Tag Archives: style

Deadly Is This Female

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A lot of you know I am a Pinup Girl Clothing addict, and when my UK readers/IG followers ask me where they can find our much beloved PUG in the UK I direct them to one site–Deadly Is The Female.

Deadly Is The Female is a brick and mortar store based in Frome, Somerset, here in the UK. But for those of us who aren’t lucky enough to have visited the real life store their online shop stocks plenty of amazing things to keep your typical pinup happy. In addition to stocking PUG they also carry Stop Staring, Trashy Diva and Tatyana, bringing you swing dresses and wiggles, separates and swimwear, makeup and sunglasses and stoles and handbags and…well, all the best of pretty much everything. They even stock some B.A.I.T footwear, something I’ve personally found hard to track down in the UK so that I don’t have to pay hefty international postage fees and additionally hefty import taxes. New stock flows in all the time, and I love keeping up to date with DisF on their Instagram and Facebook feeds, where they post all sorts of cute retro pictures and meme-like lols as well as shots of their gorgeous stock. Continue reading →

Travelling in Style

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I don’t get away on vacation a lot, but this year I’ve taken a couple of long weekends with friends and family, which is always lovely. Less lovely is the juggle of figuring out how to adapt one’s pinup style to the practical requirements of packing and travelling. It’s tricky sometimes, but being comfortable and stylish on the move is a balance that can be struck as long as you bear in mind a few key components. A big one is the weather.

Travelling in summer means you want to wear something cool as well as comfortable: halter dresses, strapless dresses or 2 or 3 piece sets work well, as long as you remember to take into account your own body and it’s needs: I hate the feeling of a tight waistband if I’m going to be sitting for a few hours travelling, so there are certain pieces in my wardrobe that I just can’t wear for long journeys, like my Pinup Girl Clothing Jenny dresses. On my weekend away this summer I opted to wear my super comfortable red Tiki Temptation dress by Glamour Bunny for the drive to the beach with my family. It has overwiring on the cups to give a great shape to the neckline but the rest of the dress is soft and has give, so it doesn’t dig in while sitting.

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Day 1: Glamour Bunny Tiki Temptation Dress

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Lady in Red – Tatyanna.co.uk on Sale

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Every woman needs a red dress. This is a truth universally acknowledged–or, at least, it should be. Personally I believe every woman may only need one, but it’s best to have three: one cocktail dress, one casual day dress, and another that’s somewhere in between, simple enough to be dressed up for evening or down for day. I own a sarong wiggle dress in red for evening, a red sailor style dress for day, but somehow I’ve never quite found my in-between. Ah, until now.

I recently discovered that Tatyanna.co.uk is beginning a sale today, Friday 14th November, which is awesome because this is a site that stocks a lot of my favourite high quality reproduction brands, and of course who doesn’t love a sale? One of the items that is in said sale is a dress I have now fallen in love with: the red Milan dress by Heart of Haute.

This dress is sleeveless deep V-neck swing dress, fitted at the waist and coming with it’s own matching fabric covered belt. As I’m a UK 14 Tatyanna.co.uk sent me the size L, and it fits perfectly. I really feel it accentuates my waist well, something not all dresses do and thus require some additional attention of an extra good belt to cinch me in, but the Milan fits me well enough I can leave the belt off if I wish. Another surprising thing is that I, of the petticoat addiction, actually like the way this dress hangs on me even without a petticoat–shocking, truly, as I never leave off my pettiskirt. This is especially good to know for summers that are too hot for extra layers, and for when I want to make this casual enough that a petticoat would nix that intention. It still looks fabulous with a petticoat, of course, and that’s how I photographed it for you, to show it at it’s full glory as per my usual style.

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JOAN-sing For Atypical Girl Clothing

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I was recently very excited to attend the launch party for Atypical-girl.com, a brand new clothing website stocking a selection of carefully curated original vintage and reproduction clothing, aimed at retro loving dolls and girls with a fashion edge. Atypical Girl is different to your typical pinup clothing site because the focus is on finding your own style, whether that be with a truly authentic eye to a classic era or with a modern take on vintage looks you love. So I was very curious to attend to the launch party and see just what Atypical Girl would be about–and of course, it was no surprise that it was a great event held in a funky private member’s club, featuring a variety of excellent retro music, vintage canapes and even some kick-ass Go Go dancers. I was thrilled to meet Atypical Girl’s founder Simone Hadfield, @missturnstiles to you Instagrammers, who, yes, is as gorgeous, chic and lovely in person as you’d expect. I love me some Girl Bosses, and Simone is definitely one of them. Pictures of the event can be found on the Atypical Girl’s Facebook page, which you should go like. Bonus points to the first reader to count up the number of times I’m caught pulling a stupid face while actively engaging in conversation (It is, I’m ashamed to say, many times.)

After attending such a wonderful event it was obvious I needed something from the Atypical Girl range, and at Simone’s own suggestion I couldn’t help but agree that the Joan dress had to join my wardrobe. This green wiggle dress is a true classic, made of knitted twill it’s comfortable as well as flattering, and I love the waist detail of pleats settled beneath a fabric kind-of-belt that crosses at the front then fastens behind with a single button. The dress is truly timeless, and considering how killer it would look on Christina Hendricks’ character in Mad Men it is no surprise at all why this hot little item is named the Joan. All you redheaded ladies definitely need to pick up this colourway as it will be true magic with your ginger hair, but it’s such a universally complimentary colour that I can’t think of a single hair colour or skin tone that wouldn’t wow in this dress.

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A Blouse Named Alika

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For those of you who read my last blog A Dress Named Alika about the Tatyana Alika dress you’ll know I coveted that dress for nigh on a year before I was able to make it mine. It was the gorgeous lattice detail neckline that made me want that dress so badly, so imagine my delight when I logged into the Tatyana website a little while back to check out their Buy One Get One offer only to find they now offered an Alika blouse with that same gorgeous lattice work and a flattering peplum cut. I literally gasped when I saw it, my heart rate increasing. I began swatting at my phone in a panic to load the purchase page as if worried every other pinup in the world might be making this same discovery simultaneously and could cause this item to go out of stock even as I was attempting to buy it. A bit dramatic, but sometimes I excited about pretty things.

With the item safely purchased, I could not wait for my package to arrive! And when it did I was just as in love with this blouse as I thought I would be.

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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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A Beginner’s Guide To: Bedazzling

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Whether you want to bedazzle a pair of shoes, a phone case or a headband, you’re going to need the same materials and the same methodology. Hopefully by the end of this post you’ll know what you need to know in order to get gluing and glittering all over town. Let’s get to it.

What you’ll need:
– Glue, specifically made for bedazzling. I use GemTac, but you can also use E6000 (which must be used in a well ventilated area and preferably while wearing a mask, as there’s links to cancer with this glue. Part of why I prefer GemTac.)
– A gem picker/jewel setter. Typically a wax end picker, as pictured below at the bottom of the equipment image, but I prefer to use a pencil picker, as pictured at the top.
– Your shoes or accessory of choice, clean and dry.
– Flat backed crystals, obviously. 

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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 →