Happy Valentines Day! An Outfit and Bo Nanafana
February 14, 2011Style Evolution – The Dark Days
February 16, 2011I’ve been looking back through old photos.
It’s amazing how many photos you take and then you hardly ever look at them again. Digital or real film they get filed away or put in boxes and you never see them again.
Looking back through several years of photos in one go it occurred to me how much I’ve changed over the years. I’ve seen these style evolution posts on other peoples blogs and I always find them fascinating, so I thought I’d try and cobble together one of my own.
I’ve gone back over the last 5 years. Pictures from any earlier are thin on the ground. Some are hanging around in photo albums but there are very few on the computer!
2006
There aren’t actually that many full length photos of me in 2006. This was the year after I got married and I’d put on a lot of weight on my honeymoon, then Christmas. I’d moved to a place where I worked just 5 minutes away and couldn’t walk to the shops so I got very little exercise. I gained 2 stone in total in about 6 months after I got married. I had no idea what size clothes I wore so hardly ever shopped as I found it so depressing.
I had a couple of 50s style dresses I liked, but mostly I lived in jeans and vests. I worked on an industrial estate so business attire was not required and I very rarely dressed up. My favourite dress is the pink floral one. If I had that now 2 sizes smaller I’d be happy! It’s a 50s style off the shoulder dress from Warehouse that I used to wear to every smart occasion I went to with clip on hair as mine is too fine to even make a decent pony tail and a pair of pearl earrings.
At the end of that year we moved back to Norwich. The far right picture is at Christmas in a sequin skirt I bought for my new jobs Christmas party which was just a week after I started.
2007
I spent the first part of the year wearing the same stretch wrap dress and one pair of black trousers that fit. Then in February I joined Weight Watchers. As I started losing weight I mostly bought clothes for work, but also bought a few pretty dresses that Summer as by then I’d lost a stone and a half and nothing else fit. I didn’t want to buy too much, so a lot of the clothes I wore, like the little black dress and belt in the picture, were actually things I’d bought as a student some 5 years earlier! The styles don’t always work, but I was just playing around with what I had now I finally had some choice!
I cut my hair and went even blonder. I don’t think I had my hair cut at all for most of 2006!
By Christmas that year I’d lost 2 stone, and I got a new full sequin skirt off eBay. I’m wearing the same top in the 2006 Christmas photo as I am in 2 photos below, I think it was about the only one I had. I also walked out on my job at the end of November, which was a massive relief!
2008
2008 was the year I started blogging and really rediscovered clothes and fashion and the year I hit my Weight Watchers goal weight. I dyed my hair red at the end of 2007 and in early 2008 I got a fringe cut in. I was so short of money without a “proper” job and a regular income. I bought barely any new clothes, living mostly in the blue shirt dress and black jersey dress in the pictures below! The burgundy trench coat is vintage and I’d bought it off eBay in 2005, but I’d only just been able to fit into it.
I still wasn’t sure of my style really. I was experimenting a lot now things actually FIT me, but I definitely had a taste for 40s style dresses and fuller 50s skirts. I think I did my first outfit post around September this year?
2009
This year I was definitely getting a lot more confident in my style! Looking at pictures it appears to be the year I re-discovered red lipstick!
I was a lot more flamboyant this year. The white dress and the black dress are vintage, both sadly in need of repairs at the moment.
By Christmas I’d started to grow out the fringe and my hair was a lot longer. 2009 was the year I went to hair styling session with Flamingo Amy and finally started to experiment with doing something with my hair other than just wearing it in a french pleat with a fringe! This was a massive turning point as I really think that hair can make or break a look. Mine is so fine that I gave up doing anything with it years ago. If you want proof my hair doesn’t hold a curl then I’ll tell you that Christmas picture of this collage was taken about 20 minutes after I’d curled my hair with tongs. By the end of 2009 I was experimenting with mass amounts of back combing and hair spray to create little fringe rolls and piling my hair on top of my head.
I also bought my first pair of stockings and a girdle this year!
2010
Only last year! This is the year that I found setting lotion and around March time I started experimenting with pin curls occasionally. I definitely started to move in a far more vintagey direction during 2010. Mostly hair led!
