In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it, You’ll be the grandest lady in the Easter Parade. . .
With the awakening of Lady Spring, a floral covered bonnet will surely not be amiss in your seasonal wardrobe. A natural coloured straw lampshade hat, completely covered in multi-coloured blooms of all varieties is the perfect statement piece for the early days of this season leading up to Eastertide. The white outfit and pale pink earrings recede, allowing the playful blossoms to take centre stage. A flourish of bright and bold lipstick is the perfect final touch for an ensemble that so clearly heralds “Spring”.
Inspiration for this fashion look from the magazine cover of Vogue April 1, 1956.
I thought that since I was not organized enough to get together a round-up or year in review post for New Years, and also considering that I would have been one month short had I published such a post before now, I would share my favourite posts since I started blogging a year ago. When I looked at my blog stats, I was surprised to see some of the posts that came up as the most popular, although the #1 post is also one of my favourites too. So, without further ado, here are my top 12 posts from the past year, in case you missed them the first time around!
Oh, and ps: So sorry to everyone who was trying to leave comments in the past few days and having difficulties with the all caps situation going on there. Somehow, when I changed my blog format, I switched the comment form to all caps! It is fixed now, so you should have no more difficulties 🙂
This was one of the most fun posts to write, and it took me forever to gather all the facts and write it. There is so much more I could have said, but then I would have had to write a book, I suppose. 😉 This is the most popular post I’ve ever published; I’m still getting page views on it six months later.
For some reason that is quite beyond me, this little post I wrote about my vintage Astra faux fur coat and advertisement has proven to be very popular as well, and I still get plenty of views on it too.
This was another favourite post to write, although I look at the pictures now, and think that I could have done better. Oh, well. I am really looking forward to writing some more fashion history posts this year.
This was a project where my blog proved to be an accountability partner. As I had told the entire internet I was going to take part in this challenge, I had to do it! Unfortunately the weather turned cold right after this was sewn, so I haven’t had a chance to wear it out yet, except for these photos. It is waiting patiently for next summer, but this post has proven to be a rather popular one in the meantime.
I cheated here and have two posts for one! But, as they are both related you can go look at the pictures in one post and then see how it was constructed in the other.
This was a different kind of post, as it was a costume rather than an actual outfit. It was fun to go all out and wear a completely 1920’s flapper outfit, which I probably wouldn’t wear out for real.
One of the more serious posts I’ve written, for Slow Fashion October, this outlines some of the reasons why I choose to shop and wear ethical fashion and why the effects of the cheap fashion industry should matter to us all.
Hands down, this was my personal favourite outfit post of the year. Not only do I like the 1910’s inspired outfit (which is a bit different of a style for me, and one that I am incorporating more and more into my wardrobe), but the photos were taken on the brink of a summer thunderstorm! We got the photos just in time to avoid a soaking downpour.
Here was another fun fashion post, inspired by Vogue. I tried to be a moody model, and it certainly looks that way. . . except for all the outtakes that I didn’t post 😉
One of the first times I ever did a proper shoot of photos, not just quick snapshots, these were taken on one of the most beautiful days of Spring, right in between rain showers. The lilacs were absolutely stunning that day.
One of my earliest posts, this hasn’t been a very popular one, but it was a lot of fun to do, and I like the mood of the photographs. (Also, look at my short hair!)
Have you ever stopped to think about how many of the words we use daily are actually military terms that have sifted down into everyday use? Words such as ‘khaki”, which now means a dull greenish tan colour, but originated from the Persian word for “dust” that was used to describe the uniforms of the soldiers stationed in the Middle East. Or the word “alarm” which originally came from the Italian phrase “all’ arme!” meaning “to arms!” The phrase “top brass” refers to a person of authority. There is debate about where the term came from, but it most likely originated because of the brass insignias officers wear to denote rank. Or even the term “navy blue”, which again hearkens back to the colour of the uniforms worn by the British Navy.
