PRAWK, Polly Wants Some Parrot Pants!

I don’t really do pants. There was a time while I was heavily overweight that I lived in jeans, scared dresses made me look fat, and a time before that in my teens, when I was much less overweight than I believed myself to be, when I lived in skirts, convinced trousers were the fat-highlighters. These days I feel perfectly comfortable in trousers weight-wise, but I’m so in love with the new look silhouette that rarely do I want to give up my full skirts for time spent in pants. Saying that, I’ve always been curious about the Pinup Girl Clothing Capri pants nonetheless, hearing awed rumours that they were a wonder of construction that fit both one’s nipped in waist and accommodated a bodacious backside. That, I knew, was something I had to experience for myself. The features of the capri pants that were supposed to achieve such wonderous results can be found similarly in other PUG pants, like their cigarette pants and high-waisted pants, so when PUG released their Laura Byrnes California High Waisted Cropped Trousers in Parrot Print I was both delighted by the print and super curious about the fit. As a non-pants dweller, I had never got round to ordering a pair to try, but when Pinup Girl Clothing offered to send me bottoms to match my Dixiefried Vintage Bustier Tops I knew the Parrot Pants had to be requested. Because, you know. PARROT PANTS.

Ahem.

Let’s take a look at the parrot-y goodness in action.

Pinup Girl Clothing High Waisted Pants Parrot Trousers Continue reading

Hourglass & Proud [Pinup Girl Clothing Flamenco Mermaid Skirt]

I have a thing for mermaid skirts. It’s kind of an inconvenient ‘thing’ to have because not a lot of companies design great dresses or skirts with a mermaid hem. Even when they do it can be difficult to find one online because some companies list it as fishtail while others get real basic and call it a ruffle hem. The search can be arduous. It has vexed me many a time before. I was pretty psyched, therefore, when I saw a while back that my favourite brand, Pinup Girl Clothing, had produced a mermaid hem skirt that wasn’t just a mermaid skirt, but elite.

This Deadly Dames Flamenco Mermaid skirt is a gorgeous high-waisted cotton sateen design with a ruffled lace mermaid skirt and a pleated skirt back. And It. Is. Stunning. I lusted after it for a long while before I finally got my hands on it and when I did I was not disappointed. I took it out for a spin in historic Lewes town a couple weeks back paired with the previously reviewed Pinup Girl Clothing Dixiefried Vintage Bustier top and had great fun confusing the locals with my early Saturday morning glamour, rain be damned.

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Peachy Keen [Voodoo Vixen Chelsea Dress]

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I first saw this Voodoo Vixen Chelsea dress when I attended London Edge last month. As soon as I saw the peach gingham print I was on board, but even more so once I saw the adorable bow feature neck. So I was really pleased when this dress was swiftly released in their Spring/Summer line and Voodoo Vixen were kind enough to send it to me.

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Renee, Darling & Daring

Last summer Pinup Girl Clothing previewed the Renee dress, a halter neck dress with faux tied bust, Jenny-esque gathered skirt, and, most notable of all, a midriff cut out. Coming in 5 prints–Tipsy Elephant, Mint Pinup Girl, Navy and white Anchor print, and plain red and plain black–I immediately fell in love. Looking at the dress on Doris Mayday it, of course, looked utterly perfect. But I don’t have Doris’s body, and I have probably bared my midriff maybe thrice in my life? And that is just a guestimate as to what seems likely, not based on any actual memories of having done so. My stomach and its general surrounding area is my low-confidence area. So, while I haunted the Coming Soon section last summer waiting for the Renee (and the other dresses I was lusting after) to drop, I battled with myself as to whether I would have the ovaries to buy Renee when she came out.

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All 5 Renee dresses, pictures courtesey of Pinupgirlclothing.com

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2014 in Outfits

2014 saw my style evolve from newbie pinup to fully-fledged, fully-confident pinup. I thought that transformation was mostly internal until I looked back at these collages and saw all the small changes I had made throughout the 12 months last passed, from ditching my jeans altogether even for runs to the supermarket to a marked, marked improvement in my hair game. Scroll through below to see my year’s worth of OOTD’s as I posted to Instagram.

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January

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February

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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

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

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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The Brit & The Belle: Our Pinup Transformations

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.

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Getting to Know Bernie (Ms Dexter If You’re Nasty)

Anyone who follows me on Instagram knows I have a fairly extensive repro wardrobe, but one popular brand missing from it until recently was Bernie Dexter. Going all out, for my first Bernie Dexter purchase I bought not one but three dresses. Typically the lovely dresses designed by this international pinup model fall outside of the per item budget I will allow myself to spend on a dress, but I happened to find that a host of dresses in the clearance section of her site were down to $80 a few weeks ago, almost half their usual price tag. So for the sake of this blog, and not at all because I am a dress buying fiend, I splurged.

Splurged is the right word, not so much because of the dresses but because shipping of these 3 lightweight items cost an astounding $70. SEVENTY DOLLARS. This is the first problem I had with my purchase, and it came very close to me refusing to place an order at all because even for international delivery that is outrageous. Continue reading