Gradually Introducing Vintage into Your Wardrobe

Whilst I may be considered relatively new to vintage fashion, I understand the difficulty of desparately wanting to introduce it into your wardrobe, but not quite knowing where to begin! Two of my previous posts, which are both guides to vintage fashion (and can be found here and here), introduce you to the general eras that inspire and influence my wardrobe, and detail what I particularly look for when in a vintage shop. Now comes the hard part; how to introduce it into your wardrobe!

So where did I begin?! Well, it all starts with confidence, and so I naturally deviated towards an area that I feel most comfortable with...make up! You Tube tutuorials, by my favourites Lisa Eldridge and Tanya Burr, helped to improve my general make up application techniques. I also got the chance to follow some of their more classic look tutorials. Lisa is an avid vintage fan, she herself collects vintage make up! So as you can imagine, her videos are both informative and great guides. This then gave me the confidence that I looked the part and so I delved into hair tutorials, particularly from The Cherry Dollface. If you click the You Tube icon (or click here!) on the top right of this page, it will take you to my channel. You can find that my most practised and trusted videos are in the 'Likes' category!

I then began to naturally deviate into slightly more vintage inspired clothing. The High Street is a known quantity and does some excellent vintage reproduction clothing! Some of my favourite dresses are High Street reproductions! I particularly love some of these...

 

Vine Border Sun Dress - Topshop - £38

(I really want this! Imagine in summer with a petticoat and red lipstick!)
 

Blush Pointelle Cardigan - Dorothy Perkins - £16

 

 

 

Blue Chelsea Girl Floral Print Shirt Dress - River Island - £25

(adore this too!)

 

Eeeeek, I am so very tempted by these now! 

As you began to build up your repertoire and wardrobe, the hardest part can be finding where to wear it all! It can be quite unnerving to suddenly step out in full vintage attire in front of people that are used to seeing you in 'normal' clothes. I personally found it much easier to make some of my bigger statements in front of those people I am very comfortable with, such as my boyfriend, family and closest friends. Personally, I began to introduce my new look when visiting particular events, such as a Vintage Fair. I found that these events gave me the opportunity to wear vintage, as I knew that I wouldn't stand out from the crowd too much. On a night out, I would wear my usual dresses, but sneak a vintage handbag or accessories in there to spice it up! It grew from there and I began to find the confidence to invest my money into more original vintage items.

I really hope you have found this post insightful and I would absolutely love to hear how you went about introducing vintage into your wardrobe, or even if this has inspired you to make the move to the vintage side!

Have a wonderful Wednesday,

 

Hannah xxx

Day Eight! Get Ready With Me!

Hello everyone,

Well what a busy busy day I have had! Breakfast out, Christmas tree shopping, candle making and getting ready for tonights Christmas Do, I feel more like putting my feet up than heels on!

I just want to thank every one of you who has been reading my blog and Tweets. I have just logged onto Blogger and had a lovely surprise, I have had the most blog views ever today so thank you!

Tonights post is geared towards getting done up for a glamourous night out. Over the last few weeks, I have gone over my favourite products that really get an excellent result, but tonight we are going to put it all together! The theme for tonights event is Hollywood Glamour, so I am going to make the most of it and show everyone how a vintage girl does glamour!


I am wearing a dress that I chose when I got into the top 8 in the Dollydagger competition. I normally steer clear from quite tight fitting dresses, however I adore this dress and it seems to make my more podgier (is that a word?!) areas disappear. I love the polka dot and super flattering neckline!You can get it directly from the Dollydagger website, it is called the Polka Dot Dolores Pencil Dress. My shoes were bought almost two years ago from Next for a mere £35. They have lasted so well and are extremely comfortable and looking quite well worn now.

My make up is inspired by a look that my favourite make up artist, Lisa Eldridge, created on her website. I decided to go for more of a Vintage Pin Up Girl look than the classic red lipstick as it is a look I often wear, and I fancied a change! You can see Lisa create the look below. I followed the video to apply my make up, something I regularly do to perfect a look as left to my own devices, I will forget to include a certain part! I don't own any of the products that Lisa uses here, however replaced them with similar ones of my own. I used a mixture of two lipsticks to create the darker grape/cherry shade on my lips. These were Rimmel Kate Moss in 107, a darker red shade, with Lancome French Touch in 306 Cherry Kiki. I mixed them simply by applying  a coat of each and blotting in between to really build up the colour. I began with the Lancome as it is the darkest, and did my first coat very thinly like Lisa describes, buffing it into the lip to almost build up a stain that will not shift!

 

My hair was done much earlier than most of my getting ready process. At about 5pm I curled all my hair using curling tongs, and then pinned them to create pin curls while still hot. I then left them in until the very last minute, so that they cool entirely. This means that the curl stays in much longer and is much glossier than if you just curled in then left the hair down to cool. A little backcombing and I was good to go!

I also fully embraced the pale look, with bare legs and no fake tan! I am very pale at the moment however I think this really finishes the vintage look and gives you a very classic, English rose appeal.

I had best get going now, fingers crossed it will be a good night! Free wine on the tables so I am not complaining!

I hope you have a great weekend,

 

Lots of love from Brighton,

 

Hannah xxx 

Fashionably Late

Hello everyone,

My frequent visits to the Vintage Brighton website provides me with lots of inspiration for many a vintage look but I love the events section of the website in particular. A few weeks ago, I noticed the event, 'Fashionably Late', to be held at the Pavillion. Not only was there entry into the Biba exhibition, but cocktails, music, hair, make-up...a vintage girls' dream! There was no question about it, I was going and purchased two tickets so I could drag my boyfriend along!

I rushed home from work, quickly transformed myself and rushed out. We walked in through a variety of furniture designs, straight to the bar for some vintage themed cocktails, and then began to look around. I didn't really anticipate that you could also have a nosy around some of the museum exhibitions, so we snook in and had some cheeky photos next to a lovely scooter!

 

We then wandered past the perspex jewellery making, and went upstairs for a look at the fashion exhibition. Not only was there a fantastic array of different clothes to try on, but a photographer to capture the moment and iconic designs from the eras around the room for inspiration. I particularly loved the display of dresses in tribute to the Union Jack.

 

Then we entered the Biba exhibition. The display was designed in a timeline effect, you first began to learn about Barbara Hulanicki's family, to her time at Brighton College of Art and Design and then you followed the exhibition as the Biba brand grew. This brings together a collection of newspaper clippings, illustrations, original pieces and original stories from visitors and employees. I found it particularly amazing that at the very start of her career, a design was advertised in the Daily Mirror! You could purchase it, and as her followers grew, so did the brand. It really was amazing to see the growth of a brand from a passion of a talented student, to the dizzying heights that it reached! The show runs until April '13 so get yourselves down there! Here are a few photos I took...

 

 

 

There was also a display of the make up that Barbara designed for Biba.

 

 

This entire collection was donated by the amazing make up artist, Lisa Eldridge. It was in incredible condition and the colours were so vibrant, it seems to have been the equivalent then to what MAC is to us today. I really recommend you to check out her website. She has extremely accurate and easy to do make up tutorials, including a sixties look designed in collaboration with Barbara Hulanicki. You can find this here. I love how she uses a range of brands from the extremley high end to more often than not, your basic brands found in Boots. She has lots of interesting videos that are definitely worth a look.

 

Wow this has turned into quite a long post! I had a fantastic evening and love visiting exhibitions like this, they fill me with inspiration and to think that a ticket was five pounds, what a bargain. Did any of you go to Fashionably Late? Have you seen the exhibition? What did you think? I will end this post with a picture of me becoming part of an exhibition...

 

 

 

Dress: New Look

Shoes: Topshop (years ago)

Bag: Vintage Darling!

 

Lots of love,

 

Hannah xxx