Special Halloween 2013 edition Vintage Fashionista Friday

{The stars seems to pop with a whole new sense of dimension against a nippy October sky, and so will your hairdo when you sport this enchantingly marvelous vintage inspired beaded star headband (available in silver and antique gold as shown, as well as all antique gold or silver}. $78.00 from etsy seller Baroque and Roll.)



{There's just something about autumn that calls for a vampy, beguiling red or wine hued lip, and what better way to get just that than from a lipstick that's scented like one of the season's most beloved fruits - apples - and, fittingly, named Candy Apple Red? $7.49 from etsy seller Lynx Cosmetics.}



{Let glistening ink hued jewelry steer you through fancy occasions and days when you just want to inject an extra hit of glamour into your ensemble alike with this classically becoming 1950s Marvella black jet necklace and earring set. $25.00 (for the set) from etsy seller Little Netties Vintage.}



{It's almost frightening how incredibly you’re bound to look if you slip into this strikingly lovely two-piece 1950s Jo Collins black velvet dress set. Fits up to a 34" bust/24-26" waist. $210.00 from etsy seller Dalena Vintage.}



{If ever there was a vintage ring that sang with the colour palette of late October, this gorgeous art deco stunner featuring black onyx, diamonds, seed pearls, and both yellow and rose gold is most definitely it. $650.00 from etsy seller Maejean Vintage.}



{Every time I see this bottle, and the packaging it comes housed in, of Black XS perfume from Paco Rabanne (which smells enchantingly of cranberries, pink peppercorns, hellebore roses, cacao flowers, massoia wood, patchouli, black violet, and tamarind blossoms), I cannot help but think of Morticia Addams, who was ever so fond of snipping the heads off of her ruby red roses. 2.7 ounce bottle of perfume, $43.92 from Amazon.}




{If the devil is in the details, then surely he's bound to appreciate the alluring flash of red that's lurking on the back of these black seamed stockings with a fiery red Cuban heel and seam, just as  is everyone else who spies you wearing them. Stockings £3.97 per pair from UK seller Retro Vixens.}



{I've always loved hits of silver in my fall ensembles - it makes me think of full moons, frost dusted sidewalks, and the occasional eerie shadow tailing you down the street. Naturally, it's also wildly sophisticated the whole year round, making a gorgeous pair of vintage appropriate black and silver ankle strap heels like this a wardrobe winner in any season. Available in ladies size 7-9. On sale (at the time of writing) for $36.00 from Blue Velvet Vintage.}

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One has but to only open the front door on this icy autumn morn to sense the almost electric purse of excitement that surges near and far throughout the land. It whispers of long forgotten, crumbling haunted houses, smells like freshly picked pumpkins, and is aflutter with rustling, tumbling saffron hued leaves. There is merriment and good natured sorcery afoot, and I wouldn't possibly have it any other way.

With less than a week to go until All Hallows Eve, it only seemed fitting that the last Friday of the month feature a thoroughly Halloween appropriate Vintage Fashionista. Today's lass shares here name with, and takes some of her styling cues from, none other than beloved Addam's Family character, Morticia, famed for her raven locks, blood hued lips, and penchant for garments as dark as the sky at midnight.

Macabre as Morticia's home, attire, and lifestyle may have been at times, she had a certain spark of vitality to her, not to mention a serious dose of level headed wisdom and a flare for foreign tongues (much to her husband's delight). I like to think that she and I would have hit it off swimmingly, loving all things kooky, spooky, and mysterious as we both do. We could have chatted about our favourite crimson lippies, gone shopping for decaying antiques together, and mused for hours on end about the joys of Halloween.

I love dressing for the season and any holidays that may be afoot, and while I - like many folks of all ages - don an actual costume come the 31st, I usually start dressing in the colour palette and with elements (an owl or pumpkin novelty brooch, or my beloved Halloween cardigan, for example) several days in advance of Halloween.

This year is no exception and I bought a festive vintage garment in advance to wear this frighteningly fun weekend. Like most of my outfits during these last few days of October, it features plenty of orange and black, and strikes me as something that I think Morticia herself would wholeheartedly approve of.

Grown up as we may be, there's no reason to stop approaching Halloween with the same glee and excitement we had as youngsters, nor why you should reserve your seasonal threads merely for the 31st.

Step out sporting the palette of the season - vivid orange, muted greens, rusty browns, bold yellows, sinister purples, slate grey, and of course, plenty of black. Have fun, don't take yourself or your outfits too serious - Halloween is all about good times, lighthearted attire, and having a hair raisingly wonderful time!

They’re creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky

✯ Day 297 of Vintage 365 ✯

Though I've really been feeling softer hues and highly elegant Halloween elements this month, as October 31st draws ever more delightfully near, I can't help but yearn for a bit of spooky, dark fright night fun, too.

A marriage of both of those (masked) faces of Halloween lands you somewhere in the territory of glam goth, which in a roundabout way is where my creative inspiration stems from as we count down the last week until October 31st.

Though many of us think of the Addams family as being tied to either the classic television show of the 1960s or the movies that followed later in 90s, the creation of this much loved clan of morbid characters stretches back considerably farther, all the way until 1938 in fact.

Dreamed up by an American cartoonist by the name of Charles Samuel Addams, the Addams Family first appeared in a long running series of single panel cartons that appeared in the New Yorker magazine (between 1938 and 1988, when Charles Addams passed away), before making their way in the sixties to TV screens around the world.

I think it's safe to say that unless one has been living under a rock (or in this case, perhaps a tombstone), you're familiar with the Addams Family.

You know the cast - kooky Gomez, enchanting Morticia, odd-ball Uncle Fester, tenacious young Pugsley, goth-before-it-was-cool-to-be-goth Wednesday, venerable Grandmama with her somewhat cynical sense of humour, lumbering butler Lurch, the furry rapscallion called Cousin Itt, and of course, that most unique of disembodied hands, Thing – and you likely have a favourite or two.

Hands down (or would that be Things down in this case? ), Morticia was always my favourite of the Addams family members. However, it was the eccentric, endearing antics of the whole family that really made me a fan of this classic spooky family.

Well, that and the fact that they seemed to perpetually live in a Halloween world filled 24/7, which struck me as too incredibly awesome for words to me when I was a little girl (who grew up both watching reruns of the black and white TV show from the 60s and the spirited movies in the 90s).

I always adored the fact that the Addams family members were portrayed as being virtually oblivious to the fact that they struck the rest of the world (especially those neighbours whose houses shared a street with the family's fabulous Victorian mansion) as being bizarre, eerie, and off-beat.

The various Addams relatives may have come across as ghoulish at first glance, but in reality they weren't terrifying, dangerous or evil in the slightest.

As the classic Addams Family theme song (seen in the Youtube clip above) for their TV show said, They’re creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky, they're altogether ooky.

The Addams family captures the wonderful old fashioned fun of Halloween, with a peppering of the (playful) macabre thrown in for good measure. And that, my dear friends, is precisely the vibe I'm challenging this week in the lead up to my favourite holiday of the year!