I adore Downton Abbey. Reason 1 - it's British, automatically awesome. Reason 2- it's actually a pretty nice historical drama. Reason 3 - OMG the clothes (and the hats!) SQUUEEEEEEEEE


Look at these dresses.


And these dresses. And that hat! *swoon*


And more fabulous hats.

The show manages to cover a pretty broad range of time, from 1912 (think Titanic) through World War I into the fabulous 1920s. And as you watch the fashions change through the show, you wonder more about how women did dress then, and close was the show to the fashion of the times?

Yay for internet research! I found this marvelous site, Fashion-Era.com, which covers how things changed from Victorian all the way through the 1950s. With my current obsession with all things vintage, I'm in love with this site. It's got so many fabulous references and resources for your vintage-inspired style!

Check out this guide, and start looking fabulous!

I'm a late bloomer in the style department. In high school, "fashion" was all about labels: everyone wore T-shirts and jeans, some were just 10x as expensive as others. So I never cared about what was popular. College was much the same, maybe even more relaxed - if I wore jeans, I was better dressed than about a third of my classmates! After college, I became a cook. My every day consisted of the same comfy twill pants, plain T-shirts, and my chef jacket. Hardly an opportunity to be a style icon there. 



Then I had my first son. I stayed at home for economics more than anything: daycare would have cost as much as my paychecks, so why bother? But staying at home with a baby, not even getting dressed every day, plus the post-pregnancy body, was a killer for the self esteem. I started wanting to feel pretty - I'd never really been down on myself before, but I realized that my T-shirts and jeans diet had gone from "student casual" to "frumpy mom". 

Enter the internet, and especially Pintrest. Suddenly, I had an epiphany: there was more to clothes than what JCPenney had to offer! There were clothes that were *gasp* cute! And my denial of any feminine desires was simply due to the notion that if I didn't agree with what the runway thought was fashionable, that meant I was personally not fashionable. What a sad myth - I had fashion, and I had style, and just because it wasn't worn by models didn't mean anything after all. 

Day after Day Dress in Leaves

What did I find? I found fashions from fussy Victorian to the mod 60s, and I loved almost all of it. I loved the lace and beading and embroidery, I loved the full skirts and fit-and-flare dresses, I loved the pretty blouses and cute cotton prints. I found Modcloth and Unique Vintage and recently, Lady Vintage and EShakti. I found that I wasn't alone anymore: the clothes I had drifted towards all these years were loved by other people too. That "old-fashioned" had become "vintage" - glamorous, nostalgic, and trendy after all! I also found - miracle of miracles - that there did exist clothes that would flatter even my new mommy body. 

So while I could have sworn I would be the last person - ever - to comment on clothes or fashion, here I am with a new-found love of looking my best. And it feels so free to proclaim that style is whatever I want it to be, whatever I think looks good on me!