A peek at my mom's vintage wedding dress collection

1940's

Today is the day I was hoping to share pictures from the vintage fashion show with you, but I still haven't been able to track down any decent photos...so I figured I could at least give you a little peek at my mom's collection! 

Some of these dresses, but not all, were shown on the runway during the show two weeks ago...but I guess I should back up a bit.

Let me start by telling you that this whole thing was sort of my fault. About three years ago, I started following style blogs - many of them vintage-focused - and slowly, I began to incorporate more vintage into my wardrobe. My mom wanted to help me out, so she started going to estate sales that I couldn't go to because of my class schedule. And then one day we went to an antique store together and stumbled upon an exquisite Priscilla of Boston wedding dress...and we couldn't help ourselves. We bought it with plans to restore it, neither of us really knowing what we were doing. That one dress turned into four when my mom found three wedding dresses at an estate sale. The four dresses turned into many more when we started looking on Ebay, and before we knew it, my mom had roughly 50 dresses in all styles, spanning 100 years of fashion history.

Early 1900's | 1880's

Originally, our plan was to start a vintage wedding dress rental business, but we have since widened our focus. Here's her website, if you want to take a peek (though keep in mind that the site isn't done yet - both of us work a lot, and never quite have the time we would like to devote to this endeavor!) She now hopes to offer a variety of vintage goods for rentals for weddings, bridal showers, baby showers, fundraisers (like the fashion show), and other events.

She has quite the collection - antique baby carriages, a tandem bicycle, an old sea chest...but the dresses will always be my favorite. 

Sometimes I forget just how stunning her collection is, and then I see the dresses all in one place and I get awestruck all over again. It's such a privilege to own such tangible pieces of history. It does make me a little bit sad that these dresses weren't kept in their respective families, but I feel lucky to get to wear them from time to time and share their beauty with a whole new generation.

1963

1950's

1950's

1910's

Early 1900's

1920's

1950

1940's

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little peek! I know it's really nothing like my normal posts, but I think my mom's collection is too beautiful not to share. I hope you're having a great holiday season (just one week 'til Christmas, eek!)

1950's

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Thursday Three: 12.13.12

Has it really been a month since I've done a Thursday Three? Somehow, that doesn't seem possible! Without further ado, here are three things I'm loving this week:

1. TARDIS teapot

Continuing my streak of loving all things nerdy and British...words cannot describe how much I really, really want this teapot. (I bet it's bigger on the inside!) Chris and I have almost completely made our way through the Doctor Who revival, and we're having so much fun. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself when we've caught up; I hate having to wait for new episodes to air!

2. "Laura" - Bat for Lashes

Since my name is Laura, is it completely narcissistic of me to love this song? If it were mediocre, and if I just liked it for its name alone, I might be inclined to think so...but it's actually really lovely. The first description I read of this song called it "haunting," and I really can't think of a more fitting word. Give it a listen for yourself and let me know what you think!

3. Fox mug cozy DIY from Kittenhood

Because of heading up the DIY section for the local magazine I write for, I've been looking at a lot of DIYs in the past few weeks. And this? This is the cutest one I've seen in a long time. Maybe I'm just biased because I love foxes, but I doubt it. Daria's tutorial is just darling! I've never done felting in my life, but this might just spur me to try it.

That's it for this week's Thursday Three! What are you loving this week around the web?

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The quick brown fox

dress: ModCloth | belt & skirt: vintage | shoes: thrifted

As much as I love the extra hour of sleep I got from daylight savings time last month, I don't love the fact that I now have to drive both to and from work in the dark. Aside from being generally depressing (who wants to spend all of the daylight hours in a cubicle?), it also makes outfit shoots very difficult! Lately I've felt like I'm falling into a bit of a rut with my outfits, so I'm actually kind of excited for the snow to start falling - I think the change of scenery will do me and my wardrobe good.

Thankfully, I've been able to keep busy - very busy, in fact! As I mentioned previously, Chris and I were in charge of putting together a special DIY section for the local magazine we both write for (On-the-Town), so this weekend was full of writing and taking photos. I've always admired DIYs I've found online, but truth be told, I had done very few of them myself...until this weekend! Technically, doing this project meant that I had to work all day on my day off, but it felt wonderful to try something new. If I get permission from the editor, I hope to post some of the DIYs here on the blog.

Last weekend, we also had my mom's vintage fashion show, which went great! It's always a little bit hard to tell how well these shows go when you're backstage, but I heard lots of lovely comments. I wore a wedding outfit from the 1880's, and - my favorite - a gorgeous lace wedding dress from the 1940's. Sadly, I neglected to bring my camera...so I think I'll hold off on giving you the full recap until I can get my hands on photos from someone else. It's not the same using words; my mom's dressesat really must be seen to be appreciated!

I hope you all had a great Monday! Do you have any fun plans for the week?

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Autumn's greatest hits

Memory hoarders | Weather systems

As much as it feels like autumn or even spring here in Michigan - yesterday was in the sixties! - the calendar doesn't lie. December is here. (So much for my ambitions of getting all my Christmas shopping done early...) And with the change of the season, I thought it was time for another style retrospective. Just like last time, these are more or less in chronological order - though, again, it's funny how well some of them pair up.

Autumn is a tricky season. With the onset of daylight savings time, I wasn't able to capture as many moments and outfits as I would have liked. But I feel like the outfits here represent me perhaps more than any other season's worth I've shown on this blog.

The first outfit is about as autumnal as it gets, and definitely very "me." The second was more of an experiment in many ways - color, texture, and that hat - and as it's one of my most popular posts of all time, I really think it paid off!

Such great heights | The other big apple

These are both dresses I've had a hard time styling up different ways, for some reason. With the polka-dot dress, I got in a rut of pairing it with black, and with the plaid dress, well...I just didn't wear it. But I ended up loving both of these looks - so much so that I replicated them numerous times over the course of the season. They're both so cozy!

The golden hour | Secret heart

I think it's fascinating how my outfits were almost entirely comprised of warm colors in early fall, and in late fall, they were almost entirely made of cool blues. You can see this even more clearly if you head over to my Chictopia gallery.  A sign of the cold season to come, perhaps? 

Bring it on, winter! (I really hope I don't regret saying that...)

How were your autumns, style-wise? What were your staples, and what were your new favorites?

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