April 18, 2017

Easter Sunday’s New Look

Nicole outfits hat, outfit, photo shoot, style, thrifted, vintage, vogue

I hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend, dear readers, wherever you are. If you are located in Canada, or many other parts of the Northern Hemisphere, you might just have experienced what I did this last weekend: SNOW! Yes, we got a snowstorm last Thursday, and it didn’t let up until Saturday night. I was glad when Sunday dawned bright and clear but, alas, the sun was not warm enough to melt all of the snow away, and we still have snow covered ground out there. All of my visions of Easter bonnets, and flowers, and easter egg hunts and just Spring in general, were quite hopelessly dashed! My visions of a lovely Easter photo set outdoors, were also dashed as well! I didn’t feel like doing supposedly “Spring” photos in a snowdrift! (Especially as last year was so sunny and bright . . . )

So, in order to avert a small blogger crisis, I decided to take a page from Vogue, and many other photo shoots of years-gone-by, and create a set in the living room (by literally moving all of the furniture, opening doors, putting pins in the wall and generally tearing apart everything in sight. . .  don’t worry- it’s back in order now). This minimalist backdrop (aka: a white bed sheet) worked out fine in a pinch, and as this outfit is rather “New Look” in style, it lent itself well to the very minimal background and gave me a chance to try out some fun 1950’s poses. Most of these poses are based off of Vogue covers from the 1950’s, or other famous poses (such as Dior’s bar suit)

I originally planned to wear something bright and colourful and well. . .  “Springy” for Easter Sunday, however, that didn’t happen. Of all the days in the year, Easter Sunday is the day when you just have to wear an Easter Bonnet, right? Since none of my more colourful dresses had coordinating hats, I decided to forgo the brighter colours in place of a hat and ended up with this cream coloured straw, which is probably my best hat, and this new-to-me vintage dress, which coordinated nicely with the cream tones.

This dress is the one I picked up last fall from the thrift store. It is a true vintage piece, but it desperately needed some work before it was wearable. It is made out of some kind of synthetic material (which creases terribly, I discovered!), some of the dye has faded in places, the bow on the front was rather limp, there were rips under the arms that had been mended very poorly, and the hem was about two inches too short. I was able to bring the side seams in about 1.5″ on each side, to fix the holes, as well as fitting the bodice better, I reshaped the bow, and also let out the hem. I believe that the dress had been hemmed by the previous owner, as the hem was hand sewn- but with three different colours of thread! 🙂 It is too bad that, whoever she was, she trimmed her hem, as I wish that there had been one more inch to let down. It turned out rather nicely though, despite not having that extra inch in length.

After I had let down the hem and altered the dress, I realized that what the dress really needed was a petticoat, in order for it to hang right- as well as giving that nice “New Look” silhouette. I didn’t have a petticoat that worked with the dress, though, as mine was much too full to wear with it, so two days before Easter Sunday, I got the crazy idea to start “Operation: Save The Petticoat”. I managed to alter my existing one – in the process sewing 17 yards of netting into submission – and finished it just in time. (ps. I will have a post in the future about how I altered the petticoat.)

It was rather fun to wear such a recognizably vintage outfit like this on Sunday- with the hat, shoes, purse, gloves and full skirt. I don’t usually go all out like this, and instead wear more “vintage inspired” outfits on a day to day basis. It was kind of nice to break that mold and do something new- or rather – should I say “old”? 😉

Did you get snow for Easter this year? Do you like to wear an “Easter Bonnet”? And do you like to dress in a more recognizable “vintage” styles, or do you dress in a vintage/modern hybrid – or do you even dress in vintage at all?

Outfit Details:

Dress: Vintage

Hat: Vintage

Purse: Thrifted

Jewellery: Gifted and thrifted

Gloves: Vintage

Belt: Vintage

Shoes: Gabor