Vintage Friendships- (And a Vintage Outfit Post Inspired By My Dear Friend Jessica)

When I started Retro Rover three years ago I was inspired by other bloggers I saw sharing their love of vintage style on the internet, first among those bloggers was the lovely Jessica Cangiano at Chronically Vintage.   Jessica has an amazing knowledge of the 1940s and 50s fashion that she shares on her popular blog and she is incredibly supportive of other vintage bloggers like myself and the online vintage community in general.   Most impressively, she does it all while struggling with multiple chronic illnesses.   Even though I have never met Jessica personally I consider her a dear friend

and on ongoing source of style inspiration.

I was thinking of her when I put together this fall outfit from elements I already had in my closet.  Jessica is adept at blending eras, and often wears 1980s does 40s and 50s looks with great success, and also looks gorgeous in a pinafore.   The outfit I am wearing here consists of a 1940s repro blouse and pinafore from Jitterbuggin and a 1970s tweed jacket I found at the Salvation Army a decade ago, so it is a very Jessica look

(though I'd never presume to do a pinafore, or indeed, any vintage look as week as Jessica can.)  Like me Jessica prefers a covered up look a

and is a lover of tweed, fall, novelty brooches, and bakelite.  All elements in this outfit.

                         

My favorite part of this outfit though is the necklace.  

It is a 1950s poodle necklace that Jessica sent me free of charge when I made a small purchase from her Etsy shop.  Jessica knows I have a toy poodle so she knew I would appreciate the necklace.  It's a testament to what a kind and considerate person she is that she sent it to me and I treasure it.  

The reason I have been thinking of Jessica particularly a lot lately is that she and her husband Tony have endured a terrible tragedy.  Their condo was destroyed in a massive fire that was started in arson incident in a neighboring condo. Thankfully Jessica, her husband and their dog Annie escaped, but tragically their beloved cat, Stella, is missing and not presumed to have survived.  All of their possessions: momentos, photographs, clothes, a lifetime of vintage collecting, and the wares from Jessica's online Etsy shop  have been destroyed.  

Jessica's sister has set up a You Caring link so that friends of Jessica can help her and Tony out.  If you know Jessica and how kind and supportive she is of her online friends please considering donating in her time of need.  Thank you.

My Interview at Chronically Vintage

I am uberexcited to be interviewed on the blog Chronically Vintage.  Jessica is one of the most knowledgable and successful vintage bloggers out there and there blog is a must read for anyone into the vintage scene.  She has been doing a series of interviews with vintage bloggers and mine up today (link) .
I'm so honored to be featured and very excited to perhaps attract some new vintage readers to my blog, I think most of my readers know are more in the pet blogger realm which is great but since at least half of my posts are on vintage I'd love to have more vintage lovers on board.   Anyway thanks so much to Jessica, a truly awesome person and proof that  you can meet amazing people online.  

Pug on a Bike, A Street Fair, and a Vintage Outfit Post

This Saturday was the 4th annual All About Downtown Street fair in Jersey City.  We have lived in Jersey City for seven years but this Saturday was our first time attending the fair.  Since we new parking would be impossible, but that it would also be a dog friendly outdoor event, we decided to bring Ping in her Cynthia's Twigs basket. 

She seemed pretty eager to get on the road.   Since I naturally associate autumnal bicycling with tweed




I decided to have my own tweed run for one by pairing my old Brooks Brothers jacket from the Salvation army with a 1930s dress and hat from Adeline's Attic on Etsy.   Individually I love all of the pieces in this outfit but together, I like them even more.  I think this is my favorite new fall look 

 

The poodle brooch is very old, early 1900s.  It is from Chronically Vintage's Etsy shop and its one of my favorite pieces of jewelry.  She has lots of beautiful and fun things for reasonable prices and if you like vintage you simply must check it out. 

I love when you have things for a long time and then you put them together and get something totally new.

Anyway, back to the more interesting, at least for the non-vintage obsessed, subject of the street fair and the pug on the bike.  Ping did very well on her bike ride, she loves her basket and we stopped to snap her picture outside city hall. I wanted to dress her up too so she is wearing one of her dresses from Pugpossessed.

The fair was packed! 

Thousands of people and tons of food trucks and stands.   It was hard to even squeeze through. 

In the 7  years since we have moved here I have really seen Jersey City grow and change.  I think it used to be a sort of overlooked suburb of Manhattan and now its become a very up and coming place, its going through the kind of renaissance Brooklyn did in the 90s and early 2000s.  The fair had so many vendors and all with interesting stuff.

I quickly found a stand from the local vintage store Another Man's Treasure.  I particularly loved their sign (I think you can see why, though a pug dog would have been even better).

Ping helped me shop and we were admiring this amazing Miss. Marple style carpet bag

when the shop owner called me over to look at the most amazing late 1930s or  early 40s coat that matched my hat.   Now obviously I buy a lot of vintage but I don't usually impulse buy and I really didn't need a new coat, but sometimes things are meant to be.  The coat fit perfectly, was super warm, and definitely the sort of item I would never see again.   I thought about it for about ten minutes before agreeing with the shop owner that it was destiny.  Since we had our bikes and couldn't carry the coat home on them I put a deposit down and I will pick it up on Thursday.  I now wish I had taken a photo to post here but somehow I neglected too.  Once I get the coat home I'm sure Ill take tons of pictures.

Ping had been a patient shopper so we had to award her with some tripe treats from the Hound About Town stand:
 

 

 

They clearly met with her approval even if it took her remaining old lady teeth a good ten minutes to gum them down.   Next we went to a stand that sold  Peperoni Bread and offered free dog treats, and Ping of course sampled both.

 

 

 

By the time we got home Ping was pretty tired form her adventure: 

 

 



 

The fair was lots of fun and reminded me of how lucky I am to live in such an interesting and vibrant place.



Vintage Outfit Post-Easy Summer Style 1930s trousers and Striped Shirt

 

 

Like my vintage blogging friend Jessica of Chronically vintage, I don't wear trousers that often.  However, my reason has nothing to do with being girly. I absolutely love the masculine influenced styles of the 1930s and 40s as impeccably worn by Marlene Dietrich and Katherine Hepburn.  A key summer element of both of these women's glamorous androgyny was a well tailored by pair of wide  legged white pants:

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Looking at their cool, comfortable summer style left me craving a white pair of pants of my very own.  However my problem with pants is that at barely five feet tall,  all trousers must inevitably undergo a drastic hemming.  Still when I saw the ivory 1940s Swing Trousers on Hey Day Vintage and the NudeeDudee 1930s style tee, I couldn't resist and I'm happy I didn't! 

Like my other pair of Hey Day pants the ivory trousers are super comfortable and after a hem up they fit very well.   The striped cotton t from NudeeDudee is probably the best m t-shirt I have ever owned, made of nice thick cotton and very stretchy its sturdy and stylish. 

 

 
 Not to be left out Weasley is wearing his metrosexual t-shirt.

 

  And in the end maybe I am a little bit girly because in the end I couldn't resist adding a 1940s style hair flower.

 

Luck of the Irish-Vintage Outfit Post (and seeing beautiful with a sweater and a close canine companion)

There is no color, if you ask me, that is more beautiful then green.

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Green means spring, and its particularly inviting after a long cold winter like this one, reminding us of all the beautiful like this one.  That is one reason why I really like St. Patrick's day, and yes I know its not celebrated in Ireland.  

 In my dreams I live in an Irish cottage like this one:



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and not a row house on a crowded city street. 

Thanks to the lovely  sweater I got from the wonderful Regiane from vintage and cool knitting.   I can feel transported right out of my city dwelling and into the Irish country side this St. Patrick's day.



I discovered Regiane through the blog of fellow vintage lover, Jessica at chronically vintage.  Isn't it amazing how blogging can connect us to beautiful things, and more importantly beautiful people?  This is the second sweater Regiane has made for me, I wrote about the first in this post, and I love them both.

I also have to say I love the 1940s land girl style pants I am wearing in these pictures, form Hey Day Vintage, which I also discovered through blogging

and the cute little 1930s or 40s St. Patrick's day pin from Etsy shop SoCal Jewelry Shop.


Of course by far the most beautiful thing in these photos is my darling, some what reluctant co-model, Norbert. I've been more then lucky to share my life with him for 11 years, I can't believe  he will be 12 in July.  

Among the myriad of ways that Norbert and my other dogs  have enriched my life is through building my self confidence.  I've always loved clothes and dressing up, but in the past I rarely had the confidence to wear full on vintage style, because I worried what others would think.  Or that I was too short, chubby, etc.   In my teens and early and mid twenties, I never wanted to have photos taken of myself, and in fact I have almost no photos from this period.  I first started posing for photos with the dogs because it was easier to get them to stay still for their pictures with me in it.   Overtime, I started to feel more confident about having my picture taken and even to like it.   I also started to realize that the dogs don't care what I wear, they love me regardless, this helped me to develop the confidence to dress exactly as I please... and confidence truly is a think of beauty.   

Book Review-Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern and an Outfit Post

This summer I read the book Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern by Joshua Zeitz.  It is not a new book, having been published in 2007, but it was excellent and if any vintage lovers out there have been remiss in reading it as I had, they need to rectify the situation!   As a vintage style lover and a feminist I appreciate history's independent, rebellious women, and the flapper certainly is that.  In the 1920s women really redefined their traditional roles: attending college in large numbers, entering the work force,  living outside the family home, voting, and expressing their sexuality.  The book profiles a few of the most influential flappers, some everyone has heard of like Zelda Fitzgerald:

 Others like Louis Long 

who wrote a column for the New Yorker under the pen name Lipstick are less well known, but equally glamorous.

My one disappointment with the book was there was nothing in it about African American flappers,a serious oversight since African American culture revolutionized music, dance, and style in the 1920s.

 



I'd still definitely recommend the  book for anyone who wants to learn more about the women of this exciting era, a decade that really ushered in the modern age.

The 1920s, along with the 1930s, is my favorite style era and I try to base my vintage look as much as I can on the women from these eras.   I was lucky enough to be able to treat myself to  a beautiful dress from the wonderful Etsy store Adelines Attic.  Though the dress is a 1930s number I paired it with a flapper style hat from Anthropologie, mod cloth shoes, and a 1930s crochet bag and I think the outfit had a sort of flapper air.  This is definitely one of my favorite outfits ever, and it's lovely to give  a style nod to one of the most fascinating eras American history.

In case you would like  a gorgeous vintage hat of your own, and why wouldn't you, I urge you to visit the wonderful blog Chronically Vintage and enter the Blue Rose Vintage hat give away for a chance to win a hat from Blue Rose Vintage that represents your own favorite era.