Features

Outfit Details

  • Dress - made by me!
  • Hat - via Fancy Lucky Vintage
  • Gloves - vintage, thrifted
  • Shoes - thrifted

DIY Retro Strawberry Dress

Recreate the look with #DIYFashionista Skye's retro strawberry dress tutorial:

Check out Retro Strawberry Dress on Cut Out + Keep

How would you describe your style?

Vintage with a side of more vintage. I’m not about the “modern twist”; I feel my best wearing full period looks every day. Though I have a few modern reproduction pieces, my midcentury-and-earlier vintage collection is my pride and joy.

What's your favourite piece in your wardrobe?

I’m sure I’ll change my mind in a day or so, but I think it’s got to be my 1940s velvet-and-eyelet evening dress. I found it at my favorite vintage store the day before my 21st birthday - and thanks to a broken zipper that took me two minutes to fix, it was only $15.

Who are your style icons?

Lucille Ball, Elsa Schiaparelli. I love old society ladies with big hats and pursed lips. I can't wait to be old enough to call everybody "dahling".

Oh, and other vintage bloggers, of course!

Do you have any favourite designers?

30s Schiaparelli is my absolute favorite. I'd kill for one of her original pieces. She had a surprisingly modern sensibility - her pieces wouldn't look out of place in Hot Topic, and I love that. Art is cyclical.

Where are your favourite places to shop for new clothes?

I hardly ever buy new new, but for new-to- me clothes, I scour Etsy and eBay. Sometimes I get lucky at brick-and- mortar vintage stores, but I live in a small city, and I think I’ve exhausted all the local options!

Do you make or customise your outfits?

I’ve been tailoring and customizing my clothes for years, but I recently started making dresses from scratch, and I love it! I found a pattern-drafting system that even I, with no patterning experience and limited math skills, can follow, and I’ve been making dresses to my exact measurements. With vintage fabric, of course.

Do you have any great tips for mixing up and personalising an outfit?

I’m not a fan of blanket injunctions when it comes to style. Telling other people how to personalize their own outfits is pretty contradictory! Read blogs, read magazines, seek inspiration. Your own artistic sensibility will find its way out.

Which other fashion blogs do you love to read?

Nora Finds, Polka Polish, Mode de Lis, and By Gum By Golly are my favorite vintage blogs. I check each one every day. They share my aversion for the "modern twist": those ladies look like they walked off a period movie set, and I admire them all.

As for not-exclusively-vintage bloggers, I like Eccentric Owl, Miss Victory Violet, The Dressed Aesthetic, Junebugs & Georgia Peaches...go check my blogroll, because I can't possibly name them all here.


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