Vintage Reproduction Dress Wishlist

I love buying dresses. My mom is always saying how impractical they are but I love them. I feel so feminine and ladylike when I'm wearing a dress. I have certain go to labels and brands these days when I'm shopping for a vintage style dress.

I adore Cath Kidston however, for an everyday dress her £50-75 price tag is pretty steep. I own only a few Cath Kidston dresses favouring her accessories over clothes.

I know the title of this post is about dresses but it's actually a skirt designed by Cath Kidston that's on my wishlist. You can buy a dress with this print and you can even buy shorts too but I personally, prefer the skirt version. I just adore the floral print and it makes me so excited for summer. Skirts with funky prints like this are so versatile you can wear them with blouses or maybe a  black  or white top. My only annoyance with Cath Kidston dresses is their sizes across the chest. I always find that I have to buy the next size up to what I would normally wear from say Topshop or Dorothy Perkins. So I normally wear a size 8-10 but in Cath Kidston's dresses I wear a size 12.

 

My number one brand for vintage reproduction dress had to be Lindy Bop dresses. I bought my first Lindy Bop dress last year after starting my first ever job, I felt I deserved to be treated. The dress I purchased was the

'Audrey' Classy Vintage 1950's Turquoise Floral Rockabilly Pinup Swing Dress
  

It's quite a popular dress and the delivery was so quick! Lindy Bop tend to design and sell dresses that are more special event wear than everyday wear however, I feel that this one was suitable for everyday wear during the Summer. It was nice to wear on sunny days out for picnics as the material was light. There are too many dresses off Lindy Bop that I want for me to list them here. So here's the one that I'm most desperate to add to my dress collection!

I have some parties and events going on this Summer and I'm in love with it. So, I'll have to order it sometime in the near future. The name of the dress is the 'Ophelia' Vintage 1950's Red Polka Dot Picnic Party Dress. The other awesome thing that I've found out about Lindy Bop recently is that they now how a kids range which you can check out here;

 http://www.lindybop.co.uk/kids-c17


They have some super cute little dresses for kids. I love Lindy Bop dresses they're so affordable and they're such good quality.

Heyday Vintage possibly isn't as well known as Cath Kidston and Lindy Bop but they have some really cool dresses. In 2014 they won the National Vintage Award for best reproduction. So they're definitely worth checking out although they have a similar price tag to Cath Kidston's designs.
I really love this 1940 style black mary dress. But it is definitely something I would only wear to a posh event, perhaps a charity ball.

All the photos except for the one of me wearing my Lindy Bop dress are taken from the respective brands websites.

D.I.Y. ~ journal project

So I've always had a journal, diary whatever you want to call it. Somewhere special for me to write down all my secrets and ideas. I've never been good at religiously writing in my diary, in fact part of my new years resolution was to start writing a diary for 2015 we're almost in March.

I decided it was time I made a start on that part of my New Year's resolution. I wanted  this year's journal to be really personal and creative. Something that not only held my secrets and ideas but was part of me. So I decided to make my own journal.

I went for a wander round the charity shops and found this little red bound copy of a book published in the 1950s. It had to be an old fashioned vintage looking book as vintage fashion is very much part of who I am as a person and one of my main interests. I also looked at the different titles, the title of the book I choose to upcycle was A Many Splendoured Thing by Han Suyin. I feel like I probably should've read the book first before I began my project. I now feel a little sacrilegious for the way I've edited and updated the purpose of the book. In 1955, the novel was actually made into a film starring Jennifer Jones and William Holden. So, I'll have to add that to my old vintage classics movies list.

My next stop was Rymans for white acrylic paint and a reasonably wide paintbrush so that I could begin painting the pages white so that I could write over them again for my journal. This bit was the hard bit because it took so long to wait for everything to dry. Currently, I've only whitewashed enough pages to last me for the next few weeks but I paint another few pages and leave them to dry overnight or in the morning before college. For the first few pages I just blow dried them with a hairdryer because I was so desperate to be able to start writing in it.

To write in it I purchased some thin tipped black sharpie pens also from Rymans. Rymans is great for students as they offer a 10% discount also Hobbycraft offer a 10% discount if you're a student in need of art supplies.

I love this sort of thing because of how personal and special my journal now feels to me. I don't know anyone who has the same type of journal as me because it's unique and hasn't been bought from my local Tesco as they have been in the past which is possibly what I love the most about it.

I always try to keep train tickets or collect postcards to stick in and give my memories some colour and life. I love taking pictures on disposable cameras when I'm out and about. I find it weird that I have so many pictures on my ipod and other media platforms that I will never print out and put in a photo album.

Anyway, I'm beginning to ramble so I hope you liked this post. I've never really done a D.I.Y. blog post before still all new to this. Hope you liked my project.

