Toronto Vintage Society – Page 3

Vintage Gypsy Cabaret?

I was at it again, representing with the Toronto Vintage Society at last weekend’s Electro Swing night-o-fun … looking for Best Dressed guy and gal. This time the theme was: Vintage Gypsy Cabaret. My immediate reaction was…..Whaaat!?! This made me dig deep when coming up with an appropriate look to match my TVS Sistas.

Outfit planning has been tricky to say the least….what the heck is Vintage-Gypsy-Cabaret anyway?! Google’s answer was the following…

….and from which inspired my overall outfit of excessive accessories (Thank You Jacquie, Founder of TVS) and giant hair inspiration of Kate Moss Biba.

I’ve been dying to somehow create a look with these fabulous silky Ali-Baba/Harem Pants I picked up on my trip to the Motherland a few years ago … just never really found an occasion where they would really fit. But they totally worked to help create that Gypsy feeling for this fantastic themed event!!!!

The evening began with pre-drinking at Erin’s … followed by excessive photo-taking of our outfits:

The Event & Best Dressed Winners:

Me and my TVS Sistas on stage….asking the audience to determine who BEST DRESSED was for the night.

10421503_809591515718406_4837104656577647159_n — Final Three for “Dapper Dude”: Alex, Patrick and Daniel

10430492_809591785718379_9162443959395387830_n — Final Three for “Darling Dame”: Sam, Foxy and Clair

10410576_809591332385091_8536558676859040825_n — Moi …. introducing TVS and the Best Dressed Contest. Clearly I enjoy having the mic in my hand

10443456_809591629051728_5430756783390965308_n — TVS selected these three for Best Dressed ‘Dapper Dude’

The ladies really stepped it up tonight….It was uber difficult to pick ‘Darling Dame’ based on these three finalists. Check out their costumes up close – all three were fantastic!

Best dressed guy and gal went to: Daniel and Sam – winners of gift certificates from Gaddabout Vintage Clothing – congratulations you two!!!

10456821_809591899051701_4628860598226836655_n — TVS with the Winners of the Best Dressed Contest!

With Taste of Little Italy happening that night just outside of Revival’s Electro Swing — the TVS Sistas took to the street to dance along side this One-Man-Band!

Other shenanigans of the evening included….

Photo Credit: David Tom — for the full album of photos taken from Electro Swing’s Vintage-Gypsy-Cabaret night click here

How I got the Look:

Black crochet tank from Forever21+; Black lace bra from Lane Bryant; Golden-green Harem/Ali-Baba pants from my travels in Jaipur, India; excessive accessories, plus turban and feathers courtesy of Jacquie of TVS; sandals from Payless

Stay tuned to the Toronto Vintage Society and Electro Swing Facebook pages for the next speakeasy event!

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 🙂

#TVS: Mad Men Season Premier Party

Let me start by saying thank you Netflix for introducing me to the oh-so handsome Donald Draper, and his world of Mad Men. And a thank you to RogersOnDemand, for letting me get all caught-up with all of the 6th season’s episodes so that I’d be ready to attend alongside fellow TVS-ers and Mad Men fanatics at the Cadillac Lounge for a fab night of 1960s fun!

When it comes to vintage style, are you a Joan? A Peggy? A Betty? Or a Meghan?

My Outfit:

I decided to go with my PEGGY DRESS complete with white gloves and all — couldn’t find a pill hat this she’s wearing below sadly.

My entire outfit was picked up a few weeks at the Toronto Vintage Clothing Show (minus the white gloves, they were bought recently from 69Vintage and the shoes are oldies from beige closed-toed T-straped heels from Le Chateau)

Found this easy-peasy hair tutorial … that doesn’t look too “done”.

Unfortunately, I was recovering from my first migraine ever, and was struggling to make it out to this event at all — frankly getting dolled up with hair did, just wasn’t happening. So my apologies if I’m not my usual smiley self in photos friends 🙂

The Event:

I missed last year’s Mad Men shindig thrown by the Toronto Vintage Society (at the same locale)…and now that I’m apart of the admin team, I had been looking forward to this for a month! It was all-hands-on-deck with only 1-hour to set up our section complete with Mad Men inspired vintage cocktail menus, fancy up the prizes from Exile Vintage and Ethel’s, setting up a vintage backdrop photo booth complete with authentic vintage props, getting our signage up and our vintage commercials up and running. We really did transform the space – it all looked fantastic.

The party started at 8pm where we had a sassy 60s music dance party with DJ NICO (With It! and CIUT) plus GAMES like: “Name the Slogan” and “Pitch us your Best Ad” that kept us busy before the Cadi transformed their stage by dropping down a large screen for us all to watch the Season Premiere of Mad Men (7th and final season….*sniff sniff*) 😦

It was a fantastically fun night (as soon as I downed some extra strength Tylenol – thank you Monika!) Sunday night on West Queen West with Mad Men vintage loving folks was a HUGE success!

If you were there – be sure to check out Toronto Vintage Society’s Facebook page to tag yourself in the photos we took.

In the meantime….have you Mad Men’d Yourself yet? You should! It’s a hoot!

