Suspension bridge fun and my very favourite 1950s sundress in Castlegar, BC

Outfit details

C. 1930s/40s burgundy felt hat with netting: Garb-Oh Vintage
Gold tone metal round shaped stud earrings: Claire's
1950s forest foliage and berry print sundress: Garb-Oh Vintage
Green faux leather skinny belt: eBay
Coral hued cardigan: Joe Fresh
Vintage style gold tone metal and clear rhinestone flower brooch: eBay
Oxblood hued vintage style faux leather cross body bag: eBay
"Love" gold tone metal and clear rhinestone charm bracelet: Payless
C. 1950s burgundy gloves with buttons at the wrists: An Etsy shop that is no longer in business
Nude seamed nude stockings: eBay
Brown 1940s style round toe faux leather heels: Walmart
Lip colour: MAC Partyline

Photography by Tony Cangiano  

♥ ♥ ♥

If some of these photos look as though they were shot from a bit of a distance, that's because they were. :)
 
As discussed in this recent Heyday Twizzle Dress outfit post, Tony and I have found ourselves taking snaps on bridges a fair bit lately - the most exciting of which was this lovely suspension bridge located in the beautiful little town of Castlegar, BC.

Castlegar was one of the many places that we were able to spend some time in while on our brief, wonderfully fun weekend getaway to the Kootenays in mid-April and while there, we discovered Zuckerberg Island Park (no relation to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg; instead it's named after a famous Russian humanitarian and pacifist, Alexander Zuckerberg, who immigrated to Canada and went on to teach school to some of the local Doukhobor children there) which included this seriously cool bridge.

We'd never shot on a suspension one before, so when this location presented itself, the camera was promptly called into action!

Given the rather wobbly nature of even the sturdiest suspension bridges, as Tony was handholding his DSLR for this shoot, he had to stand a fair ways back (on solid ground) to get these shots, but I think that they still came out really nicely and I just love having a series of snaps taken on such a unique location overlooking the beautiful confluence of both the Kootenay and the Columbia Rivers.

It was a medium warm day that partially sunny Saturday afternoon, so I couldn't resist the urge to sport my absolute favourite 1950s sundress - and yes, that is saying a lot, as I usually have a very hard time singling out faves in any category of my clothing.

It's easy as pie with this beautiful dress though (that, coincidentally, just like the great burgundy hat that I'm sporting here, came from Garb-Oh Vintage on Etsy), which I purchased in early 2015.

I'd been hunting for a dress with raspberries - my absolute all-time favourite fruit - for longer than I can recall and continually came up empty-handed, at least in terms of ones that would fit both my measurements and wallet.

In general, raspberries are a rather under represented fruit in the fashion world (past or present) and hitting upon a novelty print garment that includes them is almost like striking gold (at least for me it is! :)).

Now, objectively, I can't say with complete certainty that the berries in this print are raspberries, but they very much look the part and I'm more than willing to call them such. They're woodland berries of some sort at the very least and are partnered with other forest foliage here, such as springs of evergreen branches and various green leaves, to up their straight-from-nature factor all the more.

This vintage dress is sleeveless and includes a very pretty ruched neckline with a fun little tie detail in the center of it. It's a light, but sturdy, cotton that suits the warmer months sublimely and when you factor in the colour palette - that stars so many of my most beloved hues - it's easy to see why this dress gets top billing in my books.

There are hints of salmony orange-pink in its palette, so for an added burst of colour, I teamed this fifties frock with a coral cardigan. I pulled from the colours in the print for my hat, glove, bag and shoe choices as well, and then opted for relatively understated gold tone metal jewelry, to keep the emphasis on the garments themselves.

This hat is another truly beloved favourite of mine, which is now making it's fourth, I believe, appearance here in under a year - and I'm sure you'll continue to see it many more times as the months and years roll on. I adore, and wear a lot of, burgundy, so this wonderful c. 1930s/1940s felt hat couldn't be a more ideal fit for my wardrobe.

It's hard to believe that a month and half have already whizzed past since the lovely spring day on which these photos were captured (on what definitely stands as one of the most exciting spots we've ever shoot in before). Summer weather is barreling down on us now and as such this dress will no doubt continue to see much outfit action as the hottest days of the season envelope us.

This is the second and last of the two shoots that we took in the Kootenays, though we did grab some snaps later in the day once we'd returned to Penticton of what I wore on the drive home and those will be appearing here in the near future.

We adored our brief getaway to this rugged, mountain and river bedecked corner of the province, and as touched on in my first post about visiting the Kootenays, definitely hope to get back there together many more times throughout our life.

At the moment though, we're home in the Okanagan and continuing to contemplate where our proposed summertime road trip may lead us to.

