asked to be part of a Spring/Summer campaign lookbook for VV in early June and we were thrilled to say yes. Taking a day off work, we travelled up to London for a vintage picnic themed shoot early on a Tuesday morning with our hair in pincurls and the usual London commuters staring. The shoot was in east London, east enough that the Londoners on the team considered it Essex while wee country bumpkin that I am still resolutely saw the London around us.

Shooting in public is always an interesting and amusing experience because people can have curious reactions to stumbling upon a photoshoot in action. On our very first set up, with Amber and I posing against a downed log near a pond, a group of small primary school children were ushered past us on a school trip…and were all lined up and sat down on a small hill immediately facing us, for no other apparent reason we could gather than to have a look at what we were doing.

Casual sassy log chilling in the ‘Alison’ dress for Amber and ‘Leona’ for me

Continue reading →

June Outfits Round Up

Posted on July 2, 2015 by missamymay

We learnt last month that I was wearing the same couple of pairs of shoes almost on repeat, as well as the same set of wooden bangles (but I love them so!) So this month I set myself the challenge to show a little more love to the other items in my shoe racks. Let’s see if I succeeded!

Click on the pictures for a closer look. You can find links in the description to any item that is still available to buy. Anything not linked is from a past season and cannot be found for purchase any longer and/or is not available to buy online.