Summer Turns to Fall [Guest Blogger FlippaBird]

Posted on October 7, 2015 by missamymay

Today’s post is written for you by new-to-pinup Flippa, stylish mum, general lovely lady, and blogger. In her own words, Flippa can be found posting general ridiculousness on Instagram as @FlippaBird or on her blog about everything and nothing in particular at http://www.FlippaBird.blogspot.com. Today she’s talking you through ways to turn your summer pieces into fall and winter appropriate outfits that retain both warmth and style.

Cooler weather is fast approaching and my wardrobe hasn’t had time to catch up, which leaves me in a predicament! Do I buy cold weather pieces or do I try to transition my existing spring/summer pieces?

Like many of you, I simply don’t have the funds to buy a new wardrobe every single season, so I thought I’d share how I transition my pieces from the warmer months to the cooler months.

I’m going to start with the obvious: a cardigan. This is probably the easiest way to turn a fun summer dress into a cozy winter piece. Below is the Jade Water Color Martini dress from Trashy Diva, styled for summer with coordinating B.A.I.T. pumps and a vintage jade bead necklace.

For fall/winter I’ve added a coordinating green scarf, a beige cardigan, and a brown belt and boots. The cardigan and boots not only warm you up, but the brown colors warm up the bright greens in the dress giving it a cool weather feel.

As convenient as the simple cardigan is, I like to go beyond that. So next I’ll show you two ways to style a wardrobe staple for winter: the Jenny dress from Pinup Girl Clothing. Every gal needs at least one Jenny dress in their closet. As you can see below this is how I generally style it for the warmer months – a lightweight bolero, a flower in my hair, and heels.

For my first transition look I’ve added a long sleeve, solid color button-up shirt in black, a pair of black tights, black patent belt, and coordinating hot pink heels…

You probably noticed the cute kitty cameo brooch from Femme De Bloom? Surprise!! It goes purrrfectly with the black kitty tights (also from PUG). This style is cute, casual, and adds a bit do whimsy to your look…. Which is something I adore!

Next up is a bit of a fancier look. I’ve converted the dress into a skirt by tucking the bodice under and safety pinning it at the waist. A burgundy stretch velvet mock turtleneck ($1.00 thrift find), wide patent belt, long gold rope necklace, and black knee high boots adds a bit of holiday glam.

I’d feel absolutely fabulous (and nice & toasty) attending a party in this outfit! Also hooray for hair scarves on those awful, bad hair days…

The most important thing I’ve discovered in styling my outfits, whatever the weather, is that you really can’t go wrong with an outfit as long as YOU love the end result. So experiment with the different pieces in your closet. Mix thrift finds with high end pieces, combine modern with vintage, and just have a good time playing until you find the look that’s perfect (and comfortable) for you! Happy styling!!

Continue reading →

Dear Dolores [Collectif]

Posted on October 5, 2015 by missamymay

The Dolores Doll dress by Collectif has been around for years, as well as the top of the same name and style. Both have been available in a multitude of colours and prints, new colourways available every season as a staple that some pinups collect almost religiously.

I’ve owned two Dolores tops in the past, a polka dot and the feral leopard print, but as someone who opts for dresses 90% of the time over an outfit made up of paired separates, my Dolores’ were constantly overlooked and eventually passed on to people who would get more use out of them. I love peasant style tops, finding the display of the collarbone and shoulders really feminine, sexy and classy all at once. The only thing that gives me pause with peasants, though, is that sometimes I think the ruched sleeves can hit my arm in the wrong way and can highlight my chubby uppers, as we shall now call them. There’s nothing wrong with having a little arm squish going on–for all but maybe 10% of the population, I think, some degree of upper arm softness is a lifelong constant. But I don’t always want to showcase it. For that reason I stayed away from the Dolores dresses, thinking perhaps that ruched cuff sleeve would do me a disservice.

Buuuut. Then Collectif had a super, super killer sale lately to clear out summer stock ready for their AW pieces. Dolores dresses went from £50 a piece down to £12-14 each. I mean. Come on. What was I gonna do? I’m sure my arms can’t be that bad to pass up a bargain like that.

I bought the blue gingham Dolores thinking that the dress looked like it would be super comfortable, easy to wear and a great option for throwing on for optimal cuteness either when I was in a rush or when I needed something for the times comfort takes absolutely top priority, like for travelling or really long days out. I was absolutely right about that as the Dolores is all of those things I expected it might be. After a stressful day at work last week I put it on one evening for a bit of chill time in the garden, picking some of our apples and watching the sun start to set–and trying to avoid our cat popping into every picture, because she trailed me the entire time.