No plans are set in stone quite yet, but we're getting closer and I can hardly wait to see where we, and our trusty camera, will land next in this gorgeous province of ours!

We make our own trends

Last year my lovely friend Laurence from the blog Lost in the 50s mentioned a point in the context of one her and her husband's fabulous vintage outfit posts that really resonated with me, especially since it's something that I've thought about many times myself over the years.

She mentioned how sometimes when you've been wearing vintage for many years, you feel the need to step outside of your usual sartorial comfort zone and try something new (in context of the outfit she shared in that summertime post, it was full length 1940s summer dresses) and that really got me thinking about how we within the vintage wearing realm create our own personal trends.

Now, what do I mean by this? As we draw our inspiration and wardrobe choices from the past, decades that are long done and over with, there aren't any new of-the-moment trends happening for us to follow, if so desired. To clarify, I mean that because we're not living in, say, 1935 or 1952 and experiencing the new styles coming out in the moment then, we don't get to try out new things as easily as if we were keeping up with what was in vogue in the moment.

Of course, the upside to that is that we can now look back on the decades that we adore as a whole and pick and chose what we want to wear from each, but there again, already knowing what existed and what was to come, can somewhat take the element of trends out of the equation.

Now, that isn't to say that there aren't trends of sorts amount vintage/repro/pinup fashion wearers today. One has only to look at the epic spike in interest surrounding vintage novelty prints, Bakelite, or swing dresses, for example, in recent years, to see that some items of vintage clothing really come out on top as favourites with many wearers. Likewise, in the more repro/vintage inspired realm, 2015 has seen a boom in indie jewelry designers, especially those making laser cut, hand painted wooden brooches, who are gaining major followings (especially on Instagram) and large customer bases in the process.

I'm certain that as time goes on, such trends will only continue, especially in the repro/vintage inspired realm, and new items will have their fleeting moments in the sun, whereas others will become practically de rigueur for many vintage enthusiasts.

Still through, we don't get to open up copies of Vogue, Harper's, Elle, Burda or any other fashion magazine that was hugely popular in the mid-twentieth century and have the chance to contemplate if a new trend speaks to us or not. We know, as mentioned above, what's coming up next already and has such, if we want to shake things up on the fashion front, we need to, by and large create our own trends on a personal level based on what elements of the past speak to us in terms of our wardrobes.



{We might not have the latest editions of our favourite fashion magazines to turn to inspiration on what's trending at the moment, but thanks to our ability to look back on time and to explore every wardrobe related element of an era, we're ensured the ability to always find and fall in love with new looks and in the process, keep our wardrobes feeling and looking fresh at our own pace. Vintage Vogue magazine cover image source.}


I think that for many folks who wear vintage, the longer we sport old school styles, the more we happily branch out. When we begin, it's natural to want to play it safe, so to speak, and many people (though certainly not all, of course) opt for pieces that are really emblematic of the era(s) that they're drawn to. So, for example, a 1950s fan might really put an emphasis on circle skirts, crinolines, polka dots, and cute, classic cardigans. Nothing wrong with that in the slightest and of course all of those pieces were common players in that decade.

As time goes on though, that same person may find that they want to expand their daily wardrobe options and start adding in vintage hats, gloves, play suits, patio sets/(so-called) squaw dresses), lucite handbags, (possibly) fur garments, Audrey Hepburn-esque skinny pants, cat's eye glasses and many other fashion elements of the period.

Further still beyond that though, we may discover that as even more time goes on, we want to broaden our closet's horizons and seek out pieces that perhaps before, we hadn't paid much attention to and/or found ourselves drawn to. I know that such has rung true for me in my own life many times, with new vintage fashion interests coming along on regular intervals.

I adore when my attention gets drawn towards something that I'd previously not felt super pulled in the direction of and think that this is fairly akin to the thrill of hopping on the bandwagon with trends, were there monthly/seasonal/yearly ones for us to do so with, if so desired, much like the ladies (and gents) of the decades we adore most often used to do.

There's something very special about this actually. We create trends that work for us and aren't a slave, so to speak, to fashion's whims. No matter how much you love vintage (and the volume of garments + accessories that you own), there are always more styles and pieces out there waiting to be explored, and so the act of creating our own personal trends becomes all the more of a joy that we can set at our pace for as long as we don our beloved vintage threads.

So while we might not have new copies of Vogue to flip open and fall in love with a cutting edge (vintage) style, we do have the endless possibilities that the fashions of the past hold and our tastes and imaginations alike to help ensure that, if so compelled, our wardrobes need never lack for new looks and creative options. A point that makes me, someone who was never really much one for following current fashion trends anyhow, a rather happy vintage wearing camper. How about you?