To all my dear friends and followers, I’d like to wish each and every one of you a very Happy New Year and I hope that 2014 brings you happiness, love and light (and a lot of great vintage finds!) I’m so looking forward to continuing to update you with my vintage finds and adventures and to see this blog grow!
I just got back from my holiday travels, and picked up some gorgeous vintage along the way that I can’t wait to show you! I have my New Year’s Eve plans in order, so I wanted to share where Matthew and I will be ringing in the New Year and where I heartily recommend you do too! If you’re in NYC be sure to consider the New Year’s Eve Gala by Dances of Vice! Taking place in downtown Manhattan in a private Victorian residential palace built in the style of a Renaissance palazzo, it promises to be as amazing as every Dances of Vice party I’ve ever been to.
We all know New Year’s Eve is the “big” night to go out, but in NYC, one of the best parties of the year is on December 30th, New Years Eve EVE! This event has been going on for a few years now, and in my opinion is one of the best events in NYC. This year will be especially amazing because it will be back in The Players Club, after a multi-year absence.
One of the highlights of this past summer was attending the magical Fête Paradiso on Governor’s Island. Fête Paradiso is a traveling festival of vintage carnival rides and carousels dating from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. Everything has been painstakingly reconstructed by a French family of artisans who specialize in keeping these kind of rides alive. It was one of the most enjoyable, magical events I have ever been to. If it returns to Governor’s Island next summer I cannot recommend strongly enough that you go!!
Imagine my delight when I came across a link to this wonderful article on Huffington Post while scrolling through my vintage loving friend’s Facebook feed. Apparently Huffington Post thinks vintage style needs to come back, and of course I couldn’t agree more. I’m proud to say I’ve rocked at least five of these looks in the past week alone, including a muff! (And for the record, I would kill for the outfit on the girl on the right. Divine!)
There are many aspects to a good vintage look, but by far one of the most important, and one of the things I get asked about the most, is red lipstick. It can really tie together your entire vintage look.
As you can imagine, I’m always excited to try out any cosmetics line that is inspired by vintage makeup and has vintage-inspired packaging. Bésame Cosmetics absolutely fits the bill. Founded in 2004 by Argentinian native Gabriela Hernandez, all of it’s packaging is based closely off vintage designs and colors are based off colors popular in the 1920’s to the 1940’s. The line contains foundation, powder, cake mascara, lipstick and lip balm and cream lip and cheek rouge, which I tried out recently.
One of the great things about my job is that I work with really fun photographers who often want to collaborate when they find out that I love vintage and have a pretty extensive wardrobe to work with. One of these photographers is Cam Camarena, who we did a super fun shoot with awhile back. Cam was really excited to shoot us and rented a ton of props and created a whole set! He shot us both on the set and on black and white backgrounds, and we had four full wardrobe changes, including hair and makeup for me and a wide range of facial hair changes for Matthew (not sure about that handlebar moustache…)
One of the questions I’m asked the most is “Where do you get your vintage clothing?” The answer is I get them from all over the place; I am always on the lookout for a fabulous new piece. I never know when I might stumble across an amazing dress or hat or purse. I do buy a few things online, but I really do love to try things on, and the digging through less than wonderful stuff to find the gems, so most of my vintage I buy in brick and mortar stores.
If you’re wondering where I get my info, let’s get real old-school and take a look at some books I love and still get so much information from. Remember getting your information from books before the Internet came around? You still can!
Some are out of print, but you can find almost all of them online. There are many others that I love that I will post about later, but this is a good start!