Collectif navy gingham Dolores dress Continue reading →

Building a Pinup Wardrobe from Bargains

Posted on September 24, 2015 by missamymay

Building a pinup wardrobe from scratch can be an expensive thing, not merely because replacing all your clothes with a specific style means buying a whole wardrobe of clothes is a lot of pieces to be purchasing, but also because good quality reproduction clothing costs. It’s a niche market, automatically making costs higher, but also because most repro clothing companies like to invest in good quality materials, a thorough fitting process during the design process, and ethical labour costs often based in-country rather than sent out of country to continents where labour laws cost the workers and not the companies.

There are pinup brands for every budget, but there are also ways to build your wardrobe with items you love without having to bust out coin you don’t have. Here, I’ll be laying out every trick I’ve learned over the past 3 years to get the best deal you can in your retro shopping.

bargains1

Sign up: Every company that sells their owns goods online will have a ‘sign up for our newsletter’ option on their website. Do it! Not only do a lot of companies offer you a free gift or a discount code just for signing up to their newsletter, but the newsletter itself will give you a heads up on any sales or discount codes they’re offering, delivered straight to your inbox, sometimes with codes or sales held only for newsletter recipients. Continue reading →

Niagara Will Make You Fall

Posted on September 21, 2015 by missamymay

The Niagara dress by Pinup Girl Clothing is a ruched wiggle dress heavily inspired by the pink dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in the movie Niagara. The original dress from the movie, designed by 3-time Oscar winning costume designer Dorothy Jeakins, was such a hit after fans saw the movie that copies were made and sold in 1950s department stores. Dorothy originally made and screen tested the dress in red, as seen below, before it was decided that the hot pink version that appeared in the movie was the winning colour. Pinup Girl Clothing tip their hat to the design of this dress by making it in both the hot pink and red colours Dorothy designed, as well as black and a tiffany blue. In the past other colourways, such as navy and bronze taffeta, have also been made.

Marilyn_Monroe_in_Niagara

Like the dress worn by Marilyn in the movie, the PUG Niagara dress features an underbust cut-out, ruching on the stomach, and a wide collar-bone bearing neckline. The PUG version, while incredibly similar, has a front slit, more pronounced ruching, and a smaller keyhole. Continue reading →

August Outfits Round Up

Posted on September 3, 2015 by missamymay

As far as Augusts go, this one has kind of failed at the one thing I expect of it: to at least try to be decently warm and sunny. We had so much rain there were floods locally, and if I’m totally honest with you I had a bit of a stressed, low energy month personally that made it hard for me sometimes to summon the motivation to make anything more than a base-level attempt at taming my appearance or styling my outfits. I used that low energy as an excuse to both avoid setting my hair so often and to embrace wearing my hair up more. Thanks to #JennyJuly, July passed without me wearing a wiggle at all, failing my once a month self-imposed Wiggle Dress challenge as part of #LovingMeIn2015, so this month I made up for that multiple times with several body hugging outfits.

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.

Black Going Steady dress by Unique Vintage, eBay necklace, bracelets and lace bolero, bedazzled by me (tutorial) clutch and heels. Olive is wearing the Glamour Bunny Marilyn Dress

Continue reading →

Audrey In The Country [Goldie’s Clothing]

Posted on August 24, 2015 by missamymay

This is the final installment in my series of dresses from Goldie’s Clothing, Spanish vintage repro clothing brand. I’ve previously featured two dresses that have some seriously boob-flattering sweetheart necklines, but this final dress is not only different but in a league of it’s own. A Hepburn league.

I give you, the Audrey dress.

Goldie's Clothing Audrey dress Continue reading →

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 →

Curves In Corn [Goldie’s Clothing Lauren Dress]

Posted on August 10, 2015 by missamymay

Goldie’s Clothing is a Spanish vintage style clothing company based out of Barcelona. Formerly known as Cindy Bangs until earlier this year, they’re been producing handmade men’s and women’s clothing inspired by 1940’s and 1950’s fashions since 2011 and have their own store in Barcelona. This is an exciting year of expansion for the Goldie’s crew and I was thrilled when they offered to send me some pieces for trial so I could review the quality of their pieces for you.

First off I’m showing you the Lauren dress, a classic wiggle dress made in high quality stretch bengaline featuring a sweetheart neckline.

Goldie's Clothing Navy Lauren dress Continue reading →