How To: Go 1940s on a budget

As you know, I love absolutely all kinds of vintage, but I do not like to spend a lot of time getting ready in the morning or the night before, which is why I spend much of my time wearing the practical, straight-haired vintage of later eras. Lately though I have been feeling a certain nostalgia for older styles (probably brought on by my watching of the BBC series The Hour) and so today I decided to indulge myself - yet due to my budget I don't actually own any 40s vintage, but it is still possible to achieve the look.

Here is an example of how you can ( "make-do and mend" ) using your thrifting skills, to transform yourself into a 40s goddess for a day...

For the outfit you will need:

1) A short-sleeved button down blouse. It doesn't really matter too much what colour or pattern. You can often find a lot of white or creme coloured 'granny' blouses in op-shops - which is what mine is. And remember, the women of the 40s made their clothing out of all sorts of old scraps and materials like curtains and hessian sacks!

2) A high waisted, below the knee length, A-line skirt. Mine is a 1970s A-line skirt which I found in an op-shop - (70s skirts are still fairly easy and cheap to come by) or any kind of A-line skirt, even a rap around will do.

3) A neat fitting, thrifted cardigan.

 For the accessories you will need:

Jewellery: A thrifted necklace such as fake pearls or beads - or an old brooch to jazz up the outfit.

Shoes: Espadrilles or another kind of low wedge heel will do well. If you don't have these try using some basic lace-up sneakers worn with ankle socks instead.

Here is my version of the look

Finally

For the make-up & hair:

Make-up: (This is the fun part!) - sit yourself in front of a mirror and paint some black eye liner above your lashes with small cat-eye flicks at the ends. Then add some blush and a dash of red lipstick. If you have a compact mirror, gaze at yourself in the compact mirror while you apply for effect!

 

Hair: I'll be honest - I'm the worst hairdresser in the world. I have very straight, fine hair which never seems to do what I want it to do when it comes to curls. This, paired with the fact that I don't seem to possess any form of patience makes things difficult.

If you can do victory rolls by all means go for it because you're a star and they look amazing. If you're lacking the many hours sitting in front of a mirror that is needed in order to become a proper retro pin-up girl, there is an easy & quick style to start with:

Part your hair in the middle and pull the top front section of hair including the hair that sits above your ear, towards the front (one side at a time). Twist it in towards your parting leaving a looser section of hair up the top (like you would if you were making a pouff) so that it sits up high as you fold the long twist of hair backwards and behind. Pin this twist behind the pouff of hair sitting up  with two bobby pins & spray lightly. You can also curl the ends of your hair with a curling iron if you so wish.

*If you are confused by my lack of pictures, this style is sort of like the beginning of a victory roll, without the roll, so watching an online tutorial for these might help!!*

And voila!

A century (almost) in shoes

I've come to realise what my guilty pleasure in life is:

I really, really enjoy browsing through vintage shoes, whether it's in a market or online I don't really mind.

I think I've always been enchanted by shoes from a very young age, particularly high heels (somewhat ironically since I can't really walk in high heels due to a foot ailment I had as a child). I used to love trying on grown-ups high heels when I was a kid. Then there was the love affair with those little pink plastic princess shoes (you know the ones with the little feathers on the toes that click click around when you walk) that seem to be essential to every four year old girl's life.

I think it's obvious to most people who know me well...or read my blog!...that I love all vintage fashion, but there is something about the design qualities of shoes (their sleekness, shininess, glamour) that seems - when it's done well - to mimic perfection.

A couple of years ago I was browsing through a book shop and I came across a book called Vintage Shoes by Caroline Cox that was basically a pictorial history of shoes, and wow, I fell in love with it. Every decade of shoe history was covered with big colour photographs and biographies of the shoe designers. I suppose everyone who is interested in the elements of design must have one particular object that they favour like houses, or cars, or chairs? Mine I think, must be shoes.

The funny thing is though that despite this visual love for shoes, I don't own many pairs of shoes myself. I think this is because I am very very fussy when it comes to the shoes I wear, I like them to be sleek, easy to walk in and flattering on my feet, and because vintage shoes are often so pricey and hard to come by in large shoe sizes.

The good thing is, I still find pleasure in looking at shoes, even if I can't own them.

Here are some amazing women's shoes (perhaps I will do a post of men's shoes in another post one day) from different decades that I have fallen in love with via etsy.

Just click on the era to go to the source.

Victorian

I am a big fan of Victorian lace-ups. Always thought they looked comfy (but I doubt anyone could fit into them now because their feet were so small!)

1900s

Aren't these just beautiful?

1920s

1930s

1940s-50s

To me, 40s shoes are just the most glamorous...and the 70s tend to mimic the 40s when it comes to shoes so I love them both of course!

