Tag Archives: Piece

Wear it 3 Ways: The Wonder Skirt

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I don’t know what kind of weather you’re experiencing in your corner of the world, but here in Boston the flowers are practically blooming! With spring in mind, all I can think of is flirty skirts, colorful prints, and crop tops. The Wonder Skirt is fun and totally versatile. The large dots add a playful twist to this great midi skirt.

Mid length skirts can be hard to pull off, but I’d like to offer three different ways in which you can work with this length while keeping it fresh and young. In this first look I go for a white bodysuit with a mesh middle to convert the overall look to one that is sexy and streamlined. Some flat neutral shoes for comfort and a bright trench for those early days of spring. Try teaming up this look with a  contrasting print on your bag. Make sure the colors on your bag are similar to the dots on the skirt! Try these pieces: the Bodysuit in Off White by For Love and Lemons, the Petrelli Coat by BB Dakota, and the Spotty Dotty flat from *Sole Boutique.

For my second look I went for a bolder look wearing a red hand knit top (one of my latest thrifted piece), a nice pastel belt to accentuate the waist, some dark wooden bangles, and they’re not shown here, but a pair of neutral or white pumps to top this off. Try the Dee Crop Sweater by Motel and the Cruise Belt by remi & reid.

In this last look I go for a more bohemian look incorporating a cream colored crop top, lots of white bangles, cream colored peep toe booties, and a fringed leather coat. For similar items try the Smocked Seamless Crop Top by Free People and the Anne XII Boot from *Sole Boutique.

Photography: Emily Wilson

How to Dye Vintage Clothing

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Maybe you have a piece of clothing that’s sitting around in your closet begging to be worn. Problem is, it’s a boring piece. The color is drab, dull, and just plain wrong and you’ve had enough! Into the donation pile it goes.

Stop right there. Have you ever thought of dying it a different color? No? Well, if you’re up for it, dying is a simple and cheap way to liven up a piece of clothing. Read on to learn how!

Disclaimer: First and foremost, I only recommend dying clothing that you won’t regret messing up in case things go south durnig the dying process. Leave your expensive, rare, or antique items alone or take them to a professional to see what they can do.

Materials:

  • 1 package of dye (I like RIT Dye, the powdered kind.. You can find it at craft stores)
  • Clothing (Make sure that the clothing is made out of a natural fiber like cotton. Man made materials like polyester or acrylic will not take to the dye as well, hence the colors might not be vibrant.)
  • Large bucket
  • Salt
  • Stirring stick
  • Detergent
  • Rubber gloves

(These are just some general tips, make sure to read the dye instructions for specifics!)

Directions

  1. Take the clothing you want to dye and soak it in water. Make sure it is wet through and through.
  2.  Grab your bucket and fill it with hot water. Standard practice is three gallons of water for every package. Using a little less water will result in a potentially more vibrant color.
  3. Take your dye and pre-dissolve it in two cups of hot water. The hotter the water the better. Add to this mixture 1 tablespoon of detergent and one cup of salt. The salt helps to make the color stay on the fabric. Add this to the bucket.
  4. Take your damp clothing and submerge it into the bucket filled with dye.
  5. Stir, stir, stir! You want to constantly stir the clothing to make sure it is evenly dyed. Take care that the clothing isn’t too rumpled or creased in the water to ensure that the dye has penetrated every nook and cranny. 30-60 minutes of stirring should do the trick.
  6. Put those gloves on and take your clothing out of the dye bath and into a sink. Rinse until the water runs clear. This might take a while.
  7. When the water runs clear, take your clothing and put it in the washing machine. Wash it on a cold water cycle and dry per usual.

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Ashley Baluyut is an Orange County based blogger and writer with a serious love for vintage clothing. You can find her at her fashion and lifestyle blog MILK TEETHS or you can catch up with her latest thrift haul vintage finds on YouTube at Three Feathers Vintage.

