Walking around town in my birthday suit

  Outfit details

1950s taupe umbrella: etsy seller Theresa's Tresures, Etc.
1950s cream lace platter hat: eBay
Golden brown hair net: eBay
Faux pearl stud earrings: Claire's
Pearl necklace: Birthday gift from Tony ♥
1950s coral skirt suit: etsy seller Mystery Mister
Gold toned and faux pearl antique inspired brooch: eBay
1940s/50s saffron yellow gloves: gloves
Mid-century vintage embroidered handbag: etsy seller Kitty Adventures
Nude on nude seamed stockings: eBay
Brown round toe pumps: Pipsqueaks and Damsel's Consignment Store
Lip colour: Clinique Raspberry Glace


Photography by Antonio Cangiano








































 

 
 







     

♥ ♥ ♥

Not literally of course - though I'm sure that might be worthy of mention unto itself, if it did happen! No, the kind of birthday suit I'm talking about was, quite literally, a suit that I received as a birthday present this year. My wonderful mom and step-dad very sweetly allot a certain amount for my birthday each year and then, if I so desire, leave it up to me to pick what I want.

This year, as my birthday rolled into sight, my thoughts were (despite, or perhaps because of the warm weather - off season shopping often lands one better deals!) planted squarely on vintage suits. Of which, previously, I owned at the time, just two.

A large part of the reason for this is that, I find, vintage suits rarely fit me well. They'll be too big, too small, too long, too bulky (for my petite frame), or any combination of those things in the same suit. Alterations done by skilled seamstress or tailor can certainly help of course, but some fit issues (especially if a garment is lined) can be trickier to remedy with suits than, say, a dress or pair of pants, and can also set you back a few clams. Ideally one always wants to aim to find garments that fit as well as possibly from the get-go, and that was not something I'd experienced over the years.

A very dear online friend and I had been discussing suits throughout much of the winter and spring, and as the year progressed, I knew that it was high time I did something about the shortage of suits in my closet. Though one might luck out and find a great bargain from time-to-time, typically a good vintage suit is a wardrobe investment item, and something that you'll want to try and make sure, at least on paper, sounds like it should fit you well.

I'd been scouring etsy and eBay quite extensively for suits for a few weeks when I hit upon the coral gem you see here. It was love at first sight. I forgot about all the other suits (and there had been hundreds) that I'd seen in previous weeks. This was the one. Reasonably priced as it was, its price tag did still make it an investment and a splurge, so I very happily opted to select it as my birthday present from my parents this year.

I waited excitedly for it to wing its way through the mail up here to Canada, and couldn't throw open the box quickly enough when it did. Other than being a tad darker coloured than I'd thought (the seller's photos were a tiny bit overexposed), it was precisely as pictured, and much to my immense delight, fit like a glove. Better than a glove, I'd say, it fit as though it had been tailor made for me - a rarity indeed, no matter the garment.

This suit is a dream. It's warm (really warm!), expertly constructed, in terrific shape, and a seriously gorgeous colour, to boot. I love the nubby, classic tweed; the glistening gold sparkle filled buttons, the shape of the lapel, where the jacket hits, the skirt length, every last, magnificent detail. This is one of the pieces that a person holds onto for a lifetime and treasures dearly, wearing it a thousand times, in an ever-so-slightly different way nearly each, throughout the rest of their days.

To model it, on a day that was both warm and rainy, we took these shots on a wee bridge in downtown Penticton. The location wasn't planned. We didn't know that there would be nearly matching flowers peppering the background, it was merely a wonderfully well (colour) coordinated moment of happenstance.

There are saffron hued threads in this tweed, so I used them as the jumping off point for my glove colour choice, as well as my gold hued brooch and vintage embroidered handbag (which was very, very kindly given to me as a gift by fellow blogger Carolynn Markey, from her lovely etsy vintage shop, Kitty Adventures, and which had once belonged to her dear grandmother; Carolynn also has another etsy shop in which she sells her delightful handmade wares called Moon of Silver, that's well worth checking out, too).

A suit like this, in such a vivid colour, is the star of the show for sure, but that doesn't mean it can't be accessorized with classic pieces such a pearl jewelry, a 1950s umbrella and lace platter hat, and my beloved brown round toe pumps. It was plenty toasty out that day, so there was no need for a blouse, sweater, or scarf underneath, just a vintage lace trimmed full slip and a pair of classic nude seamed stockings.

I love this gorgeous vintage suit to no end. It's one of the best birthday presents I've ever received and helped fill a nagging gap in my wardrobe big time. Almost unbelievably, it's actually the second suit I received as a present this year. The other though, my dears, will just have to wait for a post unto itself another day. :)

You can't put a price tag on nostalgia

 It will likely not come as a shock to anyone who has known me for at least five or so seconds, that I am a nostalgist. I can (and on plenty of occasions, have) wax poetically about the past - be it experiences from my own life or memories of a world long before I ever entered it - and as a lover of history and yesteryear fashion, it's safe to say that I live, so to speak, in days gone by a fair bit of the time.

This doesn’t mean that I see the past as some kind of glorious safe haven of an escape from the modern world or that I eschew the present, not in the slightest, but rather that my heart has a tendency to get very sentimental and attached to things I remember (or wish I'd been there to live firsthand and then later recall) and hold dear or meaningful.