1960s

1970s

These are BIBA!! :O

1980s

Love these! Very Molly Ringwald in Pretty In Pink!

1990s...

Well most of us were there weren't we? And to be honest I'm not a huge fan of those chunky Spice Girl platforms....(I'm sure there were some decent shoes in the 90s?) but I'll leave it to your imagination.

What is your favourite shoe era?

1960s eye make-up

The other night I was feeling really bored so I decided to try doing some Penelope Tree style eye make-up to pass the time.

Pamela Des Barres, Penelope Tree, Shelly Duvall & Twiggy
via: sandy says

This is how it turned out (the images are bad quality phone photos sorry!) I have tried doing 60s make-up before and hadn't been entirely happy with the turn out, but this time I think I figured it out. You have to space the liquid eyeliner bottom lash strokes quite far apart for it to show up from a distance...and because my eyes are deep set I have to make the strokes quite long.

Living in 70s High-Rise

The most flattering kind of hip wear.

via

Charlotte Gainsbourg

stylepantry

Stevie Nicks via

hypeed

via

Jodie Foster as Iris in Taxi Driver 1976

 

chictopia

via

hypeed

Mmmhmm. That's right.

Happy Saturday!

Blog changes & Style Crush: The Runaways

I watched The Runaways again for the first time in about a year. I saw it twice at the movies when it came out cause I loved it so much. I pretty much love everything about it: the music, the story, Joan Jett's awesomeness and of course the fashion. I'd just really like a pair of high waisted denim flare jeans right now. That is my one desire. But well fitting jeans are hard to find at the best of times and well this kind just isn't very prominant in department stores or op shops. I hope one day I will find some.

I have also made a few little changes to my blog being a) I have added a little survey question on the bottom right hand side because I just felt like it and I'm curious and b) I added a 'reactions' box to the bottom of my posts and changed it to a 'like box'. The reason I did this is because I am sick of blogger being a pain in the ass and not letting me comment on people's blog posts that I like. There have been so many in the past few weeks that I wanted to comment on and I decided that it would be nice if there was another way to let people know that I liked their post. So I would encourage others to try this out too. If you go to the design section and click to edit the blog posts layout there is an option to add 'reactions' ie words like 'cool' etc to your posts, but you can also modify it if you want to and change the 'reactions' to whatever you like, so I chose to make it a 'like this post' box. I think this is a good way to spread the love when blogger is being unreliable.

Anyhoo here's the styles I love from The Runaways...

Really loving this double denim!

Norma Jean Vintage Opening!

Hi there!

Exciting news, the etsy shop I mentioned a little while ago is up and running for bussiness (finally!) This is just a little post to show you some of the more recent items added to the shop and also to let you guys know about a special coupon code open to my lovely blog readers should you be interested in an item.

Just enter the code 'MARILYN' at the checkout for 10 % off!

These are some of my favourite items from the shop:

1960s colourful gingham ruffled party dress

Pretty 80s peter-pan collar floral dress

60s/70s royal blue lace daisy dress

Thanks again for reading and commenting!

Happy Friday :)

**I just found out that today is the 49th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death and am slightly amazed that I happened to make a coupon code called 'Marilyn' for my Marilyn themed shop on such a day. Strange coincidence? Rest in peace Marilyn, you were and will always remain lovely**

Slender 60s

Antonio Lopez 60s fashion illustration:

This is my favourite type of fashion illustration, the long, languid, fluid twiggy-esque lines of 60s. I particularly love the beautiful rounded foreheads and eyes and the use of colour in these Lopez drawings. It is truly candy for the eyes.

images via trendland

Style Icon: Vivian Westwood

"God Save Vivienne Westwood ! The Grande Dame of Punk, this stylist, despite her years, knows how to sustain her taste for anti-establishment."

Today I read a short article over breakfast about success in later life that featured Vivian Westwood. I think it is a really wonderful thing to think about people who have done great things later on in there lives because for one thing it shows that youth and beauty are not limitations and that growing old doesn't have to be a down-hill process.

Believe it or not Vivian was a Primary School teacher up until around the age of thirty (can you imagine having the pioneer of Punk as your school teacher?!) before she embarked down the road of fashion design and opened her own Boutiqe with Malcom McLaren which was first called "Let It Rock" and afterwards, most famously "SEX." She is most famous for dressing the Sex Pistols, establishing a new avant-garde Punk style and selling S & M style bondage clothing in her store SEX in the 70s and has been known as a forerunner of style ever since.

She has now been making fashion for over 40 years!

I admire her for her daring sense of style and the fact that she has grown 'old' without losing her sense of fun and vibrancy but also without trying to be something she is not ie. trying to hide her age with plastic surgery. I guess she really is an example of how age is no limit.

The 'scandalous' shop.

I love her orange hair ever so!