Can you believe I'm wearing brown? No me neither, but it is a beautiful late 1950s St Michael dress...

Around 12 years ago there was a phase in fashion where brown was really, really in. I remember it vividly because I had this brown and blue skirt from Next that was the only concession I would make to the brown trend. About 10 years ago I decided I hated said skirt not only because of the colour, but also the stupid asymmetric hem. Ew.

So imagine my surprise when I came across a vintage dress that was most certainly brown, and I really, really liked it. WHAT?! I think the saviour of this dress was that it was not a chocolate brown, but also that it had a print design to it. I can best liken it to a cross between animal print and tree bark. Miaow.

The dress is 1950s St. Michael or Marks and Spencer as it's known now and still has the satin label that was used at the time. I love the fact that M&S changed their labels so frequently allowing their clothes to be dated so easily.

With the dress I wore a modern M&S cardigan, vintage beads and a vintage belt (that is dropping to bits and desperately needs replacing!).

My freshly trimmed hair was tucked into a nylon scarf bow that I tied around my head. I am so much happier with my hair now that I have had all the perm damage cut off. It is in so much better condition and I think I suit the darker colour so much more than the red.

And the back of my hair showing how I tucked it all in the nylon scarf.

The back drop for these photos was a super glamourous back alley in Alnwick, Northumberland. I felt the colours made a lovely combination to go with the dress.

Last think to mention is something else pretty cool. In Alnwick there is a huge second hand book store where the famous/infamous Keep Calm and Carry On poster was originally found. Since the keep calm thing is a huge now it was pretty nifty to see the original.

Outfit details:

Dress: Vintage St. Michaels

Cardigan: Modern M&S

Necklace and Belt: Vintage

Hair Scarf: From Natalie Vintageous

Shoes: Clarks

 How do you find brown clothes? Yey or Ney? 

A post about one of my best charity shop finds to date!!! EEK! A vintage early 60s Harrods dress!

I've been very much neglecting my charity shop duties of late as I've been trying to cut back a little bit and save some money. However I missed my train home a few weeks ago so I decided to have a peek in the local charity shop Hospice in the Weald. This is one of the better charity shops in my area as they have a really good mix of items.

Anywho, I was drawn immediately to a blue sleeve on the dress rail and absolutely delighted to to pull out this 1960s shirt waister dress - in my size!!

Things got better still when I checked inside for labels and found the label saying Harrods. EEP! A lovely dress, true vintage and from Harrods? How could it get any better?!?!

Price tag: £6.

Well how could I not get it...

(On a side note I used Vintage Fashion Guild for label checking - they are an amazingly useful resource for the vintage gal/chap)

The only downside was that it was unlined, however I wore it with a vintage slip and I don't think you would ever know the difference.

All in all I thought it was a delightful find. It is also worth noting that this post was one of the earliest with my freshly coloured hair. I think it goes rather well with the dress and belt!

And one last one with my vintage Laura Ashley coat:

What is your best charity shop find?

Outfit Details:

Dress: Vintage Harrods

Belt: Vintage (from my Nanna)

Scarf: Gift

Coat: Vintage Laura Ashley

Help me choose my next pair of glasses! With a bit of a christmassy theme!

This week I have returned home to visit my parents and family over the Christmas season. Christmas always makes me feel super festive and I love the fact that it is the one time of the year I can wear red and green colour combinations.

(I'm also going to apologise upfront about my hair too. Its MASSIVE. Unfortunately this can't be helped sometimes...)

Now speaking of red and green, I've been wanting some red-ish glasses for some time and I've noticed that online retailer Specspost are doing some great coloured frames at the moment. Including some greens too! They're all very reasonably priced with most glasses between £12-30 including lenses. They are also having an advent calendar sale at the moment where you can get complete glasses for £12.99!!

The problem is that with so many options is that it is really difficult to choose just one pair. So really helpfully Specspost offer a home trial where you can be sent up to three pairs of glasses and then chose the best ones to keep (although they were really nice and sent me one extra to share with you!!).

So that's what I've done! I've picked mostly red hues but I did also go for one green pair so see how that would look. Please have a look and let me know which ones suit me best! 

First up I chose two frames from the colour collection and are a deep clear red. They are more of a typical geek style wayfarer frame, and not what I usually go for, but its always good to try new things. You can find them here.

I actually really liked this style. The frames were really comfortable and the frames were big enough that you didn't get red invading your peripheral vision.

