Maple leaves, a cute totem pole, and plenty of red to celebrate Canada Day

Outfit details

Black hair ribbon: saved from the packaging on something I bought
Black rhinestone heart earrings: Claire's
Green 1930s beaded necklace: Jewelry seller in Okanagan Falls
Red 1980s does 50s shirtwaist dress: eBay
Vintage totem pole brooch: eBay
Black floral carved bangle bracelet: Unknown (I can't for the life of me remember where I got this from - perhaps thrifted?)
Vintage maple leaf print scarf (used as a belt): etsy seller Boomerville
Black vintage handbag: etsy seller A Vintage Revival
Black sling-back bow flats: Payless
Lip colour: MAC Russian Red


Photography by Antonio Cangiano

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Though such was not intentionally planned, it seems especially fitting to me that the last outfit post of the this month should include photos taken on the very first day of July. This feels like such a lovely way to cap off a month that, including the ensemble here, had not one, not two, but a grand total of five outfit post! Of these five however, only the photos for this one one were taken in July, the rest hailed from last month, as I wasn't doing too stellar on the health front throughout July and thus didn't get out and about very often.

Thankfully though, I was able to do just that on July 1st, as it meant I could celebrate Canada Day around town, pausing late in the afternoon to grab some snaps against a sun-bleached yellow wall on the outside of a skating arena that's located just a few blocks from our house.
 
This day was a scorcher - one of the warmest of the entire summer so far (temps hit at least 38C/100F), with little wind and an abundance of glistening, sizzling sunshine. Though I'd hoped to be able to stay awake long enough into the evening to catch our town's local July 1st fireworks shows, the heat zapped my last ounce of energy by about 8pm, and so after a quick, late dinner, I turned into for the night. Oh well, there's always next year - and I'll try to factor in a nap or sleep in extra late that day so that I might have a better chance of staying up to catch the twinkling fireworks that are shoot off over Okanagan Lake promptly at 10:30pm on Canada's birthday.

As you may know, I'm a big fan of dressing festively, and rarely pass up the opportunity to do just that when a holiday rolls around. Red and white are Canada's official colours, and I do usually reach for the pair on this festive day (case in point, my cute 1950s gingham dress worn for this day last year), but this year I was really in the mood for a lot of red, coupled with some thoroughly Canadian approved accessories.

I own a couple of completely red dresses, this 1980s does 1950s shirtwaist dress (which is light as air and absolutely perfect for a melting hot summer day such as this) being one of them, so on it went, followed by a maple leaf print scarf used as a belt and a super cute little totem pole brooch. Ever since I was a very young child, I have loved and appreciated the beauty and reverence of totem poles and the important role they've long played for some of British Columbia's First Nations people (such as the Haida), and had always kept my eyes peeled for a vintage brooch depicting one.

A couple of years ago I came across this brooch on eBay and couldn't bid fast enough. It was being sold by someone in the UK, and when I won, I loved knowing that I was able to help it return, many years later, to Canada (and even get it relatively close to its original home of Jasper, Alberta, which is located in the Athabasca River valley of the Rocky Mountains). It is, without a doubt, one of my all-time favourite vintage brooches, and seemed like the perfect piece of jewelry for Canada Day.

To compliment the scarf belt, I opted for summery black sling-back flats, a black vintage handbag, a carved black bangle, black rhinestone heart earrings, and a simple black ribbon, plus a fabulous (very newly acquired) 1930s green beaded necklace to round out the accessory mix.

This necklace is one of a few pieces of (exceedingly well priced - this cheerful necklace cost me an extremely reasonable $7.00) vintage jewelry I recently had the great pleasure of purchasing locally from a marvelous elderly lady who runs a small jewelry shop out of a cottage behind her house on the weekends during summer months in the neighbouring town of Okanagan Falls. (I'm planning to devote a post just to the discovery of this charming woman and her shop in the future, so that's all I say about her and her awesome wears for now - however, if you happen to be in the Okanagan Falls area, be sure to let me know and I'll give her address, as she doesn't have a website or online presence; I'd lived in the area again for nearly a year and a half before I even discovered her).

It's almost hard to believe that a whole month (shy of one day) has passed since these snaps were taken. We had such a fun, relaxing, awesome Canada Day - it set the mood for much of the rest of July, and was just what we needed in the wake of the basement flood we'd been hit with a few days prior. Then, as now, I feel happy and excited about what the rest of the summer holds in store, no matter if I've able to get out and about more often in August or not.

There's just something magical about the warmest season of the year, and though the heat can drain me at the speed of light sometimes, I cannot get enough of the beauty of summer and the fact that it allows this Canadian lass to wear feather light frocks outside of an ice skating rink in July.