If you’re in NYC this Saturday, June 28th, please stop by Splitty in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, for the My Vintage Love summer soiree! The Hot Club of Bushwick will be playing some great hot jazz for your listening and dancing pleasure and the bar will be serving hot buns and cool drinks. Of course vintage attire is strongly encouraged, so there will be some lovely vintage-attired folks there, and hopefully you’ll be among them!

We had a great time at the first party and hope to see you at this one!  It will be a lovely evening!

Looking for something fun to do this Friday night and feel like getting gussied up and dancing the night away with your steady?  Then come on down to DTA for a fun night of live music, dancing, burlesque and vintage! One of the best party organizers ever, Shien Lee of Dances of Vice, is putting on yet another great party, this time, the Enchantment Under the Sea Junior-Senior Prom! There will be a dance lesson at 8:30pm, a live band, Nick Palumbo and the Flipped Fedoras, and two great DJs keeping you dancing all night long, along with burlesque performances and vendors selling hair flowers, corsages and accessories.  I’ve been to lots of Dances of Vice parties, and this one looks like its going to be great!

Check out the Dances of Vice site for more info, a lovely video of past DoV proms, and to buy tickets!

Here are some pictures of us from the last two “proms” to inspire you!  Check out the site for more inspiration!

One of the major perks of being a makeup artist who loves vintage is the chance to work with other people who share my love and create beautiful images combining the two.  Recently I was lucky enough to have my colleague, friend and fellow vintage enthusiast, Elizabeth Bert, ask me to not only do makeup for a shoot but also model for her.  Elizabeth is a model herself as well as an aspiring photographer and former owner of a vintage store so she knows all about vintage style.  Elizabeth brought some wonderful hats for me to wear, and my hair was waved perfectly by the absolutely amazing hairstylist Kat Zemtsova. (I wish my hair looked like this every day!)  It was so exciting to create beautiful images with a great team, and to be in front of the camera,   I admit 🙂  I was so happy with how the pictures turned out and I can safely say they are some of my favorite pictures of myself ever taken.  I can hardly believe they’re me when I look at them.  In fact, I want these to go on my gravestone, I don’t care how old I am when I die!

As a makeup artist and a vintage lover, it’s always a pleasure when I can combine two things that I love- being on set and vintage style, especially when I can involve my friends! My friend and long time colleague, photographer Ian Spanier, saw all of my vintage event pictures on Facebook and asked if he could shoot me and some of my friends in the style of some 1920’s mugshots that have recently surfaced on the internet.  These mugshots are not the kind we’re used to, but filled with various personalities wearing their own clothing, sometimes with a brief description of the crime they’ve committed.

For all my fellow NYC vintage lovers, there is a big weekend of vintage shopping approaching! Oddly enough, both the Manhattan Vintage Clothing Show and the Pier Antique Show are happening over the same three days.  The Manhattan Vintage Clothing Show will take place March 28th & 29th and the Pier Antique Show is March 29th & 30th.  So, if your little vintage-loving heart desires, you can shop until you (and your wallet) drop next weekend.

I know all you MVLers love red lipstick, judging by the popularity of my post “My Favorite Red Lipsticks” back in December.  Because of that, I thought you readers might like to know about a great new red lipstick that I came across the other day, MAC’s “All Fired Up”. This is one of their Retro Matte lipsticks which is great because if you’re trying to create a true vintage look, matte is the way to go.  Like any matte lipstick it does run dry, but wearing it with the MAC Prep & Prime for Lips has kept it feeling comfortable on my lips and also greatly increased the longevity. (I tend to lick and bite my lips a lot so lipstick usually disappears quickly on me, and I know I’ve had a lot of clients tell me they have the same issue.)  The color is fairly true to what you see in the picture here- a super bright, intense pinky-red that is quite blue based.  Fair-skinned ladies like myself would most likely look great in it, but I can imagine it looking great on darker skins as well.

There are seven colors in the Retro Matte line which are all permanent colors in the collection, so if “All Fired Up” isn’t for you but you’re still craving a matte lip there are other options!

My apologies for the selfie, it know it doesn’t hold up against all the lovely photography in the other posts!

Like I mentioned in my last post, there have been a lot of wonderful events in the past month.  One of the most exciting was an exhibit that opened at FIT that is a must for all lovers of vintage fashion. The exhibit, entitled “Elegance in an Age of Crisis: Fashion of the 1930’s”  features gems of the 30’s, including women’s and men’s wear.  It features some truly jaw-dropping gowns, some of which are also strikingly modern.  I remember thinking that many of the dresses would be completely appropriate on the red carpet today and the wearer would still look classic and stunning.  Of course I just wanted them all to add to my closet!  It was such a treat to be able to look at such rare and beautiful pieces that are in impeccable condition up close and personal.

Oh My Vintage Loves, far, far too much time has gone by since my last post! Partly because of life and work and travel, and partly because there have just been so many fun events lately its been hard to find the time to post! I finally have a weekend off and I will spend some time creating some wonderful new posts for you to read and enjoy. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this picture of Matthew and I at our friend’s wedding in Devon, England that we attended a few weeks ago.  It was held in the most magnificent manor house and it was a beautiful wedding and a great party.  As the only Americans there we wanted to represent appropriately and I think we did!

That’s all for now! As always, if you have anything that you’d like to see on the blog or ideas for posts please let me know- I love suggestions! Email me at: michelle@myvintagelove.com

One of my absolute favorite events that I’ve recently been invited to is Robert Bryan’s New Year’s Day Tea Party.  Small and intimate, it takes place in Robert’s perfectly maintained Art Deco apartment that is a treat just to visit.  Robert is a legend in the fashion and vintage industries so it’s an honor just to be invited to his apartment and spend the first afternoon of the year with like-minded vintage lovers.  It’s a nearly perfect start to the year.  There is an amazing selection of tea, sandwiches, and an astounding array of sweet things (those new year’s resolutions start on January 2nd!)

Have you ever had one of those weekends that was just so perfect you can hardly believe it actually happened?  I was lucky enough to experience one of those recently, with a large group of my vintage-loving friends no less.  There was hiking, lounging, eating, drinking, dancing, smoking, carol singing, trap shooting, general merry-making and some fabulous vintage duds, of course.