Next, I tried the same style in a clear green. These glasses are insanely funky. I really like the colour, but I am worried that the colour is a little bit out there for my fashion choices. Or can I pull it off? I'm not sure. These specs are currently only £12.99 in the advent sale so its worth taking a look if you want a funky colour.

The third frame was also red and is called Bunting from the Ruby & Rose collection. I actually already have these glasses in blue rinse and although they are quite nice, I am not sure they are different enough from my usual glasses to take the plunge...

The last pair I was sent was Garter, also from the Ruby & Rose collection, and I went for this style because I have not tried a round frame before and I thought these looked really retro without being cats-eye. The exact colour was difficult to describe, a sort of redish burgundy, and I thought it was subtly festive.

So now I need to chose which pair of glasses I actually want to order. Its a really tough choice :(

I'd love to know which pair you think suits me best. Please comment and let me know - and you should totally check out Specspost, I've not encountered such affordable glasses anywhere and they have really good options for customising lenses at really good prices.

So tell me, which glasses should I get?!?

Vintage outfit: Lotta from Stockholm clogs and a 1960s dress

Oh em gee! I adore clogs, in almost all forms. I already own a few pairs of Lotta's clogs and I couldn't help myself but jump at the chance to review another pair.

Since the weather is changing and getting colder everyday, I decided to go for a style that would be useful for the changing seasons. I went with the closed toe highwood T-bar in navy as blue is one of my must have colours. The plan was that with this style I could wear the clogs bare legged, but also with tights in a range of colours ready for the winter (Lotta's blog also thinks this is a good fashion choice).

So on an autumn-y day I decided to take my new clogs for a spin with some tights that I can only really describe as mustard. Clothing wise I went with a blue dress from the late 1960s with a peter pan collar. I've had this dress for a little while, but it was a touch too snug when I first got it, and since loosing a few pounds it now fits pretty nicely (although the belt is very fragile!). I think this will look lovely with a thick mustard cardigan as the weather gets even colder.

Mind you, I'm pretty sure, these clogs could go with anything.

As for the clogs, I've had retro peep toe low clogs, braided summer high clogs and super comfy soft sole clogs, so I thought it was worth the risk to try a higher heeled pair.

To my absolute delight, these are the best fitting clogs I've had yet! I wore them all day at work and for a stroll around town, straight out the box, and there were no blisters in sight!

The leather was lovely and soft and even with wearing them all day there was no dye transfer to my tights.

I was slightly concerned about the higher heel and width as the braided pair I have were quite difficult to get on with at first as they were so narrow, but there were not such issues with this pair, like a glove from day one. I wouldn't recommend the high pairs if you have very wide feet, but they are pretty roomy for normal and narrow footed folks (and if you have wider feet the low clogs are perfect for you).

The heel height is just about right with a bit of a platform to make it more comfortable, but I actually didn't have any trouble at all with the heel which is unusual for me.

The thing that I love so much about clogs is that they can help to complete an outfit and can make it look quite vintage. I can see why Lotta's and Hasbeens are very popular with the vintage girls. If you want to browse Lotta's click the button in my sidebar to take you to their site. 

The highwoods are a great pair of starting clogs if you're okay with a bit of a heel and they come in two part, t-bar and peep toe so they have every style and almost all colours you could possibly want. I'm after some more t-bars in a purpley colour, but I think for summer next year it will have to be some of the apple green peep toes too. I'm so addicted!!

Clogs: Lotta from Stockholm

Tights: Primark

Dress: Vintage

Bag: Vintage

Alice Band: Accessorize

Comics Unmasked at the British Library and a Vintage Dress

Why hello everyone! Last weekend I went to the Comics Unmasked exhibition at the British Library. It was a really interesting exhibition that covered so many aspects of comic book culture that are still contentious issues today and showed rather excellently how much influence British writers and artists had on comic book culture.

We spent about two hours in the exhibition, which I think is actually quite a lot, and they had comics from victorian era right through to modern ones from this year. My favourite part was seeing original pages of artwork full constructed, in some cased you can see where the sketch lines are and when tip-ex was used to remove errors and to highlight. One thing I learned was that in many cased the text bubbles were stuck directly over the panels in the old fashioned way. I thought they were amazing. Sadly photography wasn't allowed.

They were selling a whole load of really cool merchandise, from comic books to notebooks and buttons:

Since the weather's been so nice lately I decided to wear a sleeveless vintage dress. I love the mix of colours on this, I think its 80s (based largely on the colour) but I do think it fits quite well with a rockabilly style look. So that's how I wore it.

