MakeUp & Products – Page 2

Tiki Lani Lanai with TVS and Ginger

Bands. Vinal. Videos. Burlesque. Hula Dancers. Signature Cocktails. Door Prizes. The Limbo. Swimsuit Contest. What more could you ask for at Toronto Vintage Society‘s 2nd annual sensational-end-of-summer tiki party.

I got there early to help my TVS Sistas set up the Cadillac Lounge into a Heavenly Tiki Patio…then I ran home to change before the could fun begin…

Me along side a few of the lovelies of the TVS Events Team

Me in my tiki-taskti dress, my wicker aqua clutch (Aldo), simple brown ankle-strap sandals (Payless), aqua drop earrings (Reitmans) and my too-tiny-to-notice hair flower (Forever21)…..

Y’all know I’m not a big make-up wearer …. but I tried my hand at bright eyes and loud lips with Almay’s intense-i-colour trio for greens and Rimmel’s In Vouge lipstick

Clearly a dress like this needed a much more substantial hair flower! Lucky for me the lovely and talented Shermy of Shermette was on hand selling her Fruits of Bali.

14958_10154459929635184_8451421278491510801_n — You can follow Shermy and her lovely hair flowers on Instagram: @miss_shermette

She’s got an etsy shop: Frutis of Bali by Shermette … just sayin’ 😉

Want more pictures of the TVS Tiki Party … click here

Now….let’s talk about MY DRESS!!!! 🙂

I was introduced to world of Cherry Velvet last year via Damzels store on Roncy in Toronto…and since have picked up two lovely dresses that fit my measurements (size 0X) like a glove flattering my curves with different, unique necklines. And best of all: your bra straps will always be covered and your hands, phone and lipgloss will always have a home in the convenient pockets in ALL of their dresses!

Click here and here for details on the above Cherry Velvet Dresses.

I’ve been coveting this tropical number for months….drooling over their Instagram post this amazing Tropical Taupe number that would be PERFECT Tiki Party attire for Toronto Vintage Society’s TIKI LANI LANANI.

Sadly I never found this in store…so it seemed this frock was only going to become a apart of my life and wardrobe if I bought it online. Now, I’m not 100% comfortable buying something I’ve not tried on before, especially when it comes to spending at these particular price points ($100+ per dress). Sigh…

But, since I own two already I felt fairly confident that my measurements and their sizing chart would make any online purchases a ‘success story’ 🙂

Truth be told that, outside of a German Beer Girl halloween costume (stay tuned for a reappearance of this getup as I just bought tickets to Toronto’s Oktoberfest – woot! woot!) I have never purchased clothing online before. My biggest concern or deterrent from online shopping: Returns and Exchanges if something doesn’t fit right —- aka “The Shipping-Back Hassle”.

I tried to push Ginger (the name of the dress) outta my mind and continue living my life…to find an alternative Tiki outfit for this event. But I just couldn’t. I was in love! Upon revisiting their site last week, turns out Ginger was on sale, a clear signs from the shopping-gods…and the ADD TO CART button was clicked and she was on her way to me 🙂

I ordered via http://www.cherryvelvet.com on August 1st and by August 8th a Canada Post deliver arrived with my name on it!!!!! Clearly I was excited as you can see from my Facebook post below…

Seemingly in my zeal to bring Ginger home to me, I ordered a size 1X, instead of the needed 0X…and instantly my “Shipping-Back-Hassle” fears were realized. Lesson Learned folks: double check, and triple check sizes you selcted and return/exchange policies before clicking ‘checkout’ … le sigh.

Lucky for me, minor alterations were needed to make this dress wearable for the big event were made, without having to send this beauty back to Vancouver (that’s where Cherry Velvet is based), allowing Ginger & I to have a fabulous time at TVS’s TIKI LANI LANANI Party!

Are you thinking to yourself…. “But Irene, there are TWO lovely new dresses that hang in your closet… tell me more about the other cutie-pie frock?”

Stay tuned for that friends, in an upcoming blogpost 😉 xoxo

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Flower Power

“Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking.”

Miranda Priestley’s famed catty retort from The Devil Wears Prada may live on in infamy, but truth be told I’m not the biggest fan of floral prints. And I’m seemingly late to the party with this trend this year….with summer in full bloom and all (see what I did there 😉 …)

These pink hibiscus earrings I picked up at last year’s Toronto Vintage Society‘s Tiki Party — were the inspiration for my outfit of the day.

I have a hard time finding a good lipstick/gloss that actually appears PINK once applied to my lips. This RIMMEL LONDON Stay Glossy Lip Gloss – Jewel In The Crown is actually perfect…and has become by go-to summer colour.

