Get Thee To A Tailor

Dress custom made from Heart My Closet, vintage brooch, handbag and earrings, shoes from Aldo

You know why people on TV look so fantastic? All their clothes are engineered to fit and flatter their unique body specifications. This service doesn’t have to be reserved for the rich, famous and televised, which is especially exciting if you don’t happen to be one of the six women in the world who has the same measurements as shop-bought clothes. Legendary costume designer, Edith Head, knew that every body is different. Check out this picture of her gently stroking her movie star mannequins to see how much the figures of the film stars varied.

Like many other divas, I enjoy having dresses made to measure. Here’s me in one of my Mad Men inspired frocks from Heart My Closet.

And here’s me in another.

I feel great in their custom-made dresses because they accommodate my proportions and conceal my hang ups. If, like me, you’re conscious of your comedy cleavage, you can request a frock with a PG-rated neckline. If, like me, you worry about arm waddle, you can order your dress with elbow-length sleeves. Basically you can cater your new dress to flatter whatever your particular body grievances and enhance your best bits. For more tips on how to dress for your shape, check out my Curvy Girl’s Guide To Vintage Chic.

Another website I regularly swoon over is Whirling Turban. They offer a custom order service and their clothes are the kind of fabulous that wouldn’t look out of place on a film set.

More Tailoring Tips

Having an item properly fitted is a great way to make it look tailor-made even if it was shop-purchased. I often have dresses taken in at the waist and they always look a thousand times better after their nip and tuck.

Invest in a tape measure and know thy measurements. Tape measures are the essential accessory for vintage lovers.

I love cardigans but my massive knockers mean they have a tendency to burst open, sometimes without me noticing until it’s too late, the flashing has occurred and the police have been contacted. I’ve now sewn up the buttons on most of them, so I can get a sweater girl look without the criminal record.

 

Old Hollywood Glamour In Biba

Gown from Biba at House of Fraser, peeptoe satin shoes from Lotus at House of Fraser, faux fur stole from Collectif, headdress from eBay, earrings from River Island, vintage handbag

When House of Fraser generously invited me to pick a dress to review I was instinctively drawn to the full length Oscars gown. I’m no fool.

It’s a fabulous choice for curvy girls who don’t feel comfortable in figure-hugging outfits. The expertly draped fabric and Grecian wrapover style make it very flattering. It clings in all the right places and tactfully skims over the wrong ones, like a perfectly fitting glitzy toga. I love long dresses as much as I hate my legs, which is a lot. The slit keeps it sexy and aids the walking process.

My new frock makes me feel sexy and statuesque. My beautiful friend Lela observed that it makes me look a bit like the Statue of Liberty. This is great news. Look at all the attention that stone fox gets.

Metallic gowns like this one were very popular with the movie stars of yesteryear because they command attention by making you look shiny and special. Here are Ava, Frances and Rita getting their goddess on.

I wore my goddess gown to The Candlelight Club: A Night In Casablanca, a fabulous pop-up 1920s speakeasy cocktail party. I love vintage events. You never have to worry about being overdressed because everyone always makes such an effort. Cheers to that.

While I’m in the Oscar dress I would like to give a special thank you to my new satin peeptoe shoes because they made me very happy and let me Charleston with minimal joint pain. Ladies, I couldn’t have done it without you.

How To Be Adored

A tantalising title if ever I saw one. Who doesn’t want to be adored? Marilyn did. The Stone Roses did. And as a rampant narcissist, I definitely do. This flocked velvet hardback promises to reveal how to achieve total adorability. Obviously I was eager to learn more.

Through the study of gorgeous women from Hollywood’s Golden Age and its more recent Tabloid Age, author Caroline Cox provides a scintillating style manual brimming with tips, tricks and gossipy titbits. Reading this book is like having a girly sleepover with history’s most glamorous women, all eager to share their style secrets and tell you how fabulous you are. There are plenty of inspirational quotes but miraculously they don’t make me cringe. It seems I find fashion advice (and cake) a lot easier to swallow than life advice.

Not only does the book tell you how to dress like a movie star, it also offers step-by-glamorous-step tutorials so you can recreate certain stylish trademarks – Marlene’s razor-sharp cheekbones, Blondie’s smoky eyes and even Audrey’s captivating vocal intonation.

I especially loved reading about the extreme makeovers starlets received from the studios. So much for the era of natural beauty. Each ingenue would be rigorously evaluated before receiving her personal glamour prescription, which could include laser treatments, cosmetic surgery and, in the case of Rita Hayworth, raising her hairline. Foreheads were big news in the thirties.

With its caressable cover and dip-into structure, I totally recommend How To Be Adored as a gorgeous gift for a vintage-loving friend, or for yourself.