Featured Vintage: Adolfo and Flowers

Today's featured vintage find from Past Perfect Vintage is brand new on the website. This neat, neat, neat c. 1970 silk satin print skirt and blouse set is by Adolfo with beautiful blue flowers, dirndl skirt with tucks all round the waist and fur! cuffs. It's very well made, top quality, with a full taffeta skirt lining and self covered buttons. And it has the original Saks price (over $1000)

A First Lady A Day: Michelle Obama!

from www.smh.au.comOkay,I have avoided all other posts and assessments so far. So here is my own response.The coat and sheath dress by Isabel Toledo. Wonderful color, bright and fresh and popped beautifully in both single and crowd shots. It was great on the screen, unique to the First Lady, and I loved that. Great lace texture and the gold shimmer gave it life. I thought it worked well in going

A First Lady a Day: Harriet Lane

The 2009 Inaugural Balls have started! So this installment will be brief. Harriet Lane was the 27 year old niece and ward of bachelor President James Buchanan. They had a rather good partnership, and she was highly thought of in the European capitials from his time there as an Ambassador. Harriet served as his offical hostess from 1857 - 1861. She was accomplished and polished beyond her years,

A First Lady A Day: Hillary

It has been fascinating to take a look back at Hillary Clinton’s inaugural gowns from the 1990s. I have gotten so used to the visual of her in tailored business pantsuits that it was a treat to see her 1993 and 1997 gowns again. There is a fascinating parallel between Mrs. Clinton’s and Mrs. Laura Bush’s Inaugural gown experiences. Both chose lesser known designers for their first gown and were

A First Lady A Day: Wilson, Roosevelt, Cleveland

from the Smithsonian Institute Research Information Service : “View of First Ladies Hall in the Arts and Industries Building, 1955, showing gowns of, left to right: Edith Bolling Wilson, Ellen Axson Wilson, Helen Herron Taft, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, Ida Saxton McKinley, and Frances Folsom Cleveland...” As I have said before, the Smithsonian Institute Research Information Service Archives are a

A First Lady A Day: Nancy

Well. Certainly a gal who loved her clothes. She generally dressed well for her figure, although more Hollywood than most First Ladies or political figures’ wives, that is for sure. She did love her red and her white.That said - let’s do The Dresses. Okay, she went for the white beaded column look both times. Both dresses are by James Galanos. She didn’t pay for the first one - it was a ‘loaner’

A First Lady A Day : Nixon/Johnson/Truman Update

It’s only the 12th, and we have plenty of time until Jan. 20th, so thanks to the help of Vintage Fashion Guild members, I have full length photos of some of our MIA Inaugural dresses. from www.time.com Bess Truman 1949, Gala Dress. we saw this beofre, but it was a half length shot. I know that Time credits it as the Inaugural Ball gown, but the Truman Library says it's the Gala, and I am going

A First Lady A Day : Barbara Bush, 1989

You will have noticed I am not doing mini bios on the more recent First Ladies. You know who they are. You may well remember what they wore.I must say that Barbara Bush successfully presented herself as a soft, grandmotherly figure. I suspect there is a lot more steel in there than my grandmothers had, but hey. She was smart not to try to glamorize her look. The white hair, the fuller figure, the

A First Lady a Day: Crete, 1881

Lucretia Rudolph Garfield definitely wins the Best Nickname of any American First Lady Award. Crete. I think that’s cool. A Very interesting woman. She was well educated, studying French, Greek and Latin languages and classical, British and French literature. She was an independent woman , a teacher and an intellectual. Crete was also a fine hostess, although not at all interested in publicity.

A First Lady a Day: Laura Bush

Lizzie, our cohort in vintage fashion blogdom, gave us a shout out on her wonderful ( and top rated) blog, The Vintage Traveler the other day. She mentioned that we had not yet covered Laura Bush's inaugural gowns. Well, let’s have at it shall we? from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1322353/postsFirst up is the 2001 red lace Michael Faircloth gown. This is the most flattering photo I

Rainy,Grey Tuesday and Mollie Parnis

We just can't be fair to the remaining First Ladies on a grey, rainy, dreary, cold January day.So in a tangential feature to our First Ladies A Day series, here’s 3 Mollie Parnis dress and coat sets we have at available. Don’t they look warm and chic on a January day? Yes, indeed they do. What’s the Mollie Parnis and First Lady connection, you ask? She probably dressed more First Ladies than any

A First Lady a Day: Julia Dent Grant

from www.wikimedia.org: Library of Congress description: "Grant, Mrs. U.S. and son (Jesse) and daughter (Nellie) also her father Mr. Dent" photo by Mathew Brady or Levin Handy, ca 1865 - 1869.After Ida McKinley, we need a Happy story. Julia loved being First Lady. She loved the White House. But she was always adaptable. She traveled to army camps, she moved to Illinois, she switched from Army

A First Lady a Day: Ida McKinley, 1897 & 1901

This is a sad story. Poor Ida. She had a very difficult time of it. Her childhood and younger years were fine. But she lost both her children and her mother within in few years, and after that - she seems to have become very delicate both emotionally and physically. It is thought now that she had phlebitis and epilepsy. She certainly had seizures, some of them in public. She spent her days as a

A First Lady a Day: Bess

Bess Truman was an intensely private woman. She has seen what the press could do. And she was having none of it. She had no intentions of being an activist First Lady like Eleanor Roosevelt. That was one hard act to follow. Bess was an active partner in Harry Truman’s career, she supported him in 1948 when no one thought he could win, she was a shrewd judge of character, and she even helped write