Gil Elvgren "A Nice Crop" Dress by Bettie Page Clothing

see i told you i'm back, and more awkward than ever i'm afraid.  the months of cyberspace isolation made me forget how to pose for pictures, and now i'm pretty shy.  however the last picture is just proof of my sister's photography skills, because she managed to get me to smile for realizies.

 

gil elvgren "a nice crop" dress - bettie page clothing

hair clip - h&m

pink polka dot tights - forever 21

red heels - thrifted vintage

anyway...so the dress is by Bettie Page Clothing, and it was one of the dresses from their limited edition Gil Elvgren collection.  if you are a pin up fan, you already know about the iconic painter of pin ups, and if you aren't familiar with his work i suggest you look up his extensive body of work featuring cute, sexy, and playful women.  this dress is based off of his painting entitled A Nice Crop.

source

ok, i don't have anything else to say, so until next time.

xoxo

a bit of fluff

i was feeling under the weather for the past week, battling a doozy of a cold that transformed into a slight case of bronchitis.  feeling ill and having to spend a week not looking your best does a number on a gal's self esteem, and so i found myself turning to the usual methods of comfort, including soup and snacks.  but tell me, what's a better get well present than a pretty new dress to prance around in when you're feeling a little better?   haha there are a few things, and for the most part has to do with food, but let's not get into that.

a couple of days ago this dress arrived from sugarlips.  when i had initially seen the dress online i knew that the style was a far cry from the 1940s/1950s vintage inspired/retro style i've grown accustomed to.  the crochet and braiding detailing screams 1970s boho chic, but i couldn't help but be drawn to the fun art deco-esque triangle print, and the sexy but sweet open shoulders.  flash forward a week or so later, i find myself feverishly opening a package, slipping out of a 1950s striped number, and into this soft flowy dress.  after a minute or so of twirling around i realized that the bottom half of the dress was a perfect circle skirt.  so with the help of a petticoat i added a bit of fluff to the dress, giving it that 1950s full skirt silhouette.  throw in some vintage black velvet heels and a peach braided velvet headband i had made just 30 minutes before taking pictures, and i had cute retro look that turned out to be exactly my style.







peach braided velvet headband - diyneue pinakothek dress - courtesy of sugarlips apparelpetticoat - gift from my mother black velvet heels - vintage

vivir la vintage vida

This is what I wore to the Huge Frocking Sale! at Frock You! Vintage Boutique in San Diego, CA.  I've only been to this shop once before, which isn't surprising because I rarely shop at vintage boutiques, but once I stepped foot into Frock You! I was immediately smitten.  They offer a great selection of vintage clothing and accessories, all of which are seriously cream of the crop items, all neatly arranged in an adorable shop in one of my favorite SD neighborhoods (North Park).

I, for the most part, find my vintage clothing at thrift stores primarily because I enjoy the thrill of the hunt and those bargain prices that you can only find if you're willing to dig through tons of undesirables.  However, once in a while this thrifty gal likes to treat herself to the luxury of perusing through a large selection of crème de la crème vintage clothing.  Boutiques are like candy stores for vintage lovers.  And for a vintage obsessed chocolate fiend like me, boutiques are quickly becoming a bit of a bad habit of mine.  Parce que, pour la créme de la créme, tu dois dépenser beaucoup d'argent (hah, forgive my French, I am a mediocre student of languages, ergo the awful Spanglish entitling this post).

Luckily, there are awesome vintage boutiques like Frock You!, that hold awesome sales that fuse the bargain prices of thrifting with the premium selection found at boutiques.  So what you get is a bunch of awesome vintage clothing and accessories, most of which are under $20 bucks.  Pretty good deal when some vintage shops and online vendors will sell a 50s party dress for around $90-$300 bucks (but I have seen them cost even MORE).

Under these conditions I just knew that when I attended day 2 of the 3 day sale, I was bound to find something just for me.  Who would have thought that I would end up finding a knockout of a dress that was exactly what I have been looking for these past couple of months.  I know, sounds strange to be looking for things that are basically one of a kind.  But I had an idea of something I wanted, a 1950s light blue lace and chiffon party dress.  Ahah! Super specific I know, but I have an imagination that knows no bounds.  And would you believe it?  I ended up finding a dress matching that exact description.  It was crazy!  It needs a little work though, as there was a bit of tearing on the ruched waist, and the zipper needs to be replaced.  Once the dress gets some tlc I'll wear it, and you can bet you'll see it on this blog. 




  hah don't you hate it when your heels sink into the ground?

1950s light blue blouse - vintage (La Bomba, Long Beach)
hawaiian floral shorts - vintage (Flashbacks, San Diego)
black velvet heels - vintage (Salvation Army)

By the way, the blouse and shorts were both found at vintage boutiques that are worth checking out, for the selection and for what I believe is fair pricing.

blue collar baby

So my top is actually mint colored but the title of the post is a reference to the working class. I recently started a job that involves some desk work, a far cry from what I normally do. For those of you that do not know, which is probably everyone, I mostly work in film and video production. Strange thing is I didn't have to change the way I dressed as I started doing more white collar work, because I pretty much dress the same way when I do production work. Yes, I wander around carrying cameras and/or set lights wearing vintage outfits, including dresses. It has never interfered with my efficiency and so I figured, might as well. Except I do believe I should invest in some bloomers as I find myself more often than not, in flasher prone situations. But today I figured I'd try to put together an ensemble that is more manual labor friendly, though still vintage inspired. I'm psyched on the look and plan on collecting more pieces like these in various colors so that soon I'll have my very own work wardrobe.








