My Fascination With Pinup Attire

Today’s Fashion Attire: Today I’m wearing a cotton, red, tiered sleeveless top (White House Black Market $37) under a blue denim jacket (Old Navy $26), a dark wash skinny jeans (Gap Outlet $29) and tomato red patent leather flats (Bettie Page Store Santa Barbara $32). I’ve accessorized with red silk scarf in my hair (gift from a friend) and white sapphire stud earrings (Tippr.com $2)

Outfit Justification: Last night in a fit of boredom I spent way too much time on Pinterest.com. I was pining stuff like crazy. I spent a significant amount of time on my New Style For Me board, which is all the pinup stuff I like. Today’s outfit and look was inspired by one of the pins on my board. Red top underneath denim jacket with a red scarf in the hair with jeans and I added a red flat shoe to keep that pop of color at the bottom. I’ll post a picture of my inspiration picture and a picture of the top part of my outfit.

the inspiration:

My Fascination With Pinup Attire:

I’ve previously mentioned that I struggle with being overweight. As I actively do something about my weight gain, I do my best to try and dress the body I have to the best of my ability. After a long discussion with my husband about my body issues, he kept dwelling on how much he loved my curves. He pointed out that even at my smallest I was still very curvy and I really should embrace that. Which somehow led to a discussion about Marilyn Monroe being considered plus size in today’s society. Many men consider Marilyn to be a gorgeous sexy woman, even now.  I did a Google search to find out what Ms. Monroe’s actual dress size was, and it’s rumored to be anywhere from a size 12 to a size 16. I started to think about the fact that I fall into that range of size.  I did more research and looked a lot of screen sirens from that time period and noticed that they weren’t all rail thin. The more I looked at pictures, the more I started to admire the clothing

After talking to a few people, I asked around about the whole pinup style. I know that I see people today walking around in these styles, but did they make these adorable and sexy clothes in my size?  I eventually posed the same question out there on Facebook. My friends came to the rescue. They encouraged me to pursue this style as it was made for someone like me. They posted links to various websites that had the very clothes I admired. I was thrilled to see that they did make stuff like that for my size and I was seriously interested in buying some of it.  

As my husband’s birthday approached, I wracking my brain trying to find a gift he would really like. A girl can only buy so much Star Wars crap for overgrown child of a husband.  Like angel from heaven, my friend Carolina, forwarded an e-mail that had some great offers and she saw the pinup shoot offer and thought of me. At first I was like that’s so sweet. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks, that’s what I could give my dear sweet husband. He’s always wanted me to do a boudoir style photo shoot, now here’s the opportunity to do it. I bought the package, called the company and scheduled the shoot.  I was nervous because I’m super self conscious, and I don’t consider myself sexy. But when I saw the beautiful pictures on this site and read all the good feedback about the team of women who run the shoot, I had to do this.  Of course I’d go to great lengths to make my husband happy. But I needed to do this for me.

The day of the shoot came. I was freaking out on the inside. As I approached the house where the shoot was taking place, my insides completely relaxed as I saw this old fashion house full of women. Everyone was super pleasant and encouraging. It was awesome.  The woman who owned the house was the hairstylist and makeup artist. She marveled at the blue streaks in my hair. She put beautiful spiral curls in my hair and pinned most of them. The makeup was stunning especially when she added the lashes.  Her business partner was the photographer. She helped me pick out a few items to wear during the shoot, some of my own that I brought and others they had there for me. It was a super warm day, but it was a fun shoot.  I posed in the vintage style bedroom in lingerie and crinolines. At the very end of the shoot, I posed naked underneath gold satin sheets.  I felt really attractive.  I got to see the images on their laptop just after the shoot. I chose the perfect shot for my 8 x 10 glossy for my husband, and then decided to purchase an additional cd with all of the images.  They said they would do my best to have it ready for my husband’s birthday, which was the next week.

The weekend of my husband’s birthday I went to shop for the perfect outfits for his surprise birthday celebration.  Jeff wanted a pinup girl in his life and I was determined to give him one. So I found some vintage inspired outfits for all the festivities of the weekend.  The night before I found a royal blue lace baby doll dress and wore my hair in pin curls. The day of his surprise brunch, I took the pins out and wore my hair down in beautiful spiral curls. I found a gorgeous calf length black with white polka dress for the day of his birthday. When I presented him with the 8 x 10 and the disc of my pinup photo shoot pictures he was thrilled.  He said that was the best gift I could have ever given him. I was thrilled to have achieved my goal of giving him his pinup girl. Even though I was pretty ill that entire weekend, I was able to mask it and make him happy.

After that weekend, I was still inspired to keep the pinup style going. I kept looking for vintage inspired pieces to complete the look. And for my own birthday I wore a gorgeous leopard print halter wiggle dress with leopard print heels. 2 weeks after surgery and 2 months after that pinup shoot, I was still embracing my inner pinup screen siren. And I felt stunning and pretty.  Sometimes feeling pretty is what you really need sometimes to keep you moving forward in life. It might sound vain, but it’s the truth: a woman needs to feel that she’s beautiful.

So today, I’m embracing that vintage pinup look in a more subdued way. Going more Rosie the Riveter for the office as opposed to sexy screen siren. But even these subtle touches of the red, and the accessories and the red lipstick has grabbed a lot of attention here in the office.  I keep receiving compliments on my hair, my outfit and my makeup. It’s enough to make this girl smile.