Wear It Three Ways: The Coined Lady Sweater

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Check out The Coined Lady Sweater, a perfect match to any legging, skinny, or fun mini! This sweater jingles with each step you take, and is so unbelievably comfortable to wear. Here’s how I styled this piece. This first look would be my party/club look. Pair this charmer with a black mini, a pair of wet look leggings or shiny tights, and a nice pair of sparkly pumps. You can try BB Dakota’s Kiera Skirt, the Sheena Legging from *NYC Boutique, and Jeffrey Campbell’s Lita Shoe in Pewter Glitter.

In this second look I put together an outfit that you can take from day to night! Throw on your best skinnies (acid wash, black, yellow, or otherwise) then add a nice knit hat, a cool belt, and you’re good to go! For a similar look try out the Acid Wash Skinny by Your Eyes Lie or the Second Skin Jean in Very Stretch Onewash by Cheap Monday. For a belt, try the Efficiency Belt by remi and reid and lastly, try the Small Slouch Beanie by BMC.

For my last look I wanted to add a pop of color to make this my fun look. Put together a great pair of bright leggings or jeans such as the Tangerine Ankle Skinny or the Spray-On Denim Pant in Petrol Fuchsia (both by Blank Denim), or the Anarchy Jegging in Purple Blaster by Denimocracy. To top off this look get yourself the Cash Flow Back Pack by Joyrich for a nice twist on this outfit!

Photography: Emily Wilson

How to Hand Wash Vintage Clothing

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Ashley from Milk Teeths shared some of her favorite cleaning tips last December… except for one! Here is her handy guide for hand washing vintage. Psst — it works for tons of your brand new apparel as well…

Last month I discussed some useful cleanings tips for your vintage threads (check out the post right over HERE) but that was just the tippy tip of the iceberg. There are tons of different cleanings tips and tricks for getting your vintage gear in top form. One of my favorites, and a method that I use a lot, is hand washing. It’s cheap, easy, and gives amazing results!

How to Hand Wash Vintage

If the thought of putting your piece in the washing machine makes you break out into a cold sweat, try hand washing! Hand washing is one of the gentlest form of cleaning so it is perfect for delicate pieces or for pieces that have delicate trims.

**First do a spot check on an inconspicuous portion of the garment to see if the dye is colorfast and will not bleed. Wet the piece with water and detergent**

  1. Fill a basin with water (cold for natural fibers like cotton, warm for synthetics) and pour a capful of mild detergent (I like Woolite) in the mix.
  2. Submerge your pieces and gently agitate. Let soak (the longer the better).
  3. If you check back on your soak later and notice that the water is dirty, drain the basin and fill with fresh water. Continue soaking.
  4. When you think your pieces are ready, drain the basin and rinse your pieces with clean water until no more soapy water runs off.
  5. Take the pieces out and put them onto a towel to dry. Roll the towel up and press the water out. Don’t wring your clothing by hand (this could cause some ugly puckering and wrinkling of the fabric). Lay flat to dry.

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Ashley Baluyut is an Orange County based blogger and writer with a serious love for vintage clothing. You can find her at her fashion and lifestyle blog MILK TEETHS or you can catch up with her latest thrift haul vintage finds on YouTube at Three Feathers Vintage.

[Image via Things Your Grandmother Knew]

Style Stalker’s “Baby’s On Fire” Video

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Style stalker‘s latest collection has landed and we are falling hard for it. It’s so light and airy! Thinking back to the lookbook featuring model Anja Konstantinova and some fluffy cats makes us want to rock every piece in the set. I always prefer to see clothing in motion, so watching the accompanying video is such a pleasure! Enjoy.

Behind the Brand: Blood Is The New Black

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LA Based T-shirt brand, Blood Is The New Black, was created by Mitra Khayyam back in 2004 as way to feature the talented works of underground artists & photographers. Through the collaborative efforts that these creative souls combine their mediums onto the company’s super soft & comfy tees, this brand continues to expose topics that our society just can’t enough of. Whether its subjects relating to Love, Death, Sex, Drugs, Music, Religion, even down to novelty parodies of life, these graphics will make you stop & stare (and even occasionally gasp). Each individual artist brings their own expressions and points of culture to the table each season, so be on the lookout for a variety of not just interesting images, but different T-shirt fits that won’t disappoint the art connoisseur in you.

