Golden Girl-A Vintage Outfit Post and a Review of Piplotex's 1950s Cigarette Pants

Obviously I dress up all the time, but I always try to wear something a bit extra special on my birthday.  This year for my 39th it was Piplotex's cigarette pants in gold lame.  

I figured I should celebrate the beginning of my last year in my 30s with something a bit wild and outside my comfort zone, and gold lame pants are definitely perfect for that!

These pant's are just amazing, I adore them.  They are cut just like the 1950's originals with a high waist and slim cropped legs.  They look like they came straight out of a late 1950s Frederick's of Hollywood catalog

except they are much better.  Piplotex sells the in a range of sizes but they will also custom make them to your figure.  Since I'm short that is the option I went for.

 I wore my new pants with my Freddie's of Pinewood Beatnick top, which I've personalized with a genuine 1950s letter K sweater applique, 1950s style gold hoops from Mrs. Polly's lucite, remix flats, and my beloved 1950's novelty cat purse.

I don't usually wear anything as fitted as these pants so I was a bit nervous ordering them,  however Piplotex has absolutely amazing customer service ad worked with me.  The pants arrived amazingly fast and while they are fitted I was pleased that they are not skin tight  and they are super comfortable.  

The gold lame version of these pants has now sold out and I'm so glad I nabbed them when I did, but they are still available in a wide range of fabrics and beautiful colors and for a great price just $64.00, which is amazing for a hand made garment.

I'm hoping my style will get ever more eccentric and wild with every passing year and these pants are certainly a step in the right direction.

Leonard Nimoy-Heart Throb

My birthday is right around the corner.

and while I might not love everything about growing older, I do enjoy birthdays.  
One particularly thing I've always liked about my birthday is that I share it with one of the people I most admire, Leonard Nimoy.

I loved Leonard not just for his Mr. Spock role

but for his public profile that was always so kind and generous.  He was patient and appreciative of fans, and I really think used his celebrity status for good.  I really enjoyed reading his autobiography I Am  Spock and learning about his career and life.  It remains one of my favorite books, and certainly my favorite autobiography.   



Despite his ubiquitous link to his Vulcan alter ego,  Leonard had an interesting and varied career that spanned that later half of the 20th century.  One aspect of that career did surprise me somewhat, his 1960s and 70s status as a heart throb.

While it makes perfect sense that Nimoy's nerdy outside character Spock would appeal to angst ridden 1960's teens (see below this touching letter Nimoy wrote to a young fan struggling with her bi-racial heritage, Spock of course was also bi-racial being half Vulcan and half human)

his popularity with female fans comes as something as a surprise, because well,  lets be honest Leonard Nimoy was not exactly handsome. 

Still, from the minute Star Trek appeared on the airwaves in 1966 it was Leonard Nimoy as Spock, rather then the more traditionally handsome William Shatner playing the womanizing Captain Kirk

who got the majority of female fans attention.  Something that Shatner has admitted irked him a bit at the time.

 So surprising was Nimoy's popularity with female fans that none other then famed science fiction author and Star Trek screen writer Issac Assimov wrote an article about the phenomenon.  You can read it here.   It is a great vintage article and dream reading for any vintage loving pop culture geek like myself.  In the article, Assimov explains that his teen daughter finds Mr. Spock "dreamy" and speculates that this is because smart is sexy.  Personally, I think Shatner might have been more on the nose when he said that Spock's appeal lay in his inaccesability and the general human desire to want what we can't have.  Both are probably correct.

Personally, I love both Kirk and Spock, and possibly Kirk a teensy bit more.  I think the character get's less attention then Spock in general and I've always had a thing for the underdog.  Regardless, smart and nerdy is always best in my book.

Kitsch Collectables-Miss Ponytail and Miss Traveler Cases

As a novelty purse fanatic I spend a lot of time perusing vintage bags, purses and cases on easy and ebay.   My ideal purse isn't one of those chic subtle leather ones:

What I want is the wackiest, craziest, kitschiest novelty hand bag out there: dogs, cats fish, coconuts, crazy sayings etc.

 

 

 I've learned over the years to not limit my online handbag searches to traditional adult hand bags, but rather to look outside the box and search for things like travel cases, sewing bags, book bags, lunch boxes, hat boxes, and most of all children's bags.  That last search item is how I discovered Miss. Ponytail.  

Miss Ponytail, and Miss Traveler by Ponytail, are Barbie like teen queen character who appeared on diaries, record cases, travel bags, purses, and lunch boxes in the 1950s and 60s.

 

 

I knew I wanted a Miss Traveler or Miss Ponytail bag in my collection but I wanted it to be the right one for the right price.   It took me  a while but I found the perfect specimens on ebay and even bargained the seller down!

It's a Miss Traveler case and spiffy young Miss Traveler with her adorable pill box hat and Jackie Kennedy like bob is accompanied by a charming well groomed poodle.  As a poodle mom I knew this was the case for me.  It really made me think of a 1960s airline stewardesses, a look I admire

So using my 1940s style pinafore dress from The Black Pinafore  (you can read about it in this post) I put together a  cute 60s sort of look 

My Dream Party-Cinema Spotlight on Star Trek The Original Series Journey to Babel

Now despite the title of the post I actually hate parties.   I'm extremely shy and rather socially awkward and basically my ideal of hell is a cocktail party filled with people unfamiliar to me.  Even family parties make me nervous.  However, I love looking at vintage pictures of Holiday parties.  The more pedestrian the party the better.

These people look quite happy, or at least tipsy.

I love the tinsel on the tree here.

The dress on the girl on the left is just divine.

I love this guys shirt or whatever it is he is wearing.

However, there is only one party I'd like to attend and it is a fictional one, and unsurprisingly it is from the Star Trek universe.

I mean how fabulous is this party!

The episode is one from the original series second season, Journey to Babel, it aired in 1967 and the fabulous colorful kitschiness of the 60s is all over it.  The plot involves the Enterprise hosting a gathering of alien diplomats, including Spock's father, not all of whom have benign intentions.  The story is clever and well done, but what  I love most about the episode is the costume and set design.  William Ware Theiss, Star Trek's first costume designer, who I wrote about here, outdid himself in this episode.  

Usually Theiss's designs where emblematic of the swinging 60s and rather skimpy, focusing viewer attention on ample amounts of alien skin, but as this episode basically deals with an intergalactic U.N. summit the costumes are more covered up and Theiss had lots of fun with fabrics, colors, and trims.   I love every single outfit!

The Vulcans are very covered up and regal.  Lady Amanda Spock's human mother arrives in a vest over some sort of 60s column dress with a huge stand up collar.  My favorite touch is the elbow length gloves.   I also love Sarek's, Spock's vulcan father, military inspired tunic.

Sarek has some nice brocade on his party outfit:

But being a Vulcan it's still for Star Trek at least a rather subdued look.  Lady Amanda being a human gets to have more fun with her clothes.  Like the Vulcan's she is covered up and elegant, but there are plenty of fun touches.  Her party outfit is a psychedelic 60s caftan:

And later she wears a high necked red dress with pink marabou feather trim on the sleeves.

The Vulcan's are just the tip of the costuming ice berg in the episode though.  There is the pig people race, they seem to love shiny fabrics, 

and the little gold people in fezzes. I love the look of the cocktails they are carrying, are those some sort of futuristic gum drop ice cubes?

There are also tons of colorfully costumed extras in the background.  Each more outrageously attired then the last.

The only alien race with slightly boring costumes are the blue skinned Andorians who are wearing chain mail with leather vests.  They are kind of the bad guys of the episode though so maybe Theiss thought they should dress down.  

The Star Fleet dress uniforms on Kirk, Spock and McCoy are my favorite of all the costumes. I love, love, love the gold braid.

The set design in the party scene is also amazing I am obsessed with the psychedelically colored fruit and the brightly colored squares, I guess they are ice cubes?  And the decanters filled with futuristic cocktails.

I even have the perfect outfit to wear to this party if only I could go!  My Mexican Patio Set it even has the gold braid and everything!

Seriously though, I just love this image of a bright, colorful, and diversely costumed future.   So much better then the functional, drab, and boring direction that fashion is heading.  

A Cape for A Walk in The Woods-A Vintage Outfit Post Inspired by Dark Shadows

When it comes to movies I generally prefer films made before 1970, but of course there are exceptions.  One of my favorite films is the 2012 Dark Shadows starring Johnny Depp. I love its humorous take on the cult tv series, and I love the costumes.  The clothing in the film is a brilliant meld of Victorianna and early 70s that perfectly matches the story.  This is best represented by the character of Victoria Winters, a girl out of her time.

I love the ruffley dress, high neck blouses, and prim pinafores and sweaters:

  

My favorite of Victoria's looks though is a 1960s meets Victorian cape and pinafore combo.

I loved the outfit so much that about three years ago I had my vintage seamstress friend Kim Clark make me a copy.

She did an amazing job!  I actually like my version better then the one in the film.   I have no idea why it took me so long to feature it on the blog.   In these pictures I paired it with a 1940s hat from Lady Eve's Millinery, 1960s gloves, and  1940s style  spectators from Remix Vintage shoes.

I really feel like a cape is one of the nicest things to wear in the fall.

On the day these pictures where taken we took the Bob, Weasley, Fry and Mr. Tuvok to the Watchtung Reservation.  A nice big park with trails, a lake and a historic cemetery.  

It was a really lovely afternoon a perfect fall day!