This all may seem rather unrelated to anything, but I started thinking about this when I wrote a note to myself to remember this outfit. I wrote: “Navy Dress/ Red Coat” which immediately called to mind, of course, the Navy and the Red Coats, (a slang term for the British Army). Completely by accident, this outfit I wore last week is even rather military inspired. The buttoned red velvet jacket, the fluffy navy blue hat, and even the touches of brass jewellery. I’ve got a bit of both the Army and the Navy showing through in this outfit, so of course a military/exploration inspired photo shoot was in order. There’s nothing I love better than a good theme. 😉 I wish I’d had a flag I could have posed with, to mark the territory I conquered, but as I didn’t, you’ll have to make believe with the walking stick I grabbed off of an obliging dead tree, the binoculars I used to spy out enemy territory, and this decrepit old bunker I have claimed as mine. All done while being fashionably attired of course. 😉
I am not into Halloween. As in spooky, gory, creepy, dark and scary. However, I do love candy, and I do love costumes. I mean, I love to dress up any day of the year- so give me any excuse to dress up “officially” and I am there!
For the past few years, I have hosted costume parties, and this is the first year that I haven’t in three years. Even though I didn’t have a chance to dress up in a costume and go out this year, I didn’t want the opportunity to pass, without dressing up in some kind of costume. My sister and I have been wanting to do a 1920’s photo shoot for a while now, and since I recently got my hair shaped into a bob, it seemed the perfect time to dress up in these costumes and take some photos. We decided that a black and white faded palette, gloomy clouds, and some barren tree branches would be the perfect backdrop, and create the right mood. The “costumes” were pulled from our wardrobes, and dress up bin, of course. 🙂
I have also now decided that those flappers were right about so much- it is amazingly fun to wear strands of pearls, stacks of bracelets, sparkles, dark makeup and furs. Of course, not every person in the 1920’s dressed this way- but it is “iconic’ for a reason, right? Honestly, if I had lived in the 1920’s I am 99% sure that I would have been a Plain Jane, wearing prim and proper dresses, and I never would have dreamed of going to the speakeasy, in my knee length fringed dress, dancing the night away. Considering that I don’t do any of those things today. . . But, I do love to dress up in the 1920’s flapper styles, even if they are not historically accurate, and more “inspired by” the era. Nora, of Nora Finds, recently said on her instagram, that in a few years it will be the 20’s again, so we should “bring back the beaded flapper dresses and finger waves”. I wholeheartedly agree!
What do you think? If you lived in the 1920’s would you have worn the knee length dresses and bling, and been a flapper? Or would you have been a prim and proper lady, who stayed at home and behaved herself?
On a side note, I am not one to spot family resemblances very easily, but when my Gramma saw these pictures, she said that I looked like her when she was young, and Sarah looked like her mother, our Great-Grandmother. I guess we do have a family resemblance- even if I can’t pick it out 🙂
To be completely honest, I don’t really know anything about Alice in Wonderland. I have never read any of the books by Lewis Carroll, I only watched the Disney movie once when I was a child, (and was promptly scared by it) and have never watched any of the newer versions for the same reason. This quote, pretty much sums up my knowledge of the story:
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
However, despite the fact that I don’t really know anything about the story, I have seen several Alice in Wonderland inspired photo shoots before, and they have always been rather fun and surreal, so I thought it would be fun to do one myself, and I even had a vaguely Alice inspired outfit to wear. (And my sister had a fun saturated setting on her camera that she was wanting to try out.) I actually had to Google “Alice in Wonderland” to see what it all entailed, before I could do the photos. (I also learned, via that search and from snippets of my memory, that the story involves a tea party, talking flowers, a potion and a rabbit with a clock.)
I decided that this most recent sewing project would be a good “Alice” inspired outfit to wear. This is another skirt made with the same technique as my dutch wax, black floral, and recycled bed sheet skirts. (Definitely a tried and true pattern!) I find them to be so versatile for summer, that I decided to make another out of a remnant of denim I’ve had for a few years. I used to have a dress made out of this cute fabric, when I was 12, and the remnant leftover from that dress was so small, I could never squeeze enough fabric out of it to make anything. However a gathered skirt was the perfect choice. There was just enough fabric to get a gathered skirt, suspenders, waistband and a button placket up the front instead of a zipper this time. (Just so they wouldn’t all look exactly the same!) There was only about a 10″ x 6″ square of material left over. Definitely a stash busting project!
With the outfit ready, I added in a potion bottle necklace, a miniature teapot tchotchke, a clock, an oversized teacup, and “talking” pansies. So, here is the result of my limited knowledge of Alice’s Wonderland.
Outfit Details:
Skirt: Sewn by me
Peasant Blouse T-Shirt: Owned it for years
Shoes: Miz Mooz, This style is no longer available, but they have similar styles.
