Good morning, my sweet dears, before launching into a recap of some of the things that have transpired on the blogging front over the past month, I want to take a moment thank you from the bottom of my heart for the outpouring of incredibly caring, thoughtful, touching comments I received on last post about the surgery that I had a couple of weeks ago.
I truly cannot begin to express how very much they each meant to me, as did those I received on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, too. Your absolutely lovely well wishes helped to brighten my spirits and help make getting through a challenging time considerably easier to deal with. Again, thank you so much for making this gal feel so much better.
Though I've by no means recouped from my surgery completely (that will be a while still), I feel like I've reached a point in my recovery when I can ease my back into my usual routine of blogging again, and so without further ado...
Given that this is the first post in two weeks, April 2013 certainly wasn't as chocked full of entries as the previous three months of this year have been, but we still got in a number of posts before my short blogging hiatus came into effect and the following stand out as some of my favourites.
Early in the month I explored the power and importance that the sense of smell has in our lives and on our memories, in a post that detailed Ten of my all-time favourite scents. Also in the first week of April, I cordially invited you to Follow me on Instagram (I'm @chronicallyvintage there), in a post that talked about the seriously awesome gift of an iPhone 5 that I received from Tony this past Christmas.
Only one vintage outfit post popped up this month (due to my surgery), but I think you'll agree with me when I say that it was quite noteworthy - as it highlighted what I wore on my first ever day (day) trip to the States. Earlier this year, Tony and I spent a few hours in the charming town of Omak, Washington, and the red, white and blue ensemble (pictured below) that I sported that day was in honour of the fact that, after 28.5 years of life, I finally got a chance to step foot on US soil (I can't wait until the next time!).
On the 10th, I looked back on Four wonderful years of blogging, in celebration of Chronically Vintage's fourth birthday, which took place on April 17th. It has been an incredible four years of sharing my love of all things vintage with you, and I cannot wait to enjoy the next four years - and beyond - as we continue to explore and chat about the endlessly interesting world of mid-century history and fashion.
The very next day I delved into Discussing hats and medical hair loss with Kathleen (from the wonderful blog That's A Pretty Hat), in my first post here that really touched on this intimate subject since my wig unveiling at the start of this year. I love that Kathleen - who is not experiencing hair loss herself - wanted to post about this topic, which affects a great many women at some point (be it temporary of long term) throughout the course of their lives, and have to say thank you again to her for honouring me by asking for some of my thoughts and insight on this topic.
Mid-way through the month, shortly before all went (temporarily) silent on the blogging front here, I rounded up ten images relating to the passion for the colour green that I'm experiencing this year in April's edition of Flickr Favourites. I really am smitten with all things verdant at the moment, and just as this wasn't the first post to mention this topic (I touched on it here, for example), I highly doubt it will be the last before 2013 wraps up either.
Elsewhere in the great, wide interwebs, I was thrilled to recently hear from Sammy of Sammy Davis Vintage that she included Chronically Vintage in her new e-book that's devoted to the The 100 Best Vintage Shops Online, where she super sweetly listed me on page 46 amongst her top sources of vintage style inspiration.
Sammy is a gal with a massive passion for the past (who enjoys writing about and sporting looks from a wide range of twentieth century decades) and a substantial body of knowledge on the subject, stemming in no small part from the fact that she's been selling vintage and writing about the subject of old school fashion for many years now. As such, it was no small honour when she emailed to let me know that she'd included me in her lovely, informative e-book (which you can pick up for just $4.95 here).
As you know, I absolutely, completely adore vintage hats, and my involvement with Kathleen's aforementioned post wasn’t only time I got to discuss this awesome subject over the course of April. Early in the month Katy from the stellar UK blog Vintage Wife interviewed me and a few other (wildly stylish) vintage ladies about our hat collections and some of the reasons why we adore yesteryear chapeaus so very much. If you haven't had a chance to read this delightful post, entitled Top of the Vintage Toppers yet, run, don't walk over to the Vintage Wife, and find out more about how I store, and why I adore, collecting and wearing vintage hats so much.
I won't beat around the bush, April hasn't been the easiest month of all time for me, but the worst is behind us now and instead of focusing on the unpleasantness of serious surgery and how rough I've been feeling ever since, I'm much more interested in looking ahead to May and all that the fifth month of the year holds in store here on the blogging front.
As a general rule, May is a gorgeous month, sometimes offering up just about the loveliest weather you could ever possibly hope for and a return to spending as much time as possible outdoors, soaking it all up with the gusto of a hungry kitten going to town on a bowl of milk. It's too soon for me to say how much I'll be able to get out and enjoy the glorious sunshine, but at the very least I'll be keeping the blinds open and letting every precious ounce of it stream through the window and onto me as I set about writing May's posts.
In the coming weeks, we'll be reviving the Vintage Fashionista Friday series, reviewing the most recent dress that I've received from eShakti, taking a gander at the history of Cutex nail polish, enjoying a couple of terrific springtime recipes, and holding a giveaway for a newly released page-turner that's set in the 1920s, amongst numerous other posts that I have in the works.
Thank you again deeply, everyone, for your support and care over the past couple of weeks. It never ceases to touch me to my core that I am so blessed to be a part of such a sweet, understanding, wonderful online community. I have a ways to go before I've fully recovered from surgery still, but I'm really looking forward to blogging here again and in savouring each wonderful moment of May that lies ahead.
Have a beautiful last day of April, everyone, and a thoroughly stellar month ahead!
