Here Chicken, Chicken-A Vintage Outfit Post (Perhaps My Favorite Ever)

Obviously clothes are important to me.   I consider dressing in vintage style my hobby, and I often spend a lot of time planning out outfits.   However, sometimes my favorite outfits come together by chance, which is the case with the  outfit I'm wearing here.  

I purchased the dress, a cheery chicken print 1950s style dress from Hey Day vintage, thinking it would make excellent spring and summer wear.   The jacket is a 1950s western style wool number that I was planning to save until the fall.  Then I realized the jacket's color way was a perfect compliment for the  chicken dress and with our chilly spring weather, I put them together and I absolutely adore the result.

Inspired by these charming land girls I added a 1940s style head wrap

and a luxulite novelty chicken brooch:

(Note the pug and cat hairs, an essential touch to any outfit in my opinion.)

I like the effect even better with the jacket unzipped.  So you can see more of the dress.  

These Judy dresses are so much fun.  They are based on a 1950s patter and just pull over the head and tie at the waist,  super easy and comfortable to wear.   I have the penny arcade version too.

This whole outfit sort of represents the apex of vintage dressing for me.  It's without a doubt a vintage look, and totally unique, but its every bit as comfortable and casual as modern clothing.  In fact I find this more comfortable then modern clothes.  I never feel like myself in modern outfits and I find many of them restrictive.    This is the perfect thing to wear for a walk in the park with the dogs, which is wear I wore it on Sunday.  


They've built a  nature trail in the park near our house and we checked it out.  It's small but nice.

I love how Mr. Tuvok is leaping up in this picture.  

A happy dog on a simple happy day!

Outfit Details

Chicken Print Dress-Hey Day Vintage
1950s Western Jacket-Lucky Dry Goods
1940s Head Wrap-Arthelia's Attic
Novelty Chicken Brooch Luxulite
1940s Style Canvas Wedges-Remix Vintage Shoes

Sunny Stripes for April Showers A Vintage Outfit Post

The weather has been decidedly odd this year, 60 plus degree days in February and now in April when things should be warming up temperatures are dipping into the 40s  Not my cup of tea at all since I love warm weather and have an urge to sport my spring time fashions rather then being stuck in sweaters.

Basically I want tot live in this picture

 I did manage to put together one spring timey outfit the first weekend of April.  I think its a particularly good outfit for a rainy day, which this was, and of course we all know that spring showers

bring May flowers.  

I built my outfit around a Hey Day Judy dress in Penny Arcade, one of the prettiest and most versatile prints I've ever encountered, a bright multicolored stripe, with orange, red, and turquoise among the colors.   I love the Hey Day Judy dresses.  They are super comfortable with an adjustable tie belt that acommodates a range of sizes, I'm usually a 12 or a large in Hey Day clothes, but I wear a medium in the Judy dresses.   Judy dresses are also great for vintage fans like myself who appreciate a range of eras because the cut is based on a 1950s style but could be 1940s, or even 30s.  Though I really do think that the playful primary print on my dress, which I was lucky enough to nab on sale along with several other Hey Day items after New Years, places it firmly in the 1950s.  It just has the bright playful look that I love from that era.

The different colors in the stripes give plenty of options for accesorizing with different colors.  I choose to focus on the turquoise and added a vintage head scarf and gloves.

The stripes also scream for bakelite so I wore almost my entire bangle collection.

I kept my shoes neutral, a cute comfy pair of Playtime wedges from Remix.

My favorite accessory in the outfit though is my vintage doll purse.  These where originally intended for children but I love them.   I had another one I showed in this post, but tragedy struck and the head fell off.  So I was thrilled when I found another.  I love this little lady with her big sun hat and tropical accents.

Spring is all too fleeting make sure you cherish every moment!  

Outfit Details

Judy Dress in Penny Arcade Print-Hey Day Vintage Clothing
Playtime Shoes in Tan-Remix Vintage Shoes
Bakelite Bangles-Brighter Bakelite
Turquoise Gloves-The Road Less Traveled
Turquoise Scarf-Dorthea's Closet
Vintage Doll Purse-W.Kay Vintage

Remembering A Sunny Hey Day in Princeton

It took awhile, but it has finally gotten really cold in NYC.

Never being a fan of cold weather I can't help but long for warmer days.  That  is why I've decided to share these pictures from a September outing, a time when my blog was on hiatus.  John and I decided to celebrate Fry's first birthday by taking him to Princeton, NJ.   I've always liked Princeton.  The town is lovely and the buildings have a great sense of history.  Plus Einstein was  a resident for years which is neat.  (Incidentally it's pretty cool that Einsten's theory of relativity has basically been proven due to the fact that scientists have heard echoes of two black holes colliding billions of years ago.   I can't pretend to fully understand the video explaining it below, though maybe scientific advisor Bertie could help.  Either way black holes sure are pretty.)

