Winter pinup

This is my wardrobe.

Yep, I’ve got a few clothes (that's not even all of them).

I live in Queensland, which means that 90% of what’s in my wardrobe is more suited to summer. With the exception of maybe four long sleeve dresses.

We have about… a month of cold weather, if that, every year. Which means I manage to get by with cardigans over dresses, stockings or tights underneath and when it’s really cold (this week it’s been properly cold for Queensland), I wear a plain black long sleeve shirt under my dresses (usually hidden by the cardigan). My normal, everyday work outfits range between a sort of toned-down version of pinup me, or more conservative vintage girl.

Today’s outfit is my case in point:

But last week, I headed down to Tasmania to visit my family. For those of you not Down Under, Tasmania is cold. It’s very cold.

My other dilemma is I went for five days and decided to only take carry-on luggage. This means I need to plan my outfits very carefully around one pair of shoes, one coat, and as little outerwear (scarf, hat) as possible.

When I was planning my outfits, there was a temptation to spend the whole week in leggings. But as much as I love all my Black Milk leggings, I don’t have a hell of a lot to go with them for the colder weather (I have a lot of cute t-shirts and cardies that I pair with them, but when it comes to layering…).

So I tempered my packing with two pairs of legs (navy matte and my favourite yellow tartan), and then I went for layers. I tried everything on beforehand to make sure they'd go with my Docs (but what doesn't go with Docs, really?) and set them out on my bed in outfits so I could be sure I had enough stockings, singlets and socks to go with each and then rolled them into my case. I picked dresses with thick, flared material. Even though I only folded my dresses in half at the very top of my case, there was still a good chance they'd get crumpled, so by picking the thicker material, it meant they could crumple a bit without me needing to iron at the other end.

Here's what I wore:

You can't see it in this picture, but I wore a nice warm wool skirt from Retrospect'd with a long sleeve black shirt, my Collectif cardigan, stockings and boots on my first full day in Tassie. Here, I'm dressed to go out for lunch on what was a cold, windy, wet day and have my grey pea-coat, red scarf and red hat on to brave the cold!

I've had a kind of love/hate relationship with this gingham Jenny dress from Pinup Girl Clothing since I picked it up. On the one hand, I'm super in love with the pattern, especially since it's a big gingham, as opposed to many of my other gingham dresses. But it's a perfect dress for travelling because it's a heavy, gathered fabric that doesn't really crease in a suitcase. I wore it with black stockings, my Docs and my Collectif Clothing black swallow cardigan. When I was outside, I had my grey pea-coat over the top and a scarf.

I have never had anything but love for this Bernie Dexter Osterly dress in Winter Wonderland print. I know it's a very Christmassy print, but it's technically Christmas in July time here! Again, I wore it with black tights and Docs (and a coat outside), but this time I wore a black undershirt for extra warmth and a purple jumper over the top.

The conclusion is that layering worked and I was happily very warm and comfortable the whole time and still looked retro. I got a few funny looks walking down the street in my lovely Bernie Dexter dress but when I went to visit Ms Katt, she said it happens a lot in Hobart!

A very Vintage Birthday, Part 2: Sandgate Kustom Krafts Market and picnicking

I didn’t get to spend much time with my parents on my actual birthday, so on Sunday a few days later, we had part 2 of my birthday celebrations. In the morning, my lovely mum and I dressed up in vintage fabulousness and headed down to the Sandgate Bowls Club for the KustomKrafts Market. 

I’m sad that this is the last market at the Bowls club and hope that the market’s new location is just as close to home as this! We wandered around the stalls, and at every stand I went to, I got more and more excited about one of my birthday presents, a sewing machine! Why? Because I was seeing a lot of gorgeous things that now I have a machine, I’ll be able to make myself. 

After the markets, we headed for home, made sandwiches and packed up my vintage picnic basket and headed off to Scarborough for a picnic. Family picnics are my most favourite weekend pastime. I think sandwiches taste about a million times better outside and I love that Mum and Dad and I can soak up the sun and have a nice time, but also, that the dog can come with us too.