I added a wide cinch belt, matching red ballet pumps and cats eye glasses. One of my favourite accessories at the moment is my moonglow necklace, I've become a bit obsessed with retro and vintage plastic jewellery so finding a super shiny red necklace was a total winner.

To go with the dress I put the hair in a bumper bang. If I'm honest I am amazed by how neat I managed to get it - that pretty much never happens!

Dress:Vintage

Sunglasses: North Laines Brighton

Necklace: Vintage/Thrifted

Shoes: M&S

Belt: Primark

Scarf: Vintage

What do you think of the outfit combo? I wonder if I would make a good comic book character?

Spring to Summer Florals: A One Pound Vintage Dress and a 99p Vintage Hat

A few weeks ago I was trawling my favourite charity shops and I came across this dress. Now, I'm usually quite against 100% polyester clothing as a rule, but I really lived the vibrant print on this dress and I thought the button across neckline was something different to the style I usually go for. The thing is though, the dress had a couple of split seams so the lady in the shop decided she would sell it for £1!

How could I not get it?!

Even better than the £1 dress was this hat that I got off eBay. For 99p. It is hard to find a good black vintage hat, especially a summer one, but this on was able to tick my boxes. 

I don't know if you've noticed but it seems that jelly shoes are the latest in thing but I'm not sure that any of those clunky 90s style ones that are so ubiquitous at the moment were for me.

What I do have, however, are these Vivien Westwood/Melissa flats that I got for my Princess Daisy costume back in October. They are soooo comfy and water proof so they are a perfect alternative to the clunky jelly shoes. Mine came from eBay and because they were second hand and from an auction ending at a really silly time, I managed to get them for a steal at £15!!

I thought with the bright floral look I was doing a pretty good job at blending in with the flowers around the park... sort of...

And finally:

How much grey hair do I have?! It is simply not right that someone under 30 should have this much... How long before I start to look like a badger?

Dress: Hospice in the Weald

Vintage Hat: eBay

Bag: Sue Ryder

Shoes: eBay

What do you think, a whole outfit for under £25!

What's your best thrifty outfit?

Winter is coming: a red autumn leaves print dress

Oh how the weather is changing, longer nights are coming in, the temperature has dropped and as Eddard Stark would say, Winter is coming.

So what does that mean for me? Well it means breaking out the opaque tights, the cardigans, coats and bringing out the winter hats and gloves. I felt I really had the perfect dress for this.

 

I found this 1050s dress on eBay and I absolutely fell in love with it. I thought it was the perfect dress for the autumn but was a little expensive for my budget. I did my best haggling with the seller and managed to get a reduction by £10! Meaning at £35 it is the most expensive vintage dress I own, but I don't think that is a bad price for a 1950s dress.

It is always a bit of a risk when buying anything online when you aren't sure of the fit. I have a fairly good idea of my measurements and I know what style suits my shape so I think I can usually get a fair idea of what should fit. This dress worked out better than I ever hoped, it fit like a dream! I'm not sure it could have been any better - as you can tell from my face, I felt like a million bucks in this dress.

The dress also passes the twirl test as the skirt is huge.

Now because I was wearing such a nice dress, I had to do something nice with my hair. I used a bit of Batiste dry shampoo to clean up my fringe and give the top a bit more texture, but because I hadn't washed in over 2 days it meant it was much easier to work with. I split my hair into sections and had flowing swirls down from above my right ear to the nape of my neck. I added a little flower to the other side to even out the style but I thought it worked out pretty well, its the first time I've managed to do one of those shorter flat curl styles. I need to work on trying to get the look a little more sleek and hair grip placement but I was pretty pleased with the results.

There is, however, a reason that these pictures were taken inside. Outside the weather was rainy and miserable. I only have one coat here as I didn't really expect the weather to turn so quickly. I really need to head home to pick up the others, but luckily the coat I did bring was a black rain coat. Its not the best style to go with this dress, but it kept me dry!

Dress: Vintage

Shoes: Clarks

Coat: M&S

Hair Flower: Accessorize 

If you are eagle eyed you might spot the M&S bag in the above picture? Well in that bag is something I've been after for some time. As part of the Percy Pig anniversary event M&S produced a few styles of piggy banks, my favourite was the matching Percy and Penny set that I thought would be great for my husband and I to get saving!

Naturally I had to have Penny Pig since I had a flower in my hair.

Anywho, that's it for today.