On numerous occasions over the past year, I've had the great pleasure of being interviewed and/or asked to share some of my thoughts on certain subjects relating to hats on the terrific blog That's a pretty hat.
Earlier this week, the immensely lovely lady behind this site asked me to do just that another topic pertaining to hats, this time it was one which is certainly of a more personal nature than anything else I'd shared there before, and which I was truly honoured to be asked to speak about: Hats and medical hair loss.
In her post, Kathleen looks at hair loss due to both cancer and other medical related reasons, the latter of which my own story with hair loss falls into. Below are my thoughts, as they appeared in this informative post, which I urge you to visit as well, because you'll find more information (including a video) on this subject there as well.
As I talked about in this post back in January, my own story of hair loss began when I was 14 (14.5 to be exact) and never let up. At first it wasn't too bad, but as the years rolled on and nothing seemed to come forward as the cause or a solution to the problem (I tried mainstream and natural medicines/treatments, consulted scads of doctors, had tons of tests done, etc), my hair continued to fall out. My hair loss is somewhat equally disturbed, but there have always been bigger areas with more hair loss in the front (especially above the temples), sides and crown and these were the ones that I tried to hide (or at least better disguise) with my beloved vintage hats.
My hair loss, while aesthetically irksome, was painless (as in my scalp didn't hurt and I wasn't in any physical discomfort due to my hair falling out) and so this meant that I could wear just about any kind of hat I wanted to. If a person was experiencing scalp pain due to, or in conjunction with, their hair loss, certain types of hats (stiffer materials and tighter styles, for example) might not be ideal.
Depending on the amount of hair loss a woman is experiencing - and how much she wishes to mask the problem - she may find that she can also wear a wide range of hats. If her hair loss is minimal to moderate and/or localized to certain areas of her scalp, most styles should work for her and help conceal the fact that her hair is thinning or balding in one or more areas. If wide spread hair loss is present to a high degree, yet a woman still wishes to keep her real hair (instead of switching to a wig), than sporting larger hats (such as fedoras, cloches, wide brimmed straw and felt hats, large 1960s style pill boxes - even cowboy hats) may be more ideal for her.
One technique I found that helped give the illusion that I had more hair than I actually did was to wear my hair in a simple bun or French roll in the back (with or without a faux bang in the front) and a medium sized hat in the middle of my head. This made it look like my hair was merely tucked into the bun/roll in the back, instead of that it was quite thin all over (and worse in some spots, all of which I usually tried to hide with the hat. Here's an example (pictured below) from last September of when I sported this particular type of hat and hair combo.
I never really felt ashamed of my hair loss - I wasn't doing anything to intentionally cause it and I'd tried diligently to remedy or at least halt the problem, so I wasn't necessarily trying to use hats as a way to hide the issue all the time, but it was sincerely nice to always know that they were their for those days when I wanted to disguise the problem and/or help make it seem like I had more hair than I really did at the time.
I think that when a woman - or really anyone, for that matter - is experiencing hair loss, be it gradual or quite sudden, it feels natural to want to have something on your head (at least some of the time) to help compensate for the amount of hair that you see dwindling away each day when you look in the mirror, and hats can certainly go a very long ways in this regard.
If a person opts (or needs to) become a wig wearer, I can't urge them enough to continue to keep sporting hats. Since I started wearing a wig full time late in 2012, I've sported hats many, many times with my wig. I find that doing so really helps to add an extra element of realness to my wig, making it look more like my own natural hair (I swear, this is one of those secrets to making a wig look lifelike that has escaped the general radar but which can make a world of difference).
You may find that the wig (or wigs) you select change the overall size of your head a little (mine went up about half a hat size, but as my head is fairly small to begin with, thankfully all of my vintage hats still fit), so be mindful of this when you start buying hats after becoming a wig wearer (measure your head with your wig on and use that measurement as your hat size from here on out - or at least for as long as you wear a particular wig).
If you love hats and are experiencing hair loss, I truly hope you'll continue to keep wearing as many of your favourite toppers as possible. They can really help take your mind off of feeling conscious amount your thinning hair, as (depending on their size) they can cover some or even all (think a long 1920s style cloche) of your head and thus, only you, really know just how much, or how little, hair you actually have.
♥ ♥ ♥
Thankfully, hair loss is not something every woman will face in lifetime, but a decent number - whether on a short or long term basis - will at some point (be it due to alopecia, pregnancy, thyroid problems, stress, cancer treatment, or any one of many other possible causes), and I truly hope that those who do will continue to wear hats, if it’s something that they've long enjoyed (or have a newfound desire to try out).
Since becoming a fulltime wig wearer myself last winter, I've taken to wearing a hat (or top of wig) quite a lot of the time when I go (honestly, I'd say with about the same frequency as in my pre-wig days). I adore my vintage hats and could never imagine not including them in my wardrobe due to my hair loss - especially when they'd been such great allies to me over the years as I attempted to conceal the extent to which my locks were thinning.
Regardless of if the hair under them sprouted from my own head or comes in the form of a wig, I'll always top my tresses with a vintage chapeau! (Four examples of which, each from vintage outfit posts over the past few months, you can see below.)
I think it's fantastic that Kathleen (who is not facing medical hair loss herself) decided to talk about this important topic on her blog, and I really want to say thank you again for giving me the opportunity to chat about some of my own firsthand experience with this subject on your site.
There's nothing to be ashamed about regarding female hair loss, and I really hope that Kathleen's post (and in turn, mine here) will encourage more people to discuss their thoughts on the topic, whether they pertain to hats or not.
