Anyhow, without further ado, today's Stunning Saturday feature is on vintage-inspired, pin-up style clothing!!
The clothes at the mall are mostly boring. The stuff at the vintage stores usually fits funny and is in iffy condition. Designer clothes are expensive. Plus, it seems like those of us in our late-20's are in a weird spot when it comes to fashion. Dressing out of the Juniors' department is ridiculous, but the Misses' clothes mostly would better suit someone 10-20 years older than us. With all this working against us, what are we to do?? Shop retro!! You can't go wrong!
My favorite website for this style of clothing is www.pinupgirlclothing.com . Their prices aren't bad, and everything I've ordered from them (primarily dresses and lingerie) has been excellent quality, and looks great! The best part about this site is that if you're anywhere but the west coast, you'll probably be the only one in your city with whatever items you get from there! The site, I'd say, is well-known enough that it's hard to get certain sizes but still obscure enough that you are nearly guaranteed not to be one of three at the party with the same dress.
{{Tip on getting your size: If you're like me, and need an X-Small, your best bet is to get in before each season and pre-order your stuff! The X-Smalls sell out fastest!! This goes 100 times for swimwear. It seems like the bigger sizes stick around quite a bit longer, but X-Small-Medium need to at minimum, follow the brand's official information on Twitter or Facebook so that you can order on the first day that the new season's stuff is released, and at least consider pre-ordering. If you don't, you may end up on a waiting list, and never get what you want. This is the story of my life with swimwear. I should take my own advice sometime, really... I'm just too indecisive to commit to just one swimsuit because they're all so great. Oh, and the size chart runs big. By the chart, I'm between XS and S, but an XS is almost too big for me. Order the smallest size you think you can wear, and God help you if you're thinner than I am.}}
Now, let's talk about shoes. I do not generally buy shoes from this or any retro site, because most of them are available other places for far cheaper. In fact, the red shoes that go with my two favorite Pin-up Couture dresses, I got at Target, on close-out sale, for about $8 three years ago. An identical pair of shoes sells for $45 on the site. Nobody can tell that my shoes are cheap, or that they are half a size too big (hey, if you are paying $8 for shoes, you can't be choosy!) I get countless compliments on them. My black shoes (no, not my BCBG stilettos) that go with some other things I have from there, I got on sale at Macy's for about $30. The nearly identical pair on that site was listed at $120. It pays to look around for shoes before shelling out the money for the ones from the site. Sometimes you can't avoid it, and that's really the only place you can get what you're looking for, but many times, there are other, far cheaper, options.
The really cool thing about this style of clothing is that just about anyone can wear it. Yes, the fabrics can be unforgiving, but that is nothing a waist cincher can't help you with. The fact is, they sell these dresses in sizes XS-2XL, and in my honest opinion, they look equally good in every size. The only truly important thing is to have a very nice waist, and again, if nature didn't hook you up with that biologically preferred .70 waist/hip ratio, Frederick's of Hollywood certainly can.
The bottom line is that anyone can wear this style of clothing, and have fun with it! Pin-up is hot these days. Things that were old are new again. Especially for military wives or girlfriends, what could ever be better than channeling the pin-up style of wars past, but in our own new way? Give it a try! It'll make you want to plant a Victory Garden, and go meatless on Mondays!!
Now, here are two of my favorite Pin-up Couture dresses:
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