Swing Dancing

You may have read about how broken hearted I’ve been since my BollyFuze classes were no longer offered downtown. And although Yoga has filled the void of group exercise in my life, I still wanted more DANCING!

Since hanging out with Toronto Vintage Society peeps and being invited to judge ‘Best Dressed’ at various Electro Swing events, I have been itching to learn how to Lindy Hop and Charston …. I wanna be a Swing Kid! (minus all the sad bits of the movie, of course. I’ve yet to see the flick – it’s on my To-Do list!)

I’ve signed up for the 2-month “Crash Course” of Beginner Lessons to Swing Dance at Lindy Hop Revolution – eek!

My first lesson was a ton of fun! The instructors were Natalia and Luis – both from Spain, both encouraging, fun and funny. Best part — you don’t need a partner to learn how to Swing Dance!!! It’s a social dance….which means we swap partners throughout the class. I came alone, but after the hour I got to know Barbra, Donald, and two more delightful dudes (who’s names escape me) as they were the Leads with whom I got to boogie with.

My arms do not want to cooperate what-so-ever. And this constant ‘bouncing’ that is required doesn’t seem to keep the beat in my feet as it should. Buuuuuut, I had a grand ol’ time and can’t wait for next week! Although my footwork was a hot mess – my outfit was on point!

Here’s what I wore:

I picked up this cute swing dress from Winners – for $25!!! Just loved the dainty lil’ black n’ white flower pattern and capped sleeves. I had hoped to wear my tan moto leather jacket with it…But since winter windchill won’t leave Toronto, wearing the dress solo was not gonna cut it.

Ended up wearing my two-toned pink & tan cardi …..since it was lightweight enough to get me from A to B under a fall jacket. (I refuse to wear my winter coat any longer – it’s April for christ sake!

Stay tuned for my updates on how I’m progressing in my journey to becoming a Swing Kid …and to see what I wear to class every week! 🙂

How I Got The Look:

Shoes and Dress both from Winners — see more deets on the shoes here

Two-toned cardi from Target

#TVS: Electro Swing TO with Good Co.

We were at it again folks – Toronto Vintage Society was invited to judge the Best Dressed at Electro Swing TO’s March event this past Friday! And that meant I got to get all dressed up in 1920s inspired look to mingle with fabulously dressed people and dance the night away to big band electro swing vibes with my friend Liz, a fellow TVS member and blogger at The Vintage Inn.

Here’s all the pieces of my 1920s inspired look for Friday night’s Electro Swing party:

I finally got a chance to see the remake of The Great Gatsby flick …. and totally fell in love with that glam and glitter of all the dresses and headpieces.

In fact, I’ve been playing around to see how I could incorporate more headscarves into my wardrobe. And then on one of “window shopping only” walks home from the office … I saw the most gorgeous headchain in the window of this little shop specializing in ladies accessories in the P.A.T.H. of Commerce Court downtown. Needless to say it came home with me … and this Electro Swing party was the perfect reason to wear it…FINALLY!

Richard aka MedicineMan, Revival Bar’s event organizer, met us at the door, we pow-wowed quickly about how the event would roll out, how the contest and prizing would work. And then the fun began with Charleston lessons by Lindy Hop Revolution. Believe it or not, I kicked up my heels pretty good for a first timer – I was lucky to have a strong lead partner.

Check out Liz doing her thang. Oooooo….. I can’t wait to start taking lessons!

And so we mingled and schmoozed around the room with the fabulous attendees to chat up what Toronto Vintage Society was all about and how they could join/get involved AND of course, tapping those who were on our short-list of BEST DRESSED for the night! I even bumped into a few familiar faces I met at the last Electro Swing shindig 🙂

Here are a few colloages of all the fun that was had …

Dashing Doll went to Loryn and Dapper Dude went to Teddy … both were winners of a $50 gift certificate from Doll Factors by Damzels!

Good Co. was the fantastic Electro Swing Band that came all the way from Seattle to party with us at Revival, keeping the crowd dancing with their own renditions of Macklemore’s hit and The Four Season’s “Beggin'” tune were my personal faves of the night! Their performance ended with each member of the band climbing up onto the bar and toasting with shots – divinely outrageous!

I was fortunate enough to bump into them in Revival’s green room as I was leaving and they were kind enough to take a few ‘Ellen-inspired’ selfies with me. Weeeee!

Be sure to visit the Electo Swing TO’s FB page in the next few days, where professional shots of last night’s event can be found, taken by D.Tom … his camera & skills totally trumps my iPhone. 🙂

How I got The Look:

Layered dress from DressBarn + Black sueade Mary-Janes from Payless

Accessories: Black diamond cocktail ring from Jaipur, India; Necklace gift; Earrings from Swarovski; Headchain from…I forget the name of the shop (will find out and update soonest)

#TVS: Rock-A-Billy Shake-Up!

Last year upon finally jumping on the Mad Men bandwagon, discovering and falling in love with the Rockabilly/Vintage scene Toronto has to offer, the Toronto Vintage Society organized a meetup event last night’s one-night-only live music: “Sweet 16th” installment of the Rock-A-Billy Shake-Up, at the Junction’s – 3030 (3030 Dundas St. West).