Check out the featured Artists for styles currently available this month:

ACE MOMMAWOLF

Ace Mommawolf,  lives in Los Angeles, but is from Daytona Beach. She rides motorcycles. She seems to like poppin’ out babies. After the birth of her latest baby she popped out, she was bleeding really bad. The ole’ midwife there to help her pop the baby out told her she might have to get a blood transfusion, but there was another way….to drink a “Bloody Shame”. So the ole’ midwife  sliced a piece of her fresh placenta, handed it over to Papa Wolf, who took it to the blender, and made the ole’ “Bloody Shame”.  Placing a pink straw in the glass he handed it to his lady Ace. The bleeding stopped and Mommawolf was saved…

DEMONBABIES

Demonbabies is Jesus Rivera. Originally from the Motor City, he migrated west to L.A., where he built a dungeon to mix special potions in. After a freak laboratory accident, Jesus was left with the ability to concoct monsters from his fingertips and shoot psychedelic lightning bolts from his eyeballs! The monsters have since taken over and will not stop multiplying. In recent years, he has discovered that sunlight does not harm them, water satisfies their thirst, and they hate eating after midnight!

JUSTIN BLYTHE

Justin grew up in Los Angeles, surrounded by hippies, guns, motorcycles, skateboards, palm trees and paint markers. He learned to draw by candlelight on bar napkins as a young child, eventually attending Art Center in the early 2000s. His interests include white magic and black powder. Justin currently lives in Amsterdam and designs stuff.

GINAR SATRIA

Ginar Satria was born and raised in Bandung City, Indonesia. Known as the creative center of Indonesia, many designers, artists, and musicians hail from the area. He went to the Art and Design Institute and is still trying to graduate. He also works for several local clothing companies.

J-FISH & KHMARA

Jason (JFish) is a young man who believes to be good friends with Death. He enjoys drawing such subjects as hamburgers, monsters, androids, angels, fats girls, and, mostly, himself. When he colors, Jason prefers to use the entire rainbow.

Greg (Khmara) has been writing since youth and began to work with Jason as a writer of comics when they were kids. He loves his cats very much and finds much inspiration to write from his regular petting sessions with said cats. He is featured in a certain comic as a giant flea. Greg’s most prized possession is his framed original drawing by Travis Millard.

FUMI NAKAMURA

Fumi Mini Nakamura, also known as Miniminiaturemouse, is an illustrator // Designer based in New York City. Born and raised between Shizuoka, Japan and Bay Area, California. Never had cavities or gold tooth, or broke a bone in her life. She has a fat chinchilla named Basil Leaf Eriksson who likes to eat her drawings and baby plants.

TODD TOURSO

Todd Tourso is an art director, designer, and illustrator born, raised, living, and working in Los Angeles California. He attended Art Center College of Design and went on to work as an Art Director at Warner Bros. Records. He was the Creative Director of Flaunt Magazine from 2005-2009 and won The Art Directors Club Award in 2008 for the magazine’s re-design. In 2010 Tourso launched The Glyph Set, a design and image studio, providing creative direction, brand development, design, illustration, and consultation services for a wide range of clients as diverse as Lady Gaga, Polaroid, and The Garage Center for Contemporary Culture. Tourso’s drawings and other art works have been shown in exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and Japan.

DARK MATTER

Los Angeles based designer, Jonathan San Nicolas works as an art director in Advertising, Marketing & Fashion… Dark Matter LA is his personal project, starting off with jewlery in 2009. After freelancing with Blood is the New Black, in Branding design & their bi-annual zine, the idea to design an exclusive tshirt line DMLA x BITNB was inevitable. The line is inspired by international graphic design, the Dada art movement and his teenage years in LA.

