Vintage Discoveries and Blessed Feelings

Vintage. It was something that as a baby pinup, it always felt unobtainable. I used to firmly believe that vintage was SUPER expensive and all too little for someone like me. Now while vintage can be expensive, if you know what to look for and how to search you can actually find quite a bit in bigger sizes and not all of it is frumpy and sad. My first true discovery with true vintage was through Newtown store The Vintage Drawer. Deb, who is the owner is such an absolute pleasure to deal with and she showed me that there was beautiful vintage out there that fit me and that having vintage in my wardrobe was obtainable. With my experience with her I went on to find Bek who owns Word from the Bird in Ballarat and fell in love again. She stocks beautiful pieces in a range of sizes and I’ve since made 4 purchases from her that definitely get a fair bit of wear. In my blog photos today, I’m wearing my newest addition from Bek, which is this stunning soft pink 1940s dress! 

Hat ~ Early 1950’s hat from Little Cooper on Etsy

Beads ~ Equip

Brooch ~ Tulip Bouquet brooch from Erstwilder

Dress ~ 1940s Dusty pink and lace day dress from Word fromthe Bird

Belt ~ Off Another Dress

Shoes ~ Lacey heels from Royal Vintage Shoes

But this post isn’t just about my growing love of vintage. 2016 for me had a really rough start. I lost some good friends; I saw the bullying underside of the Australian pinup scene when I became the target of a bullying campaign. My beautiful grandmother passed away from a heart attack in her home just before Easter. I’ve had some other things happen that have really dragged me down which I haven’t shared online either and up until recently, 2016 was feeling like one of the worst years of my adult life. While it wasn’t all bad, the good definitely felt like it was been smothered by the constant layers of bad stuff that kept happening. And they happened in such quick succession to each other that I hadn’t really finished trying to emotionally and mentally the first thing before the others piled on. It can be hard to feel positive when you feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders and when you have a lot of BIG stuff going on or even repetitive little stuff it can really build up and start to bring you down. 

Sometimes though, things that look like they are horrible and stressful can actually be a catalyst for great change. I got some news recently (which I’m not sharing yet!) that initially really upset me, cause huge anxiety and made me feel even more down. But, as time went on and it had a flow on effect to other decisions being made, decisions that had been causing large amounts of stress, I felt the stress begin to lift. In the past week I have found myself feeling a lot more at peace with events of the year, a lot more at peace with the loss of my grandmother and find myself swelling with gratitude for the amazing things in my life. I have an incredible partner. I have a beautiful family. I have amazing friends. My little business is growing so well and my blogging is really starting to take off. I'm getting back into modelling and not letting my body hold me back. I'm trying new things and feeling amazing about life. I have the opportunity to meet and spend time with some amazingly strong women this past weekend and they’ve really lifted my spirits and shown me that not all ladies are bitter and nasty and that there are women who encourage, support and inspire each other to do better! I am so grateful for the positive things i have going on.

On Saturday I attended a vintage ladies high tea (I’ll be blogging about this on Saturday for you all) and then I had the pleasure of shooting with Kimberly of Saycheesecake Photography, who I’ve had the pleasure of mutually following online for what seems like forever. Meeting these women has really inspired me to push back at my anxiety and reconnect with the things I used to love to do, like going to events and attending pageants because screw the people who try and bring others down. So…how does all this tie into vintage….

Vintage is one of the things that recently has been connecting me with amazing women. It was so incredibly cool to go and spend an afternoon with such incredible, inspiring and amazing ladies at the QVB High Tea. I’ve never felt so included in a group like that before, even though my anxiety meant I kept myself a little on the outside of the socialising and it was great to hear ladies with similar experiences to me in regards to blogging (ie people STARING at you when you are taking blog photos around the place) and recognising people off instagram. 

The whole weekend has left me feeling incredibly inspired to do better, be better, support fiercely and be kinder to myself. We all have struggles we go through and that’s ok. Though sometimes popping on some incredible vintage does definitely help! I’ve got so much coming to my blog this coming month. I’ve never been this busy in this little blog space but I’m feeling so motivated to really make it what I dreamed it would be! I have some amazing products, collaborations and photoshoots coming up. I hope you are all ready for this space to really start blossoming!

Also, can we take a second to just appreciate this gorgeous vintage hat! Hats are something I’ve always enjoyed, even as a kid. I’ve been wanting to start investing in vintage hats for the last 18 months but I’ve been umming and ahhing about it. But on my birthday I found a gorgeous garden hat in an op shop and after a bit of an online splurge I now have 3 vintage hats and I cannot wait to add more! 

I hope you’ve all enjoyed this little blog post! I just wanted to share some shots of this amazing vintage dress and hat as I had intended to wear them this past weekend but it was much too cold! And remember, if life is getting you down that sometimes things get hard sometimes and thats ok. Light will come through in the end.

Til next time darlings!