This outfit of the day had to do double-duty as a office appropriate work-outfit AND comfortable enough to Lindy Hop in immediately after work with SWING TORONTO in front of the Gazebo of St. James Park (King/Jarvis Sts)!

For dancing in the park….the heels had to go. Sooooo these navy flat peep-toes (Payless) worked out perfectly….

As you can see, dancing in St. James Park isn’t the easiest thing to do…..the grounds are pretty beat up and kinda tricky for dancing on. Not like that stopped us or anything. Check me out friends!!! 🙂

Special thanks to Liz for taking this perfect shot 🙂

Turns out Old Town Toronto took a bunch of pictures too. Check out a few during the swing lesson by Swing Toronto before the band went on…..click here for their full photo album of this event.

Swing Toronto’s lesson before the Band went on….Photo courtesy of Old Town Toronto

Love that this city has soooooo many outdoor music & dancing opportunities….

Here’s a few snaps from at Harbourfront Centre’s Dancing on the Pier event earlier this month. I love this city!!!

Dancing on the Pier a few weeks ago….with fellow Toronto Vintage Society sistas: Liz (The Vintage Inn) and Erin (Delovely Delightful)

Yet another Swing Dancing in the Streets pic…from 2014 The Beaches Jazz Festival (this past weekend) with Toronto Lindy Hop Can you find me? Click here for outfit details on this Seafoam Swirl dress

How I Got The Look:

Floral pencil skirt from H&M; Navy top from Reitmans; Navy flat peep-toes from Payless; Pink heels from MTNY; Purse from Your Big Sister’s Closet

Have you made it out to any outdoor music and dancing events in Toronto this summer? Which ones? Tell me all about the in the comments section friends!

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The TVS Pin Up Picnic

The Toronto Vintage Society hosted a lovely Pin Up Picnic at Trinity Bellwoods Park a few weekends ago…. A simple social gathering to celebrate the amazing whether, show off our summer vintage gear and meet new people in our vintage community. Celebrating Sun, Fun and Vintage!

The Admin & Events Teams met up earlier in the afternoon for photo ops, to set up and to pow-wow about the various other exciting events TVS is planning for the upcoming months (stay tuned to the TVS FB Page and new blog site so you don’t miss a thing friends!)

Outfit planning was done with careful colour consideration, with special instructions and effort to keeping the ‘patterns’ to a minimum of 10-25% of the look. Our team photo was going for a more monochromatic look. I was to wear RED! I used the following image as my inspiration…..

Here’s what I wore:

Click here to see this dress in a ‘wintery’ look 🙂

I studied the following Hair Tutorial to get my hair into Pin Up perfection:

…But ended up cheating by creating a faux bang with half a foam hair donut instead 🙂

The TVS Admin & Events Team took some long awaited shots for the website – along with some fun candid ones too. Take a look at all the shenanigans that took place that afternoon amongst Vintage Pin Ups, Greasers, Teddy Boys, Retro Divas and Rockers:

10301053_576860285762585_1121986207842699136_n — TVS Admin & Events Team! Photo taken by Shermette

TVS Admin Team – photo taken by Shermette

A few snaps taken by Bianca Baumann Photography ‘behind the scenes’ as we got ourselves organized for the group pic:

Photo Credits: Shermy Freeman of Shermette and Bianca Baumann of Bianca Baumann Photography

How I got the Look:

Red Swing Dress from Collectif + white short-crinoline from Rosie The Rebel; White crop sweater from Old Navy (was wayyyy too hot to actually wear during the day tho); Vintage wicker purse earrings and bangles; Zebra stripped head tie & wedges from Payless

The Toronto Vintage Society did a great blogpost of their own….check it out for more Pin Up Picnic pics and fun, complete with other picnic-ers and favourite pin-up poses 🙂

Swing Fever!

Thursday is the NEW Friday after all….sooooo when this invite popped up on #TVS calendar and then again on Facebook, it was clear that I needed to be in attendance.

Swing Fever! is an authentic 1940’s themed dance party that will transport you back in time to a defining decade in history. This epic evening of entertainment featured a stellar live band, dance performances, classic cocktails, delicious war-time grub and more. It is a non-profit event, where all of the proceeds raised from Swing Fever! went directly to the Royal Canadian Legion and the Humber Business School.

The Great Hall apparently is where many of the scenes from the earlier season’s of Bomb Girls was filmed. It really is a beautiful venue!

Now, I’m still a total novice/beginner and don’t really know HOW to swing dance (only been to TWO officially lessons so far). Lucky for me there were complimentary lessons from the Toronto Swing Dance Society. Plus, a ton of strong Leads on the floor who patiently taught you steps and made you look good on the dance floor (special thanks to David and Joy for twirling and dipping me!) 🙂

The Pickup Swing Ensemble, featuring Toronto’s most talented musicians, performed classic tunes of Glenn Miller, Count Basie and more!

There was a specific Dress Code for the evening: Vintage! 1940’s glam, tea dresses, stockings, victory curls, allied uniforms and utility clothing.

I had my heart set on wearing my recently purchased hi-waisted polka-dot pin-up skirt (that I was yet to remove tags from) and since I finally got a pedicure to show-off my pink toes, my navy & white peep toed heels. This was sort of pushing the specific time period a bit, so I was determined to study YouTube and get my hair into proper Victory Rolls if it killed me!

These were taken AFTER I got home from the event… I was dead tired and sore from all the dancing. Notice, my faux bangs stayed intact! What a fab night!

For 1940s Hair & Makeup …. I checked out this YouTube vid to help me create a more authentic look for the night.

Then I realized, I should probably look for some makeup tutorials for BROWN SKINNED faces 🙂

Buuuuut since this was a Thursday night… it meant that I was rushing after work to get to LHRevolution Swing Lesson, then walked home to shower and change for this party. I ended up having limited time to really apply the teachings in these vids. (I sadly, also forgot to put a flower in my hair for the evening and pearls around my neck too…sigh) 😦

I did however, use Pin-Up Look #4 from this Beginner’s Quick & Easy Vintage vid instead!

The hair results below – Faux Vintage Bangs:

Overall, it was a fantastic night of dancing and fun! My feet, legs and hips are all so sore this morning, but I’m still smiling – totally worth it! 🙂

Here’s a few shots with some TVS-ers and fun-new people I met last night:

How I Got The Look:

High-waisted polka-dot pin-up skirt from Your Big Sister’s Closet

Navy & white peep-toed heels, from Naturalizer

Giant pearl earrings, vintage (gifted to me); Extra long pearl necklace from Toronto Vintage Clothing Show (forget which booth)

Yellow cotton tee from Reitmans

#TVS: Toronto Vintage Clothing Show

The Toronto Vintage Society got a booth at last Sunday’s Toronto Vintage Clothing Show – a ONE day only event at the Metro Convention Center – North Building. The show is a fantastic opportunity to discover hand-picked vintage and retro clothing, accessories and jewellery from top independent vintage fashion vendors. Vendors from Owen Sound, Montreal, East Garafraxa, Collingwood, Freelton, Kakabeka Falls, Ottawa, Hamilton, Straffordville and many others – all under one roof!

The #TVS booth was our way to reach vintage lovers in the GTA. We were selling our “Make do and Mend” sewing kits (THE cutest things ever!), buttons and other fun like an iPad showcasing a photo side-show of all the fun-filled events TVS attended the previous year. All TVS booth visitors were informed and encouraged to sign-up for our new website/blog, pay their TVS Meetup fees, to oooh-and-ahhhh at each other’s purchases from other vendor booths…and of course singing the praises of all things Vintage!

These cutie-pie kits were handmade by the fabulous TVS members who braved the sudden non-stop snow of yet another blizzard, the day after Toronto got a teaser +10 degree weather day. With scissors, glue sticks, mason jars and other crafty necessities were toted and assembled, over gossiping, storytelling and beer.

The TVS booth also had a raffle giving away this fab prize: an amazing train case of vintage goodies in TVS approved colour scheme …even a lil’ something for those dapper dudes: suspenders+cufflinks+tie combo!

Since I live closest to MTCC and have an elevator, I was tasked with carting all our supplies for our booth home and would be there bright and early, with Liz + her hubs + her car to set up. Then we – TVS admin team – would simply rotate on manning our booth whist the others could peruse all the goodies up for sale at the show and Facebook our finds through the Toronto Vintage Society page!

A few snaps of the TVS booth all set up and read to go:

Truth be told, I don’t actually own too many genuine vintage outfits (or pieces of my own for that matter). However, since hanging with the chicks of TVS I have been exposed to the world of “vintage inspired reproduction” dresses. So my Outfit of the Day to represent and man the TVS booth was this dress from Doll Factory by Damzels, a rock ‘n’ roll retail shop on Roncesvalles. (It may look familiar to you as I’ve previously posted about this dress.) This easy-peasy-curvy-body-flattering dress has pockets which makes it that much easier to cart around an iPhone, money and other necessities like that without needing a purse. Knowing the day was going to be busy with setting-up and running around, I went with flats instead heels for footwear. Plus, I wanted to be able to quickly try on any fabulous-finds from booth to booth … heels do not help in making one nimble.

I’m not as dedicated to vintage hair as some of my TVS sistas are, those who patiently created pin-curls and wrapped their hair overnight to create the glamorous hairstyles of the beloved eras. My baby fine hair just never wants to cooperate. But I did manage to get a lil’ vintage-flare in my do for the clothing show. Check out how HIGH I got the bump in my hair! And it lasted all day….Hooray!

Since there was a solid possy of four of us to man the TVS booth (me, Lisa, Larissa and Liz….ooooh L to the power of 3), there was lots of opportunities to check out some of the other vendor booths and do a little shopping myself.

One of my immediate purchases was from Treasure Chicks Vintage from Pickering – these amazing ‘new vintage’ shoes. This shop got 500 pairs of never-before-worn Celebrity shoes for sale friends, complete with their vintage shoeboxes – FYI. I fell in love with these two-toned leather taupe nail-hammered heels the moment I set eyes on them (they fit small, I’m usually an 8.5 buuuut had to buy these in a size 10 for a comfortable fit) and this spectacular red scarf….which I immediately had them tie into my hair to add some MEOW to my #ootd!

Now, this may come as a surprise to some of you reading….but I’m a bit of a diva! I like NEW – so the idea of buying and wearing clothes someone else has worn half a CENTURY ago really needs to be special before I’m willing to spend my cold hard cash on it. This being my first real vintage shopping experience, and being the nerd that I am, I did a bit of research before hand. I found WikiHow’s tips helpful in this Top 10 list for How To Shop For Vintage.

Shopping for vintage plus size clothing is a challenge and a half – no doubt! With all the many vendor booths to peruse, it was an overwhelming task – also, I learnt that I’m easily distracted by shiny/sparkly things – talk about sensory overload all day! Some things I personally kept in mind when looking for clothing/items to buy were:

Odors and Stains … these are very iffy because they’ll probably have been on there for ages. Scarves seemed to have this issue the most from what I saw. I had to ask myself: Would it matter if you scrubbed at it but it didn’t come off? Is it so glaring as to render the piece unwearable?
Try on EVERYTHING! I was surprised at the number of pieces I passed over because it “looked” too small, but upon trying on fit quite well. If it doesn’t feel right or look good when you tried it on, then it probably isn’t the piece for you is the basic rule of thumb when shopping vintage clothing. Sadly, the change room situation at MTCC wasn’t all that private – so I ended up trying on dresses OVERTOP of my dress. Figured if it fit and looked good on me like that, it was def gonna look great when I wore it properly! Silly? Maybe. But that was my try-on technique for the day…and it worked out well. (Ps: the pics of all the below were taken during a post-vintage-clothing-show Irene-fashion-shows as soon as I got home with all my haul).

Check out this long pink & brown floral 1940s day dress I scooped up from www.retrouver.biz Notice the silver rhinestone ornament on the collar! I really loved all the buttons down the front too, plus the thin shiny belt can totally be worn with other things in my closet. It’s a bit long…so it will need a hem…so I managed to talk the price down to $25!

Upon round two of vendor shopping, I found Barbra – an independent vintage dealer who doesn’t have a storefront proper, but has created a name for herself among many of the TVS members. (Her Facebook page is Booth 311 Roadshow Antiques Pickering.) She put me into this lovely light green number. Brand new! The fabric still felt stiff and unworn. The only real giveaway to this dress being pre-loved was the belt holes – one was used more than all the others. Although this dress is pretty simple, I really loved the pleated neckline with the large buttons down the front – and the length was perfect!

The rest of my shopping consisted of accessories. I picked up a delightful wicker purse (also from www.retrouver.biz) and this fantastic black petit point 1960s purse and a giant cream brimmed hat (both from The Vintage Domain).

Check out how I combined a few of my pieces together with each dress.

Here are a few shots of the rest of my purchases from Primetime Antiques & Collectables:

When I finally returned to the TVS booth – I found a swing dance party had broken out! Oooooo! I can’t wait ’til it’s MY skirt that be a-twril with mad Lindy Hop skillz! Yup! With a Z!

The rest of the afternoon was spent chatting up visitors who stopped by our booth and meeting some of the newer TVS members:

Vintage clothing shopping is exciting and enjoyable so long as you come with a good attitude and patience. Finding items that nobody else has is the biggest appeal for me, plus you’re being eco-friendly with the added thrill of bargaining for a deal.

Here’s a summary shot of just the accessories that came home with me from the Toronto Vintage Clothing Show. Can’t wait to do it all again this Fall! Weeeeeeeeeeee!