POROUS WALKER

While living in a small, old, navy lifeboat in the Sausalito Bay, Porous Walker was visited by the ghost of Shel Silverstein, who encouraged him to change his name and begin drawing. Porous Walker has shown his work in art galleries around the world, been featured in magazines and television, and is working on a new project almost every day. His hope is to inspire people to laugh and to create and share their own art work, subsequently flooding the world with humor and pretty colors.

SOPHIE STEVENS

Sophie Stephens is a London-based illustrator and apparently, her work is “full of dry humor and ample filth” though she describes it as being about herself, her friends, nonsense and nudity. She has a love/hate relationship with fashion and finds beauty in things that are tacky and gross. She loves Pamela Anderson, tequila, drawing on walls, high hells, black pens, and Barney. In the near future, she can’t wait to do lots more drawing, get lots of money, visit Ryan in L.A., waste a weekend in Ibiza and get covered in tattoos.

BOBBY WHIGHAM

Robert Nicholas Whigham is my full name but please call me Bobby. I’m 24 going on 38. We all have a tool… My tool is camera. Born and raised in the steel city of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. I’m currently a tee shirt buyer for a hip, trend driven company in Philadelphia, where I’ve resided for the last 3 years. In these last three years I’ve been taking a ton of photos. Not just any photos, but photos of me documenting my trips, weekends and friends here in Philadelphia. This photo journal has turned into Too Young Collection.

Cleaning Tips For Vintage Clothing

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In our 3rd installment with vintage maven, Ashley Baluyut of Milk Teeths, we take a look at ways to clean your new gear from yesteryear...

So you’ve picked out that perfect piece of vintage and now, as you examine it in the privacy of your bedroom you realize one thing: how the hell am I going to clean this thing? Maybe it’s a delicate 1940s day dress or an amazing 1970s shearling coat, the bottom line is that care instructions are no where to be seen and you’ve been wanting to wear this piece since yesterday. What should you do? Some of my go to tips include:

For Underarm Stains

Yellow underarms stains on light colored clothing is pretty much inevitable, but it’s also solvable. I recommend two methods for getting rid of the stains.

  1. If you live in a sunny area, lay your garment out in direct sunlight and squeeze the juice of a lemon onto the stains, making sure that the stain is fully saturated. Come back in a half hour and the combo of lemon juice and sun should have bleached the stains right off of your piece.
  2. Create a paste made up of baking soda and water. Apply the paste onto the stains and let sit for at least a half hour. Rinse and repeat if the stain is still there.

For Musty Smell

Get rid of that “vintage” smell by pouring a mixture of cheap vodka and water into a spray bottle. Spray down your piece and let air dry.

General Washing Machine Rules

If your piece looks like it can handle it (it’s made of cotton, poly blend, synethetic), washing with cold water on the gentle cycle with Woolite (or even Palmolive) would be fine. Roll in a towel to dry instead of wringing.

**Of course with every vintage piece, it’s important to first do a spot test to make sure that these methods wont ruin your clothing. Pick an inconspicuous section near the inside of the bottom hem for your test**

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Ashley Baluyut is an Orange County based blogger and writer with a serious love for vintage clothing. You can find her at her fashion and lifestyle blog MILK TEETHS or you can catch up with her latest thrift haul vintage finds on YouTube at Three Feathers Vintage.

[Image via Junkaholique]

Interview: Olivia Lo

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We’re not even sure where to start here…Perhaps with the fact that this adorable little squirrel is just as infatuated with this look as we are! Olivia Lo of Lust for Life is known for her audaciously sultry looks, but this one takes the cake. Jewel tones have been all the rage this season, but who knew a hint of amber could pack this much punch? She goes for the gold in the Alston Suede Jacket by BB Dakota, her own vintage sweater, the Velvet Cutoff Short in Ochre by Free People, Banana Republic bangles, and the Lisbon Bootie by Seychelles. We likey!

We took a minute to chat with Olivia, because we love her point of view and think you should tune in also.

How did you get into fashion?