gray twist scarf - target
mint collar button up - vintage
burnt sienna pants - vintage
blue espadrilles - vintage

rainbow rockabilly

The 80s must have been a really fun decade to live in when it came to personal style. Acid wash, sequins, glitter, crazy colors and prints, lace, tulle, legwarmers, and the list goes on. I questioned my aunt (whom I've always known to have a style of dress all her own) about how it was like to live in the 80s, and without hesitation she replied, "The 80s were really fun, you could dress any way you wanted, any style you could think of." And I believe her. This is an 80s does 50s dress. You can tell when a garment was made by a number of things, the size on the tag, metal zipper or buttons, and lots of other things I won't get into right now (we'll save that for a more detailed post). But this dress in particular screamed the 80s, by #1 - The brightly colored plaid fabric, and #2 - The quintessential 80s font used on the tag.  Nowadays we can pretty much dress however we want to as well, but when I look at the rainbow color scheme, and awesome 50s inspired cut of this dress, I know that it was definitely a wild-style free for all back then, with a lot more things being produced that you could choose from.





80s does 50s plaid shirt dress - thrifted
blue espadrilles made in spain - thrifted vintagebrass horse buckle waist cinch belt - urbanoutfitters super sale
yellow weaved bag - thrifted vintage
orange dahlia hair clip - etsy

faux fancy

"what poor and unfortunate creature had to die for you to wear that?"
"11 teddy bears" - retro minx

It's been pretty chilly in Southern California today, considering we've been spoiled with weather in the low 70s this past week.  And I hear we are expected to have relatively warm weather this coming weekend.  So I decided while I wait for the warmer weather I'd use this opportunity to wear this vintage faux fur caplet I picked up while thrifting in a Salvation Army this past summer.  It was one of those finds that are fantastic, but terribly unseasonal so it was forgotten and hidden in the back of my closet up until very recently.  I don't wear it too much because 1) I'm in Southern California, so it's rarely cold enough to warrant wearing something like this and 2) It looks really fancy.  But who knows, I consider myself a fancy sort of gal and so I just may start wearing it more often, like when I go grocery shopping.  I mean it does gets pretty chilly in the milk/butter/cheese sections. ;)

 


faux fur caplet - thrifted vintage
floral chiffon blouse - forever 21 (a long time ago)
pink satin gloves - from my mother
purple front pleat a line skirt - thrifted vintage
nude peep toes - thrifted vintage

p.s. if you recognize where the first quote is from, we should be best friends.

librarian phase part deux

a new year...hmmm...anyway,

i dressed like a librarian again.



 
 
1950s embroidered cardigan - vintage (monk vintage, brooklyn, ny)
fancy tank - brandy&melville
tweed skirt - vintage
nude peep toes - vintage

50s pencil skirt, mint condition

Today I woke up feeling particularly low and resigned myself to the idea that I would just stay in bed for the rest of the day.  But then, right as I was about to pull my covers over my head to coax myself into another few hours of restless sleep, a good friend of mine text me.  Immediately I remembered that New Years Eve was tomorrow and knew that I needed to pick myself up and get moving if I wanted to be well enough to ring in the new year right.  So I subjected myself to tough love, forced myself to get up, get dressed, and went out for some fresh air and food.  Speaking of fresh, I thought it would be nice to break in my mint 1950s pencil skirt that I thrifted earlier this week.  I adore how pencil skirts cinch my waist, hug my hips, and most importantly, make my butt look good (haha, I'm half kidding).  It makes perfect sense that these skirts were popular in the 1950s when an impressive woman was a trophy wife; pretty, seen but not heard.  You could say that pencil skirts were created to merely demean women further, making them more of a display for men to gawk at, but I'm pretty sure that half of the time women purposely wield some sort of power with the manner in which they dress (Marilyn Monroe, Joan Holloway, etc).  And yes part of that power is based in sexuality, but the other is rooted in confidence.  Women were probably driven half crazy having to be so submissive, therefore it seems only natural that they would start wearing skirts that screamed loud and clear that they were women.  "I AM A WOMAN, LOOK AT MY HIPS!  If I don't feel like hiding it behind yards and yards of fabric, underneath petticoats and full skirts, then I won't.  I'm shaped like this for a reason, and if you can't handle that image, then GTFO."  Ahah, of course that's just my exaggerated and belligerent interpretation of what women were thinking, but who knows I could be fairly accurate :P



 

 

 

cream floral chiffon headband - forever 21
nude polka dot blouse - thrifted
mint 1950s pencil skirt - vintage (thrifted)
nude peep toes - vintage (thrifted)

librarian libertarian

librarian libertarian is my self proclaimed political disposition.  i'd get into the details of what that entails but i'm not entirely sure myself, and if i start to develop the ideology now we'd never get to talking about the outfit, which is likely the main reason you are here.  anyway, i managed to pull my still ill self together for a hot second to take a brief outing to a book store to get another novel to keep me company as i continue to rest.  i ended up dressing up in this preppy peach outfit and thought i looked like a librarian from the waist up, but a liberated one from the waist down; see summery espadrilles.


 



 

 

peach plaid peter pan collared blouse - vintage
peach cardigan - vintage
gray leggings - forever 21
navy espadrilles - vintage

etsy shop: for the retro minxy

now open! For the Retro Minxy

swingin gingham

cherry baby

hot mama

meet me at west beech street

waiting for a young greaser to pick me up.

dress - vintage

black boat neck long sleeve - uniqlo heattech (it really works)

black lace up boots - vintage 

twist scarf - american apparel

welcome to my closet

chalk full of retro and vintage threads.