A Winter Vintage OOTD

Hi everyone,

Today is just a small post about a wonderful vintage dress I picked up in Newcastle at the end of last year and I took some lovely wintery photos of it in my relative’s backyard!

Also apologies for missing last week. I’ve been a bit out of things with a couple of colds and as you know now is not the ideal time to be dealing with them! I was also working on the first of my blog posts about moving to the UK but now seems like the most useless time I could possibly write about moving countries. So I scrapped that and will hopefully will be back with more fleshed out content next week.

I found this vintage dress at Retro in Newcastle. I was feeling a bit sad about coming to the UK and I hadn’t found any decent vintage or retro clothing. This store was a welcome oasis and has loads of gorgeous things particularly from the 60’s and 70’s! I found this little back dress and thought it looked so gorgeous and thought there was no way I would be lucky enough to have it fit me!

I have a little trouble doing up the back as it’s a zip up the skirt to the waistline and then it buttons up the rest of the way. Looks lovely as a fastening but the backwards buttons can be a bit tricky. It fits me flawlessly though, I was particularly nervous that the skirt would be too fitted (especially with my wide hips) but it skims my lower half so flatteringly.

The black velvet details around the pockets and across the shoulders are so lovely! I also love the funny little corded bow at the neckline. The fabric feels like quite a dense vintage rayon. I have no doubt about this being a 1950’s dress (or very slightly out of the decade), it has a lot of the trademark signifiers such as a metal zip, woven label, self-covered buttons, dolman sleeves and particularly the feel of the fabrics.

I stole my partner’s paisley scarf for these shots as it was absolutely freezing outside when we took these. It ended up matching the orange and brown leaves so well I feel like it really ties in. I’m getting more into the scarfy shawly look at the moment. I never really liked the look of it on me but I’m finding it so comfy and a very easy and flexible way to stay warm.

It was so nice to experience my first UK winter in the countryside for a month. It was strange seeing fallen leaves everywhere since NZ is mostly populated with evergreen trees so we never get autumn leaves. The frosty morning grass was also so picture perfect and reminded me of my childhood.

This dress was also only £18 which was an absolute steal! I would have expected to pay about $100 for this back home as it’s in such great condition and feels like it was made for me!

If you are ever out Newcastle way I highly recommend checking out Retro as they had loads of interesting pieces spanning many decades and styles! I love this dress paired with all black for a very sleek look. It feels like one of the dream vintage pieces I am always after. I have a red 1950’s dress which is another dream piece. In the back of my mind I’m also after a deep brown dress, fish and cat atomic themed skirts and anything with bold contrast colours.

Hope everyone is doing well in this strange and challenging time! Here’s a bonus picture with a very sweet doggy: