Vintage Outfit Post-Flamingo Fancy

I have long had a fondness for flamingos, both the actual living bird and the plastic lawn variety.

 I will forever admire the late David Featherstone for his brilliantly kitschy lawn ornament creation and consider him a brilliant artist.  (Here is a link to his NY Times obituary).

Sadly I live in a city row house rather then a mid century ranch with a vast lawn with room for flocks of pink plastic residents.

So I have to get my flamingo fix elsewhere.  Which is why when I heard about flamingo print Vans this spring from a member of the facebook group Mid Century Modern Kitsch, a totally awesome group by the way, I knew I had to have them and began planning the perfect flamingo themed outfit to go with them.  

I paired the sneakers, 

which I got for 50% off from Journeys, with a green and white check Bernie Dexter Kelly dress and a purse made from an actual pink plastic lawn flamingo!

 I love Bernie Dexter dresses, she's a big reason I've been going in a more 50s direction with my style recently, and the Kelly Dress is my favorite cut.  It's very comfortable, has sleeves (which I like), and works with or without a petticoat.   I wear a large in Bernie Dexter and the Kelly dress fits me just right and even though I'm short its never too long.

The purse is pretty fabulous too, I'm sure if your crafty you could easily make your own out of a lawn ornament but I'm not crafty at all so I got mine from the Etsy shop Eye Candy Sugar.

I also wore my custom Tanith Rowan Coolie hat that I wrote about here.   This really is the absolutely perfect sun hat.   The brim really keeps the sun off your face and the ties stop it from blowing right off your head.  

I had some concerns that the outfit hadn't reached its total kitsch-tential so I added an Audrey 2 Brooch from Luxulite:

I wore my flamingo outfit on a belated 15th anniversary day trip to Philadelphia.  We visited the zoo, I'm not a huge fan of zoos in general as I don't love the idea of animals in cages but the Philly zoo is pretty nice as zoos go.

I liked, the Newt exhibit, complete with PG Wodehouse reference:

I was disappointed that my favorite exhibit, the Vampire Bats, was closed for renovations.   The flamingoes though more then made up for it.

The zoo has plastic swan boats too right near the flamingos.  We didn't try them out but I appreciated their look.

No trip to Philadelphia is complete without a visit to the Franklin Fountain and Shanes Confectionery a vintage style soda fountain and candy shop.  The interior is just like a 1900s fountain and the delicious Sundaes are served in chinese take out containers:

All in all a perfect fun vintage summer day!

Outfit Details:

Dress-Bernie Dexter
Flamingo Vans-Journeys
Flamingo Purse-Eye Candy Sugar
Audrey 2 Brooch-Luxulite
Coolie Hat-Tanith Rowan
1950s Rhinestone Cat's Eye Sunglasses-Etsy but I forgot the shop!