Making suits from separates, pale late winter sunshine, and happy St. Patrick's Day wishes to everyone!

Outfit details

1940s/1950s turquoise hat with white flower: Dragon Head Jewels Too
Turquoise and white floral cameo earrings: Handmade by me
Vintage blue patterned scarf: Acquired in person from a fellow vintage seller
White button front shirt: Talbots (this shirt has the most amazing tone-on-tone jacquard pattern to it - I'll have to wear and photograph it sans jacket so that you can get a better view of it one day)
1960s blue and gold tone flower brooch: Thrifted (I think)
Black velvet blazer: ???
1950s royal blue gloves: (probably) eBay
Gold tone metal bracelet: Payless
1950s black velvet skirt: Etsy seller Lady Kitschener's Vintage Emporium
Tan coloured cross body purse: eBay
Royal blue tights: Ardene
Black pumps: Payless
Lip colour: Clinique Raspberry Glace


Photography by Tony Cangiano

♥ ♥ ♥

Let me preface today's post by saying that this outfit is not St. Patrick's Day themed or intended to celebrate this festive Irish holiday per se. Instead, it was a recent look sported on a chilly late winter afternoon when Tony and I were in Kelowna running errands.

Between doing my business taxes, ups and downs with my health, and lonnnnngggg work days, I didn't get in a specifically March 17th themed outfit ahead of time, but may wear green and gold today and post about it later, if we go out.

This outfit is the absolute epitome of the sort I wear when bopping around town (or neighbouring towns, as the case may be :)) during the late fall and winter months, when it's still chilly (usually at, or right around, freezing), but not quite so cold that a heavy duty overcoat, boots, knit hat and scarf are truly required for the sake one's own safety from the elements.

Though you might at first glance think that my (modern, but strikingly vintage appropriate) black velvet blazing and matching 1950s black velvet pencil skirt were a suit, they are indeed two separate items purchased years apart from one another.

As I've chatted about here at various points over the years (such as this post from 2013), my figure - short, curvy, and complete with small shoulders - does not jive well with the sizing of most vintage skirts. If it fits in the waist, it's too small in the bust and vice versa, or both work, but the shoulders stop nearly at my elbows, the skirt length is all wrong, the jacket length is unflattering, or some other point trips the whole equation up. And yet...

I madly, completely, head over-heels adore mid-century vintage suits and will try on hundreds of them, if need be, to find one that fits (or can easily be tailored to fit) just right. That said, especially when I do the bulk of vintage shopping online due to serious lack of old school clothing purveyors around these parts, it be tricky to find even that one suit that hits the jackpot and so I've become a die hard fan of combining separates that look strikingly similar to create the appearance of the suit.

Naturally, this tends to work best with neutral coloured pieces, especially those on the darker end of the spectrum, such as black, brown, navy blue, and grey, but in theory any colour is fair game and you don't have to hit on a 100% match. Similar shades, especially if the material at hand - such as velvet in this case - is virtually identical, can often trick the eye into scarcely noticing that there's a wee discrepancy in terms of the colours (if there’s one at all). Plus, and this is worth keeping in mind, sometimes one encounters genuine vintage suits where the skirt and jacket have been worn or laundered in different volumes and thus they themselves very a touch in terms of the intensity of the colour at hand.

Sometimes, too, it's fun to intentionally mix things up. Say, for example, partnering a navy blue linen jacket with a navy cotton or wool skirt. The cohesiveness of the palette and the general lines, so redolent of a suit, are more then enough to convey the general concept. I'm not alone in doing this and know that many of my fellow vintage lovers, such as Stephanie from The Girl With The Star Spangled Heart, enjoy piecing together "suits" of this nature as well.

Whether you find suits tricky to obtain, are short on them at the moment, are just getting started with vintage, or simply want to give yourself more styling options with the pieces that you already have to hand, this approach to creating a "suit" is a great one to take. Be it the dead of winter (wools! tweeds! thick velvets!) or thick of summer (silk! linen! cotton!), making your own two-piece ensembles from matching separates is well worth giving a spin if you're a fan of vintage suits.

This winter, while long and still underway a touch, wasn't, thankfully, a particularly brutal or snowy one (in fact, there was so few big falls that I didn't even get in a photo winter wonderland sort of shoot this season). It was however, as most tend to be in Canada, rather devoid of sunshine. Thus, as it slowly began to creep out of hibernation at the end of February and throughout March, I have flocked to it faster than the neighbourhood cats.

Meek and scarcely warm (by the time it reaches us down here on earth, that is) it may be, it's still sunshine and that fact alone gives me a massively needed jolt of energy - not to mention cause to smile, reach for the camera, and scamper outside with Tony to start off a new year of photo shoots.

Being a busy workday for both of today, again, I wouldn't bank on a shoot happening on St. Paddy's Day, but you never know. Either way, now that we're on the cusp of spring, you can (theoretically - one technically never knows what the future holds in store) count on lots more outfit shoots going forward throughout 2015. I'm really looking forward to in fact, as I've purchased and received a number of garments over the last half a year that suit spring and summer best, and which I'm chomping at the bit to share with all of you (including my first four Lindy Bop dresses).



{I'm not sure what the inside of this adorable vintage St. Patrick's Day card said, but I like to imagine it went along the lines of "Because it's so very heartfelt!". Image source.}


To one and all who observe it, may you have a positively fantastic and very happy St. Patrick's Day today, and to those who do not, I hope that you have a terrific Tuesday all the same!