Just Starting Out

It can be intimidating when you try something different like changing your style.

I should know as thats how I felt when I first decided to give up on the hopeless fashions of today and dress the way I admired other women for dressing.

Vintage.

I was worried people wouldn't appreciate the way I had decided to dressed and that I would get odd looks from passers by in the street. But as it turns out people generally like to see someone all dressed up in pin curls and a swing dress and apart from the one off jealous glares off some females it gets a lot of good attention and so will you.

I've written up a helpful little guide to start you on your new style adventure.

When I first started dressing vintage I needed all the help I could get, I didn't ever think I'd be able to successfully pin curl my hair or achieve the prefect eyeliner flick but thanks to the help of makeup/hair tutorials and vintage blogs I did.

Before you do anything you need to decide your era. Are you a 1920s flapper? A 1930s film star? A 1940s

    Land Girl? A 1950s Pin up? Or something completely beyond?

I'm a 1950s girl through and through and always will be, I have tampered with other styles but I always come back to the circle skirts and swing dresses of that era.

Once you have decided your era things become a bit easier, you know what you are looking for in terms of tutorials and what to copy.

Clothes:

Try experimenting with the clothes you have first. Turn them from modern day into vintage with a few adjustment or by adding a few accessories to see what works for you.

Reproduction clothing is great, there are a lot of sites online that sell repo/rockabilly/pinup clothing all depending on what you want. You'll feel beautiful and confident  in what you are wearing instead of worrying if you've paired the right vintage skirt with the right top and so on.

I didn't start wearing true vintage until I was confident in my style. You may be the same or you may feel confident enough to go straight into it. Either way its cool, all that matters is that you feel comfortable and beautiful in what you are wearing.

Makeup:

It can be a tricky thing to perfect but practice makes perfect.

You don't have to spend a fortune on products either, I don't.

In fact I find that most times high street products work just as well (and some times better) as high priced designer ones.

I found that tutorials on youtube and blogs the best way to practice my makeup and technique but once I was confident in what I was doing I started adding my own little bits and bobs into the mix.

                                      Hair:

There are so many different vintage hairstyles it's hard to choose which one to try first.

I want to say

try something simple first but, if you've never done them before, non of them are really that simple.

Don't let that deter you though. As with the makeup practice makes perfect! There are so many tutorials and blog posts available on the internet so make full use of them and get practicing.

Here is a list of links that helped me when I first started out and if you want more go to my links

page. 

Pin Curl tutorial part 1

 Pin Curl tutorial part 2

Victory Roll tutorial

Brows

Hair and Makeup 

If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask, I'll be as helpful as I can (email on contact page)

Also sorry about the awful formatting, can't seam to fix it :/

         I hope this has been a help to you ladies.

Till next time,

Laura Lou x

Crossing the Line

Every once in a while you find that vintage dress that crosses the line between being classic vintage and just plain old lady.

For me this is that dress.

It's a 'vintage' (can't be any older than 20 years) Debenhams original.

With the help of cloche hat though it converted nicely into a late 20's early 30s outfit.

Though it was such a warm day I just couldn't keep a woolen hat on could I? so it swiftly came off after these photos were taken.

The print and the material literally just scream 'old lady!' you can hear it coming from my wardrobe during the night. Having said that though I do rather love it.

Till next time folks,

Laura Lou x

Lindy Bop: a Brand for all Occasions

When I first started out on my vintage journey I wish I had known about Lindy Bop clothing!
I used to find it such a struggling finding a simple 1950s dress, little did I know that Lindy Bop had a whole range of them.
I now own 7 Lindy Bop dresses and I love every single one of them and I mean LOVE.
Their designs are so simple and classy and they are great for any occasion. I should know, I've worn them for funerals, days out, Christmas, dinner dates, college, weddings, christenings and birthdays and no matter which dress I wear it never fails to get a compliment.
 I've just ordered this one (left) actually so that makes it 8 dresses :)

What I love most about Lindy Bop is the price.
With most vintage repo clothing lines I find they are so expensive that by the time I have saved up to buy it the darned item is out of stock!
But with Lindy Bop's items mostly being only £29.99 (yes you read that right hard to believe but it's true) I don't have that problem.


All the dresses are so fantastic that every time I go on their site I have a little panic attack because I can never decide which dress I want.

But enough of what I want. I seriously suggest, weather you're just starting out in vintage or not, that you head over to lindybop.co.uk they have some to die for dresses right now.

I think they should hire me as spokeswoman don't you?

Till next time Folks,
Laura Lou x

Afternoon Tea at Beamish Hall

Saturday 3rd August

To celebrate the birthday of my dearly loved Grandma the family took a trip to Beamish Hall Hotel where we partook of the most delightful afternoon tea this side of... this side.

The Afternoon tea was served in the Vintage tea room. To quote Retro Chick... It has bunting, it's vintage.

The hotel it's self was stunning. I didn't want to leave I really didn't but since I hadn't booked a room the staff weren't so keen on me staying there.
It was so cool that it even had a suit of Armour in the reception. Doesn't get much better than that.

The grounds around the hotel were enchanting, you could just imagine Scarlet and Rhet flirtatiously bickering on the lawn or Lizzy and Darcy strolling in the sunshine.

Enough of that though, lets talk about whats really important here... the food!

In a word it was DELICIOUS! 

The crepes, the sandwiches, the cakes were all just heavenly, take a look.

Was I right or was I right? 

I was right.

I wanted to take the screen home so much

My beautiful Grandma and her Uke.

I appolgise that most of my photos are in black and white. I am fully aware that we live in a time where colour photos are not a luxury anymore but I just think everything looks better in black and white.

Till next time folks,

Laura Lou x

Finger Waves

Hair.

It has evolved so much since the beginning of time from the Romans with their top knots to the Georgians with their towering wigs.
I want to start where its really got interesting, when women were liberated from fashions that were dictated by men, when women were released from the bonds that society put on them and they were free to be who they wanted to be.
The 1920s.

Finger Waves
In the 1920s the way women started to style their hair changed. Gone were the waits long tresses and chignons to be replaced with short chin level hair.
The 'bob'.
But the flat sleek style of the bob sadly didn't suit the face of every woman of that era so curls and waves were added into the mix.
Not everyone's hair would wave successfully much to the frustration of the unlucky ones but the development of the permanent wave drove flocks of women to the salons to achieve the perfect wave.
This new hair craze also made it possible for women to get into the male dominated profession of hairdressing (you go girls!).

What is a "finger wave"?
A finger wave is an 'S' shaped curl that when dry falls into wonderfully deep waves.
Some people can get confused between Finger waves and Marcel waves. The difference is that with Marcel waves a hot iron was used and with Finger waving you use damp hair/wet set.

I find it fascinating learning about how women beatified themselves before beauty aids like, hair dryers, hair spray and quick heating curling tongs were invented.
I thinks it's wonderful that women went to such efforts to look beautiful not because men wanted them to but because they wanted to look that way and dress that way.
Three cheers for the 1920s female hip hip...

This post was supposed to be accompanied by a little tutorial and pictures of my own finger wave set but since I had the idea (two weeks ago) I have tried and tried and discovered that I am just awful at the whole thing so sometime in the (hopefully) near future you will get to see me sporting a wave set.
Till next time folks,
Laura Lou x

Laura Lou Needs You

Oh hi there!
It's been such a long time since I frequented this place so just in case you've forgotten who I am I'll introduce myself...
I'm Laura Lou, follower of vintage fashion, collector or antique books, lover of all things pre 1970, wanna be historian and novelist, part time Amati actor and full time kick ass cook (even if I do say so myself, though I do have testimonies to prove it) and of course vintage blogger.
I'm glad we're reacquainted aren't you?
Good.

Right to start I suppose I should be completely honest with you all.
I have lost my blogging inspiration :( and I would like to call upon you, my readers, to help me find it again.
All my posts of late have been pretty basic outfit posts that haven't had much too them and I would like to do something other than just that.
That's where you come in.
I want to write what you want to read and what better way is there to find out what you want to read than to ha you tell me!
So I would like you all to email me some post ideas that you would like to see on here. I also would like to do a Q&A post soon so if you have any questions you would like me to answer then please don't hesitate to email them to me but don't forget to include your name.
Please email questions (with the subject 'Q&A') and post suggestions (with the subject 'help wanted') to laura.lou.carr@googlemail.com

All your help in this time of need will be greatly appreciated.
As always...
Till next time,
Laura Lou x

Ps: just in case you didn't guess by the last post you can now follow my blog on bloglovin :) and Instagram (lauralouvintage)

Blglovin

I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing here but apparently I have to do this to claim my blog on bloglovin so here goes....

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/4697931/?claim=xfz9thgp7g2">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Laura lou x