I believe that many of us in the vintage community are the same way, and it's no doubt a substantial part of why we adore embodying so many yesteryear elements in our daily lives right here and now in 2013. Nostalgia is a powerful force and one that has been with humankind since the dawn of time, whether helping us to recount tales of earlier times around the fire's glow at night when were just beginning our journey towards civilization or accounting for the reason why so many people find themselves enthralled with the study of their own family's genealogy.

The word nostalgia sometimes tends to carry a bittersweet connotation, and indeed one can feel a powerful longing in our heart for moments and faces once near and dear to us that now exist only, at least in that precise form, in the halls of our memory.

When I think of the word nostalgia, I'm often reminded of the beautiful lyrics from John Lennon's classic song In My Life, which say…

There are places I'll remember all my life,

though some have changed

Some forever, not for better

Some have gone and some remain

All these places had their moments

With lovers and friends, I still can recall

Some are dead and some are living In my life,

I've loved them all

For me, no other lines I've ever read so succinctly summed up or expressed my relationship with nostalgia. Yes, it can be bittersweet at times, but ultimately it's a far more positive feeling than a negative one for me, and I'm truly grateful that my past experiences continue to play such a roll in my everyday life right here and now and in the present.

Like many, I have a special fondness for my youth - a point which some may find a touch fascinating because my childhood was often a million miles away from being an idyllic bed of roses, and there's a great many things I wish I could forget about those formative years, too. That said, glass half full kind of gal that I am, I tend to like to focus on the elements of my upbringing that I enjoyed and adored, and it is these that I most often feel a longing in my soul for.

Thusly, every now and then I come across a garment that really reminds me of an item of clothing I had as a little girl. From my earliest memories onward, I've loved fashion with an unending passion, and even as a youngster, there were certain pieces of clothing that I held in the highest regard, favouring and treasuring them most amongst all those in my dresser drawers.

Once such piece was a solid Cerulean blue summer dress with a swingy a-line skirt and a row of purply-blue buttons up the front that I had around the time when I was six years old. I went hunting through my childhood photos for an image of me in this particular frock, but none were forthcoming unfortunately (hopefully one will surface some day).

I adored this dress and wore it often, including one time when my little brother and I turned part of our backyard into a giant mud puddle, splashing around and digging for worms in it for hours one overcast afternoon. I can recall vividly in my mind how spackled and stained that dress looked when we emerged, but my mom - laundress extraordinair - was unphased and delighted in how much fun her kids had been having. Clothes, she asserted, could always be cleaned, and indeed she was able to bring my cheerful blue dress back to it's former glory with a good sudsying.

As with all of my favourite childhood garments, I'm sure I wore that dress until it was simply impossible to fit into any more. Some of my clothes we saved for my little sister, and some were either binned if they were threadbare or passed on for others to enjoy, and no doubt one of these things happened to that particular summertime frock.

I've recalled my vibrant tropical ocean hued dress often over the years, and thought on numerous occasions how absolutely lovely it would be to find a vintage or vintage appropriate frock in the same colour and a similar cut. Much to my absolute delight last month, while perusing some vintage listings on eBay, I did just that when I spied the following frock.

{Image via eBay seller Bohochick's auction listing.}

Though it was a bit big for me (size wise) and a bidding war drove the price up far more than I'd usually have paid for a similar 1980s does 1950s style dress in another hue, the fact that this garment was the exact same shade of Cerulean blue and in a strikingly similar cut (complete with almost identical buttons) as the dress from my youth, meant that I was going give winning it my fighting best.

I have an annual tradition of buying a new dress as a birthday present to myself. Even though my actual birthday falls in July, it's not uncommon for me to pick up my lovely gift earlier on in the spring if I find one that sets my heart on fire. I usually set a generous cap of $100 to spend on this treat to myself, though I never feel obliged to actually max out that budget.

Seeing that the auction price was quickly skyrocketing on this dress, I justified it's (potential) ding on my pocketbook by telling myself that if I won, it would be my birthday present to myself this year. As you may have already guessed, I'm pleased as punch to say that I did indeed come out as the lucky winner of this sweetly pretty dress, and I didn't even have to use up my whole budget (the winning price, before shipping, was $68.99 US) to do so!

There are many memories that are priceless to each of us, and which - as the title of this post says - you really cannot put a price tag on, but I rather love when you find something that reminds of your past which you can afford, and my new frock falls squarely into that camp. I have no qualms with saying I would have spent the whole hundred - and perhaps in a little bit more - on this dress, because I knew it would be a good long time in all likelihood before another one like it came along and the flood of memories it brought rushing back the moment I saw it made it more than worth every last penny.

This dress is so classic and endlessly summertime perfect. Its swingy, generously sized circle skirt helps turn a single item into a whole outfit, especially if you tuck a crinoline underneath.

It's safe to say that I love my new blue summer dress every bit as much as the one I wore day in and day out as a child, and that I'm eagerly looking forward to making scores of new memories in this frock as well - many of which, I'm sure, I'll look back on in the years to come with that familiar, important feeling: nostalgia.