Anyway another cool thing about Princeton is dogs are allowed on campus.  So we got lots of nice pictures of Fry out and about.

Fry wore his ensign Wesley Crusher sweater (I wrote about it here) and I wore a dress from Hey Day vintage.  It is a really fun repro dress in a style called called the Fleur, it's named after a vintage blogger.  It's done in a 1940s wrap dress style,  which means its very comfortable to wear and can accommodate a range of figures.   Dresses like this are proof that vintage style can be comfortable and casual.  Seriously this dress is way more comfortable then a pair of jeans.

The Fleur dress comes in lots of fun prints, I have the holly berry one too.  The one I wore to Princeton is in the All Aboard! print.  A cheery vintage train motif, with a novelty wheel button. 

I love whimsical prints and this one is so much fun.  It reminds me of 1940s and 50s toy trains.   

I accessorized my dress with a 1940s hat I got on sale from Fab Gabs, bakelite bangles, my 1950s poodle purse, American duchess shoes, and a sweater from Old Navy.

It was a lovely day, I can't wait for Spring so that we can have more of them!

A Sparkly Snood Inspired by Judy

Ever since I was a very little girl, I mean pre-school little, I've been a huge Judy Garland fan.  I love her voice, her acting, her style, and her whole persona.   My favorite Garland film is definitely the Wizard of Oz but I also adore 1944's Meet Me in St. Louis.  It has a beautiful 1940s take on turn of the century fashions, its vintage-vintage!  There are tons of gorgeous looks in the film:

My favorite though are the Christmas ones.  Judy's lovely wine red velvet dress:

and her sparkly golden snood.

I loved the latter so much that I decided to ask Etsy seller Chloe Hearts Owls to make me a version and she did.

I wore it with my Hey Day Holly dress and a holly hair clip I got last year from Chatter Blossom and felt very Christmasey.  Too bad I can't sing:

I'll be going on blogger break for Christmas.  Wishing all of you very happy Holidays.  

Vintage Outfits Post: The Grinch's (Dog) and The Holly Berry

As I just mentioned in my last post Im a sucker for any sort of seasonal dressing, both for my self and my pups.  So when my husband saw this 

on sale at Petco and showed me, we snatched it up right away.  I knew it would look perfect on Fry.  Plus as the Grinch came out in 1966 its officially vintage.  Fry is a very happy and cute pup, but something about him does remind me of the Grinch's rather sad sack dog Max.

I was right Fry looks beyond cute in the antler, though he doesn't love wearing it.  He shakes his head and its off in 10 seconds flat, so I had to hold him for the pictures, after which he was amply rewarded with treats.

The holly in the title of this post is on my hair clip from Chatter Blossom and on my dress the very comfy and super festive Holly Berry dress from Hey Day.  I bought it on sale this July and am so excited to finally be able to wear it!  Happy Holidays!

It's Beginning to Look alot Like Christmas Sweaters

The 1940s and 50s where definitely the hey day of the recently much maligned Christmas Sweater.  Mid century adds and photos show smiling, sporty, men and women in chic Holliday sweaters.  More often then not the sweater in question is from Jantzen. 



image source

Founded in 1916 Jantzen began as a swimwear brand that originated in Portland Oregon.  The Jantzen diving girl in her red swim suit became a famous logo.

The suits where stylish, but also undeniably sporty,  meant for athletic pursuits and not just  splashing.   In the late 1930s the company added sweaters to their line, many of them Holliday themed. 




Image Source

The famous diving girl still visible on the label:

image source the vintage traveler

Jantzen is still around and manufacturing swim suits, but the sweaters are a thing of the past.   I've always been a big proponent of seasonal and Holliday dressing and I badly wanted a mid-century Christmas sweater of my own.  Luckily, as they were such a popular item, there are lots around, I was able to find an affordable one in good condition from Garb Oh Vintage.  My sweater may not be a Jantzen, there is no label, but it looks very much line one and I absolutely love it.  

I wore it with a holly hair clip from Chatter Blossom,

my corduroy 1940s pants from Hey Day vintage, and a pair of 1940s overshoes form Adeline's Attic and even if it is weeks early I felt quite Christmasey!

I plan to enjoy this sweater for many Christmases to come, in fact I can think of only one sweater, courtesy of The Mary Sue blog, that might be even better: