confession #000067

... or, the vintage virgin

as you may recall, about a month ago i flew over to london for a few days.  while there, i was hell-bent on visiting some shops specialising in vintage clothing.

i wanted to do this mostly because i wanted to change my opinion about vintage shopping.  i'm not 100% sure i managed, to be quite honest, as i have yet to make my first vintage purchase.  until that day, my only experience of vintage shopping was visiting the occasional parish hall bazaar back in malta, and i suspect that may have tarnished my judgement for good. after having read quite a bit about vintage shopping abroad, and lusting after celebrities' unique outfits and reading that they would be vintage, i thought i should or at least try dipping my toes into the whole experience.
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confession #000055

... or, retro romance 

as i wait for the antibiotics to start kicking in, i find myself drifting away in floral fancies of vintage tea-cups, crust-less cucumber sandwiches and lacy blouses with pussy-bow necklines.  i'm not sure if it's the antibiotics or the post-dentist trauma that is sending me on this trip.

i think i'm experiencing some sort of withdrawal symptom since i've recently ventured wildly into tribal, digital and geometric prints, leaving behind my vintagey and flowery comfort zone. i find it somewhat quintessentially british, and i'm kind of enjoying this mood i'm in.

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confession #000037

... or, the retro star i'll never be

and it's thursday again, and a trip down memory lane won't go amiss.  during my lunchbreak, i quickly concocted a set on polyvore to enter a chiara fashion contest (go ahead log in, and vote!) and when i finished i realised that my set was pretty rockabilly ... i could almost see rizzo from grease wearing it!

i don't usually go for a rockabilly style or anything which exposes my *cough* curvaceous figure.  despite loving the look, i have never ventured further than a lush red lip and flicked black eyeliner.  high-waisted midi pencil skirts are the stuff my nightmares are made of. 

it's not that i don't like retro fashion.  far from it actually.  i yearn for the elegance of the 40s, 50s and 60s, when women were not fully dressed unless they wore a hat and men wore sharp suits and slicked, quiffed hair.  possibly the fact that season 6 of mad men has just started has something to do with this ... even though the season is now set in the late 60s / early 70s (i'm always so blown away by just how accurate every style - fashion or home design - is reproduced!) john hamm as don draper gets my blood boiling in so many different ways!  i've been so devoted to the series in the past year that i had even created some polyvore sets inspired by the characters of joan harris, peggy olson and betty francis.  megan draper had not featured as yet back then!

john hamm ... you make my blood boil

flash back to the roaring 20s and my recent reading of the great gatsby (which when i was young, i was told was an adult read ... hardly!) and the countdown to the film's release in a few weeks brings about a different type of yearning - a yearning for glamour and glitz and all that jazz.  those exquisitely beaded and fringed, dropped waist flapper dresses and bob haircuts, best worn on boyish, narrow-hipped, small-busted figures! oh, if only! as free as those dresses appeared in comparison to their edwardian predecessors, the under garments at the time restricted the body from showing the natural curves in preference of a rectangular shape.

1920s underwear ad

all this being said, and being, as is well known to this blog's followers and friends, rather shapely; and being somewhat averse to suiting as my colleagues will vouch for, i find myself terribly drawn to the 70s fashion where long, flowing kaftans were de rigeur and worn for any occasion whatsoever.  a very recent purchase (i know, i broke my promise but how could i possibly resist?!) was a paisley maxi dress from zara which i'm styling in the polyvore set below.  logically, some 5 or 6 inches had to be cut from the hem to fit my petite figure, but luckily none of the pattern was lost. i can't wait to wear it at the weekend while i'm strolling around wadowice either before or after the wedding we're going to.  flat shoes will definitely be needed before / after a long night in heels ... or why not go barefoot for the full hippy look? well, that all depends on the weather.  here's to hoping it'll still be nice and sunny as it was today!

hippy does it by tikkamars featuring ballet flats