Fitzwilliam Musuem Cambridge

A day out in Cambridge with my cousin Richard was definitely the highlight of my weekend.
First we went to the Fitzwilliam museum for lunch it's always so busy in there and the food is great! I used to go there loads with my parents for lunch as a kid so it felt so nostalgic to be back there.

The Fitzwilliam museum has an art gallery but we bypassed that bit as I've seen it a hundred times and I love the Ancient Egyptian and Greek displays in the basement. I've always been mesmerized by the detail on the sarcophaguses of the old pharaohs and people that must have been wealthy and of great importance in Ancient Egypt. The job of restoring some of those artefacts must be amazing.The Fitzwilliam Musuem is a great day out for everyone especially, for families over the holidays as they usually have an something going on to keep the kids entertained and even better the entrance to the museum is free and charitable donations are optional.

Unfortunately, the weather today was atrocious, it rained constantly. So after leaving the Fitzwilliam  we found ourselves ducking into the Fudge Kitchen lured in by a sign for free samples and an escape from the rain. We bought ourselves some fudge and stayed to watch the making of Belgian chocolate fudge whilst being plied with more free samples.

I love going to places like this because they're free and you can talk and catch up as you're going around and talk to everyone in your group. Where as in the movies or going out as a big group for a meal together I never really feel that I've had the opportunity to socialise with everyone.

Vintage Shopping Haul

So on Friday, I missed my train to get me to Chris King Robinson's gig in Spalding where he was playing as part of the celebration for the unveiling of the blue Hendrix plaque. If you haven't heard Chris's music check him out here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkAtEI_ei1E

So, I did what I know best and went on a shopping trip to kill time. I found myself wandering through the charity shops of Peterborough. As I've said before charity shops are full of gems. They are gold mines of past eras and forgotten memories.

This summer I'm hoping to get a lookbook together or various vintage styles and how to wear them. So I'm saving Friday's purchases for another day. But I am so excited to share them with you. Summer is my favourite time of the year for vintage fashion...summer dresses and high-waisted shorts are the staples of my wardrobe. Charity shops are amazing places to find cheap jeans that you can cut up into shorts without having to worry about the £££ price tag.

Yesterday I popped over to Cambridge and had a little rummage around to find some bargains and picked up some vintage books that I'm planning on doing a little project with so I'm so excited to share that with you all.

So lots of little projects going on that I'm super excited about and can't wait to finish them so that I can share them!!

Vintage Valentines

Okay so I'm not saying that I don't agree with the view that Valentines day has become over commercialised over the decades and I'm not saying that you should only treat your partner once a year because you should always show them love and respect and treat them whatever day of the year it is. But just because something has become over commercialised that doesn't mean that we should stop celebrating Valentines Day or start hating on it just because we're single. (okay so I'm not single this year but I'm 19 and this was my first Valentines day EVER so I've had a few single valentines and it hasn't made me bitter) So, perhaps we just need to remind ourselves of the reason we celebrate Valentines day, the history behind it. 

So, long story short, Saint Valentine was a priest who performed weddings that were illegal in the eyes of the Roman Empire and he was sentence to death for it. That doesn't sound so romantic when you think about the whole dying in the name of love part it's a little tragic don't you think? Saint Valentines story was romanticised by the poet and writer Geoffrey Chaucer during the middle ages and by the 19th century in Britain Valentines Day had become a commercial day where lovers sent each other cards and gifts of chocolate or flowers.

Valentines Vintage;
I love vintage as any of you who follow me on instagram will know. I have an obsession with vintage and dream of setting up my own business selling on vintage finds at a profit and making reproductions of vintage styles and cuts.

 

The main part of my outfit was a white dress from the 80s made by the design brand Hamells Petites. I found it in the Sue Ryder Charity shop in Queensgate, Peterborough for an amazing bargain of just £5. Charity shops are my favourite places full of hidden gems.

 

 

It was obviously a dress that had been used for some sort of important function, most likely a wedding as it was rather elaborate. But I wanted to wear a classy dress that also showed off my personality and my interests.

Therefore, the most important part of my outfit was accessories. In the evening we went out for a meal so I dressed it up with red heels and a vintage Levi denim jacket that I'd picked up at a little vintage shop in Leicester. The heels cost me ten pounds in a sale at New Look and the denim jacket was about £30. During the day I dressed it  down by swapping my heels for my blue All Star  Converse for comfort.

My weekend was amazing and I couldn't have asked for more. We tried not to be lavish as we just wanted a nice weekend together without lots of extravagance. The majority of our weekend was cost free but as always the cost of food and little extras does eventually add up for my poor boyfriends wallet.
We went for some nice walks around a local nature reserve. The nature reserve was beautiful and a really good date as it didn't cost us anything to walk round it. We weren't cooped up inside sat on our phones but outdoors enjoying the fresh air and each others company.  At the end of the day we hopped on an old steam train to take us back to the city centre and away from paradise. The steam train although a really short journey really was worth it! It ended the weekend on a perfect note as the retro interior really embraced my love of all things historical.

 

 

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