My friend Liz, a fellow TVS member and blogger of The Vintage Inn, has done a fabulous post about the bands of this event, click here to read all about it 🙂

Some of you may remember this cherry-bomb pin-up dress from a previous post. I love this dress! It was meant for an event like this! I wore it with my rocker-chick buckle & zip booties (as winter does not want to leave Toronto yet), in hopes it would yield better results with the men-folk than it did the last time. Uggh!

The plan was to meet grab dinner at 3030 with a few TVS members prior to the show. The menu looked fantastic….plus it would give us a chance to giggle & catchup, whilst securing us a solid spot to enjoy the music for the rest of the night, winter coats and all. 😉

Although the food items were all pretty delicious, the ordering system is very interesting. Patrons must first acquire a seat, then go up to the crowded bar to try and nab a bartender’s attention, only then is a menu of food offerings shared with you (no menus at the table). If you’re successful at this point you are given an order number on a stand, to put on your table and someone will search the venue for your little number and bring you your food. Popcorn chicken, Blue cheese MacN’Cheese, Tostada of sorts and a plate of Bacon, were just a few of the items various people from our little possy ordered.

Also interesting is that their offerings of beers is different at both of the bars in this venue. Soooo say you’re a fan of Mill St. Organic — and you happen to be sitting in the backroom where all the performances are, what you must do is order your appies at bar one, pay, and then walk yourself over to bar two through crowds of people to order your pint of choice. Annoying? Yes..buuuuut it does allow a girl to strut all over the venue at least once to check out the crowd and for the crowd to admire your outfit 😉

First up was a London, ON band called The Hi-Tones (above) – I totally fell in love with the lead singer’s sailor inspired dress! I’m totally crushing on the nautical look these days – anchors away crazy!

Since this was a #TVS event, I got to catchup with a bunch of members I haven’t seen since the Vintage Holiday Party, and even got to meet a few new members who recently joined this fabulous group. I also got to meet a fan of Petite Plus, Meow! She came up and introduced herself and sang prasies of my wee blog! In fact, my post about shoes inspired her to run out and buy the exact same ones 🙂 My heart smiled all night with her compliments – thank you, thank you, thank you, lovely girl!

There were a ton of folks from Toronto Lindy Hop in attendance, many of whom tore up the dance floor with fancy swing-spin and twirls and whirls. Very impressive! Think I’ve found my next ‘fun’ to fill the void that the lack of BollyFuze classes have left in my heart……stay tuned for more on that. 🙂

I’ve been bombarded with work commitments this week and haven’t been able to blog as regularly as I like. I’ve been so busy that I was considering working late instead of going out Friday night. I’m soooo glad I attended – what a fantastic way to end the work week! A big Thank You to Toronto Vintage Society to introducing me to such a fun scene…can’t wait for the next event! xo

Toronto Vintage Society: “Looks” from 2013 Events

Early last year I finally climbed onto the MAD MEN band wagon, bulk watching season after season via Netflix and totally fell in love with it ALL! The beautiful vintage furniture, fab accessories plus the amazing dresses and hairstyles. A tasty eyeful of Don Draper didn’t hurt either…*hubba hubba* Having ample amounts of both, any era where hips & tits were celebrated and embraced is where I need to be! So I began Googling and Pintrest-ing to see how I could incorporate vintage inspired looks into my wardrobe… affordably.

I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a fantastic little MeetUp group called Toronto Vintage Society (TVS) – whose members host events, post photos and news on shops and shows to inspire people to get out and make vintage/retro more than a hobby…make it a lifestyle! Now…I’m a total novice when it comes to the love of all things vintage. It takes me a minute to get that the talk of ‘surf’ is not taking place in the water, and getting involved with an Easter Parade does not involve floats. I’ve taken the business approach of “fake it, til’ you make it” when it comes to vintage inspired looks.

By hanging out with the awesome peeps from this fab group #TVS I’ve gotten a chance to discover Toronto’s rockabilly world of brunch and burlesque, attend a 1920s Gatsby Garden Party, a Tiki-Tacky Surfs-up shindig, and capped off the year with a fabulous Vintage Holiday get-together complete with karaoke x-mas carols. Each of these events needed a very specific outfit of course. Take a look at what the past year has yielded in terms of Rockabilly/Vintage/Retro “looks” from my closet.

Gatsby Garden Party – Spadina House Museum, Toronto
How I got the Look:
Dress with pearl collar from DressBarn
Cream floral fascinator from Your Big Sister’s Closet, Dundas W. Toronto
Cat-eye sunglasses from Spring

Tiki Tacky Party – Cadillac Lounge, Toronto
How I got the Look:
Hair Flowers from The Bay
Floral Dress from AdditonElle

Vintage Holiday Party – Toronto
How I got The Look:
Dress swing dress from Collectif, Rosie the Rebel Dovercourt/Bloor Sts
Grey leopard cardi from Reitmans
Black n’ white t-strap shoes from Naturalizer
Black feather & net facinator from Aldo