Petticoat Potential

So, you've bought a dress with some serious vintage flare, but when you get it home it falls flat...literally.  If you love vintage styles, then there are a few accessories that can really make your style seem more authentically vintage and in this post we'll discuss a major feature from 1950s and 60s style--petticoats.

I bought this lovely Miss Lulo dress from Modern Millie, completely enamored by the print.  Notice how full and lovely that skirt looks in the product photos.  The dress arrived and the fabric is a very soft soy silk, but I could immediately tell that it had absolutely no fullness of its own. To illustrate that, check out this side by side of the product photo with me wearing the dress:

I think I've made my point.  I was frequently fooled by this in my novice days of vintage styling, wondering why the dresses always looked so authentically vintage in the product photos but limp and lifeless on me.  Then I remembered my square dancing days and the importance of wearing a petticoat to floof out the dresses.  Now to be fair, I like the way this dress looks without the petticoat, but I still want to demonstrate how this one little garment can totally change your look.  So, this is the dress as-is, from my previous post:

Petticoats are available in a huge variety of colors, lengths, and fullness.  The sky is the limit, in fact, speaking from experience, you could wind up with way too many petticoats if you're not careful because it just becomes too easy to want a certain color or length for every occasion.  For this post I'm starting with a basic tulle and nylon petticoat by Leg Avenue in pale pink.  It's allegedly knee length, though mid thigh is more accurate, and if I need it longer I wear it lower on my waist and hips; if I need it shorter, I roll up the top around the waist band.

Leg Avenue petticoats are available on Amazon and Ebay and range from $15 to $25.  They're somewhat costume-y and there are definitely better brands out there, but at the time I bought this one I was not interested in spending a lot of money.  Looking back, I would probably invest in something better, but after 8 years or so, this one is still in good shape.

Notice how it immediately fills out the skirt and makes the outfit look genuinely vintage, and keep in mind that less full petticoats such as this can always be layered to create more fullness and you can mix colors for something truly lovely and unique.

Next up is a beautiful and very full peach petticoat from Doris Designs.  This is definitely a higher quality piece and the price reflects that as these petticoats range from $43-$60 (excluding tax and shipping).  I bought mine for about $20 second hand, because the elastic was completely shot and had to be replaced.

This petticoat has volume to spare and the issue with it is that you must have a skirt that is already full enough to accomodate so much frilly girth.  If not, the skirt will pull and pucker oddly.  Fortunately, this skirt did just fine, though I don't know that photos do it justice for you to truly see how full it makes this skirt.

Last but not least, let's do a comparison of all three skirt fullnesses side by side:

Now that you see the difference a petticoat can make, here's a list of more places that carry quality pieces (these are Not affiliate links):

1.  What Katie Did

2.  Unique Vintage

3.  ModCloth

Hello, Miss Lulo

It's been a while since I've done a Modern Millie post, but I do so love this shop.  Truly it reminds me of everything I loved about ModCloth in 2010.  It's a brick and mortar shop with great customer service and I absolutely love they way they style their pieces to give you ideas on how to wear.  So, every now and then I like to pop over and show my support.  I was immediately smitten with this pink book print dress by Miss Lulo.  I've never heard of this brand before, but now I'm wondering where it's been all my life.  Leave it to M.M. to introduce me to yet another great brand.  *there are no affiliate links in this post, so click away, I won't make a dime. Apparently that's a thing people care about :D

Outfit Info:  Vintage Books dress by Miss Lulo from Modern Millie or from Miss Lulo, shoes are by Charlie Stone, Bag is from Ecosusi

Gravity Falls: A.K.A The Oregon Vortex & Confusion Hill

Gravity Falls first premiered on the Disney channel in 2012.  At the time our family was living in the Pacific Northwest and I walked through our living room during my daughters' t.v. time and happened to catch a few seconds of the Summerween episode (S01 E12).  I laughed so hard that I sat down to fininsh the rest of the show.  It very quickly became a family favorite.  

The story in a nutshell is about two kids who go to visit their great uncle for the summer at his roadside attraction, the Mystery Shack.  Intelligent humor that worked on a level that the kids enjoyed as well as the adults, it was originally intended to be a three season show with each season representing one month of summer.  Unfortunately the show was prematurely canceled by some brainless executive, so the writers had to shoehorn two seasons worth of story into one in order to give the fans a proper ending.

As it turns out, the Mystery Shack is based on two real roadside attractions, The Oregon Vortex near Rogue's River in Oregon, and Confusion Hill in California.  I grew up in the 80s when the interstate wasn't really a thing and stopping at the roadside attractions was way more fun than where ever we were acutally headed.  I've been really sad to see that this form of travel fun has fallen by the wayside as we race down interstates at breakneck speed, eyes glued to various screens, not stopping until we reach the destination.  We've definitely had our fair share of those, but this time we decided to load up our days with places to stop and since we were all Gravity Falls fans, we knew that we had to make time for both these great stops.

Both locations embraced the homage from Gravity Falls, especially since the creator, Alex Hirsch, left clues throughout the show as to the whereabouts of the show's villain, Bill Cypher, and led fans to a statue at The Vortex and later relocated to Confusion Hill.  And both offer a great opportunity to stretch your legs and be amazed!

Happy Summerween!

Every June 22nd in a little made-up town in the Pacific Northwest called Gravity Falls, people celebrate Summerween.  It's exactly what it sounds like, Halloween in summer.  Watermelons serve as jack-o-lanterns instead of pumpkins, there's still trick-o-treating, and if you give out "loser" candy, the Summerween Trickster will eat you up.  I was fortunate enough to visit the two real life places that the wonderful but short-lived Disney cartoon, Gravity Falls, is based on, and I'll share more of that later this week, but for today, let's celebrate Summerween in style.

Outfit Info:  Elizabeth Ghost Dress by Retrolicious from Unique-Vintage, Chelsea Crew Heels.

Orange & Blue Memories

On the heels of my citrus collection, I thought I'd showcase this vintage Collectif Citrus print dress.  Citrus prints are absolutely perfect for summer events, but this one in particular reminded me of my very earliest blogging days when I did a lot of unconventional color pairing.  Check out these three posts (On a Barrel Roll, Orange and Blue 1, Orange and Blue 2) for my early pairings of orange and blue.  This time around I didn't have any blue or orange shoes to accessorize my outfit, so I decided to go with gold flats and bag and I think the metallic works quite well with this color combo.

Outfit Info:  Collectif Dress, Shoes and bag from SheIn

Refresher Course

    Branching out can be intimidating, even more so as we get older and set in our ways, but I always try to challenge myself to keep trying new things, keep changing things up, so that I don't get too comfortable in a life or a style that used to work for me but just doesn't anymore.  I've been a dresses girl for most of my life.  I am now at the point where the only time I wear jeans or trousers is for my job and even then it's rare, or more often for doing home repairs and renovations, because for me dresses are the easiest thing in the world to wear.  Slip on a dress, grab some ballet flats and voila!  Instant chic outfit for any occasion.  

    At this point, anything outside of dresses is a little daunting because I don't do it often.  Never the less there are days when I do like to have an easy work or going-out outfit that involves trousers and a blouse.  As much as I love a bold novelty print for my dresses, I usually keep it pretty low-key on the blouses...until I saw this gorgeous silk blouse from Free People. I was watching Angela Braniff's Fashion Hacks video (because even a fashion lover like me can get stuck in a rut and need a refresher course on ways to make my clothes look better) and I loved everything about the outfit that she created with this blouse that I waited for FP's Memorial Day sale and then purchased it along with a couple of necklaces from JC Penney's sale.  In January I bought some linen trousers from American Eagle and haven't worn them much because they fit great in the store, but I found as the day went on, they were rather snug around the waist.  It was too late to return, so I shelved them for a while, until I had the idea of moving the top button over about a quarter of an inch so I could still breathe after having a meal.  Suddenly, this outfit came together.  In the future though I may swap out the wide leg trousers for a more straight leg jean.  Baggy tops need balance with a more fitted bottom. 

The take away tips from Angela on this style were the importance of sleeve length and a belt!  If I had been browsing FP I might have noticed how pretty the print on this top was, but I wouldn't have purchased because the fit it so baggy that it's unflattering.  It looks more like the shirt is wearing the model rather than the other way around.  However, with a belt in the right place and rolled up sleeves, suddenly this is a very beautiful and flattering causal look.  It wasn't my idea, and it's outside my comfort zone, but I love the way this looks!  

Outfit Info:  Tyler Shirt in Fuscia from Free People, Trousers from American Eagle, Jewelry from JC Penney, Shoes and bag from SheIn.