I’ve always been interested in clothes since I was young to a point that I never consciously pin point where it all began. In middle school I was drawn to my sister’s early issues of Nylon and Teen Vogue and I was going through a huge music phase that led me to countless hours of personal research on 60′s mod fashion, and it was then that I began experimenting with my own personal style. Growing up in LA I hung out with an older group of friends who worked in fashion which further whetted my interest.

How would you describe your style?

 Whimsical, colorful, experimental and bold.

Do you have a favorite designer?

I consistently love shoes and accessories by Chloe and Miu Miu, and all-around love Australian and New Zealand designers. My favorite is Shakuhachi, Friend of Mine, and Stolen Girlfriends Club.

What article of clothing can you not get enough of this season?

 I’m loving full circle skirts. It’s ridiculously retro but so fun to wear.

What inspired you start your own fashion blog?

Iggy Pop‘s song titled ‘Lust for Life’, a desire to become a journalist, watching Almost Famous, traveling, and finding inspiration in people I meet.

Can you tell us a little bit about your vintage shop launching soon?

I go on road trips frequently and have been collecting vintage clothes for years! So I finally decided it only makes sense that I combine my two passions for travel and thrift to create a store where my readers can have access to one-of-a-kind pieces that I find from all over the world. I didn’t just comb through the neighborhood Goodwill for these pieces; it’s a wide range of things I found at a Paris swap meet, a second-hand store in Chicago, or a designer dress from a ghost town in Palm Springs. More importantly, all of the pieces are clothes that I would actually wear (if not already worn). It’s an edited range of vintage pieces that is easily be translated to contemporary fashion.

What draws you to vintage clothing?

I love vintage clothing for unique prints, shapes, cuts, or textures. Finding vintage Chanel and YSL gives the garment a little bit more character.

How did you get involved with Unif? What’s your favorite piece from their current collection?

I met Christine when she invited me to Bardot for an event. She let me borrow her ID so I can get into the club. I interned for her that following summer. Right now my favorite piece from their current collection is the black Birkin dress.

Congrats! We heard you recently signed a modeling contract with Next Agency!  How do you feel about this new endeavor?

I’m extremely grateful and looking forward to working with them. Hopefully on to bigger, and better things.

With so many new and exciting things going on in your life how are you planning on creating a balance between fashion modeling and entering your first year of college?

I only sleep on the weekends.

When you’re not blogging, planning the launch of your new vintage shop, modeling or getting ready to begin college…what do you enjoy doing to chill and relax?

I pack my bags and go out of town!

Wear It 3 Ways: The Sailors Sweater

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Ahoy! This weeks Wear it 3 Ways has gone crazy for winters version of nautical delights! This super insular navy garment is sure to keep you warm through the stormy weather and is a fantastic piece to wear on days you don’t want to be messed with. Some historical fun facts about sailors and their uniforms:

  1. Sailors standardized uniforms were introduced in 1857
  2. Sailors routinely smothered tar on their ponytails to keep their hair from getting caught in machinery!
  3. Most relevant to you style mavens, touching a sailors collar was considered good luck.

In keeping with the militant nature of The Sailors Sweater (coming soon to *Vintage Boutique), it was only natural that I lace up tight with my cherry Docs and slip into some super skinny black jeans. Check out Tripp NYC’s Skinny Jean and a great selection of Dr. Martens. Try a chunky knit scarf to add a little texture such as the Grace Scarf in Zebra or the Cinch Sweater Scarf in Black. Lastly, add a cute crossbody purse to complete the look, like the Tayla iPhone Pouch in Black Leather.

For a look that’s less monochromatic, add a little denim to the mix. Try pairing some short denim shorts with some black tights, and you’ve got an easy last minute look in the bag! For a similar look try one of *Vintage Boutique‘s great denim minis such as the Guess Light Denim Skirt or the Sports Fever Denim Skirt.

In this third look I go back to black, (big fan of Amy Winehouse…) but steer away from the casual, and move into a chicer look with a black mini and some wedged heels. Try Mink Pink’s Touch And Go Skirt and this pair of wedge heels.

Photography: Emily Wilson