My dad is learning to fly, so after lunch we went for a drive to the Redcliffe Airport, where I was super excited to see a Tiger Moth sitting by a hanger. I desperately, desperately want to have a pinup photo shoot with one of these babies! 

The picnic and the drive was a perfect end to a pretty perfect weekend. 

Because I’m into vintage…

Vintage things have always been a big part of my life — my mum is antiques obsessed and I’ve inherited her love of pretty things; history was one of my favourite subjects at school and, I’m in my very early 30s and am fortunate enough to still have four wonderful grandparents, all of whom have very different experiences growing up in my favourite era.

One of my two lovely nannas.

But two things have happened in the last few months that have made me think a lot about what people think of vintage, pinup and rockabilly folks like me. The first was I went on a date with a very nice guy who kept asking me why the 50s. Was it just the clothes and the hair, or was it other things too? Would I go back if I could? It was hard for me to explain to him that it was mainly 50s, but not only 50s. But it was also hard for me to explain, without him acting overly chivalrous and assuming that just because I'm into vintage, doesn't mean I wanted a man to take care of my every need, drive me everywhere, open the car door every single time I got in or out...(there was more, but you get the picture).

The second thing was this blog post by Mary Van Notes that was re-posted a few times: ‘Just because I wear vintage…’ (the title of my post is an adaption of Mary's post - credit where it's due!)

So, this guy and this blog post got me thinking a lot. There are many things on that ‘just because I wear vintage’ post that I actually do (like watch Mad Men), or want to do or wish I could do (like roller derby or swing dancing – one day I will do both!), but there are many things that are super accurate.

The big one for me is:  “just because I wear vintage, doesn’t mean I want to live in the past.” There are many, many things that I get all nostalgic over and wish I could experience it for myself. But that doesn’t mean I hate living in the naughties. I don’t mind doing housework and keeping my place clean and tidy, but I love my washing machine. I love cooking and baking from scratch, but boy, am I ever desperate to get a Thermomix. 

Just because I dressed as a 50s housewife for my housewarming that one time...

I’m a bit old fashioned. I do often refer to myself as a bit of a 50s housewife because I love cooking and baking, I love feeding my family and friends, I have fairly extreme ideas of what is clean, tidy and organised. I dream of restoring a workers’ cottage into vintage glory and filling it with duck egg blue kitchen appliances and retro furniture. I mostly dress like a pinup girl, but sometimes I go for rockabilly, or a 60s mod, a 70s hippy. When I have people around, I always clean, tidy, vacuum and have something homemade ready to go, even if they’re just dropping in. I think table manners are important and host gifts are essential. All of those things. But that doesn’t mean I would expect to be the only one in my house (if it had more than me living in it!) doing the housework, cooking and cleaning. It doesn’t mean I think I am a failure because I am 31 and single.

I’m old fashioned, but I’m modern too. I am good with computers and gadgets, I love to play around with Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter and I’m here, blogging. I have an excellent corporate job, a diploma, a university degree and post-graduate certificates. I mostly wear vintage or vintage repros, but sometimes, I just want to rock some Black Milk Sesame Street leggings or dress up like a superhero for Supanova and that’s okay too.

Sometimes I dress in Sesame Street leggings. Because I can.

I have my own car, my own bank account. I can vote, I can make decisions about my body and how to take care of it with regardless of whether I’m married or not. I’m not particularly concerned about marriage, but I know I want to be a mum. Even if I’m still single when I choose to have babies, that’s ok, because it's 2013 and not 1952, I have the option of doing it on my own. 

If I had a time machine, I would definitely go back and spend some time in other decades. But I’m pretty bloody glad that I was born in the 80s, grew up in the 90s and am an adult in the 00s because I’ve got the freedom now to live the best of all of those worlds.