I had slightly more money last year and I also asked some advertisers to pay me in product rather than cash which I would only squander on bills. This meant my wardrobe was more varied and I had some nice things which might have previously been out of my price range, like the cherry fascinator from Abilu Creations I’m wearing with the green dress. I still get most of my clothes from Charity Shops and eBay. Everything in this collage is either from a charity shop, eBay, a gift, or swapped for advertising. The only thing I bought from new is the beige Topshop jumper, and that was in 2001!
I also had my hair cut into a middy last year by Flint hair, so that by the Christmas picture my hair is considerably shorter than I started with.
Phew, and that’s it. 5 years of style history from me.
I’ve been an indie kid, mixed with hippies, went through a brief phase of wearing large hoop earrings, halter necks and leather skirts when I had a job at River Island and a 70s phase of wearing flares and too much orange. When I was at college in 1997 I went through my first 40s influenced phase teaming red lipstick and pencil skirts with heeled loafers and a double breasted coat. I’ve always liked to play around with my clothes, but somewhere in the early mid 00’s I lost my way, mostly, it seems amid a big pile of biscuits and pizza!
I can practically feel my increased confidence screaming at me from the screen as these collages move through the years. Hopefully the next 5 years will be even better. By 2016 I’ll be ready to take over the world!
28 Comments
so interesting to see a style evolution!!!
Lovely post- it must be nice to see your fashion and style get more confident and fabulous over the years!
Is that blue dress in 2008 from Oasis? I think my sis recently ‘handed down’ the same one to me (Sad, I know, being so short I even got hand-me-downs as the eldest and still do)- it has kind of stylised daisies, slightly 40s house dress style?
I’ve been racking my brain for colours to style it with. I was thinking either tan or silver belts, flesh tone stockings and tan shoes, or going uber cute with lots of sugar pink (but that would really take me back to being the littlest girl at the birthday party).
It was F+F at Tesco I think, no money for Oasis! Similar style though. Obviously I’m wearing it with black there. But I also used to wear it with a brown belt and shoes and a brown bag.
This is such a lovely post – and you’re spot on when you say that you can see your increased confidence beaming out of you in the more recent photos. I don’t have that many photos of me from 5 years ago but I feel something similar – it’s only in the past few years that I’ve started to find a direction in my style and it’s had a really positive affect on how I feel about myself and my body – I can’t imagine the Roisin of 5 years ago being confident enough to do outfit shots, for example. So, well done on this post – it’s really heart-warming and thought-provoking.
A lovely post!
It’s so fun to look tru old blog photos.
Love your hair as it is on the last photos, nice color to.
What a lovely post! Isn’t it lovely to look back and reflect on how your style has changed? You look absolutely stunning now.That picture from 2010 in the black dress and the belt with the gold clasp is my absolute favourite, you look like a movie star. xxx
I love thus!
My style has changed rather dramatically over the past decade as my kids have arrived and been the priority. Now they are all at school though I can finally embrace my vintage diva and be who I am!
I may also be able to help you all with wanting a change as I now own my own business selling preloved vintage style and contemporary dresses- funny how life turns out!
Ooohh! I’m all inspired now, might have to rake through photos and see if my scanner works!!! Excellent post, you can really see your style and confidence developing!! Well done you!x
I think blogging has helped me develop my taste and style, definitely inspirational. You look great in green every time!
Marie @ Lemondrop ViNtAge OWOH giveaway
A great idea to post all those photos! My favourite is the one of you in the green dress from 2009 – very much a Hollywood glam queen!
I love this post… So interesting to see how someone changes over 5 years. You look fab all the time but utterly amazing in that little black number with the clinch belt and wedges in 2010 š
x
Wonderful post! I really hate it when people pretend that they’ve been dressing a certain way ‘forever’ when actually these things are often slow-burners, and much better for it.
You look incredible and you’ve really refined and developed the style to become your own – rather than a costume.
I am so painful unused to red lips these days, I wore them red yesterday (Valentines Day) and kept accidentally touching them with things; my fingers, my hair, even a newspaper….sheesh!
I really enjoyed seeing you transform from a bud to the blossoming beauty that stands before us. It’s also great to see that you have grown in confidence with your whole image too. You have looked fabulous throughout and I love your outfit/review posts. Your hair is also fabulous to boot!
I may draw some inspiration from this post for a future post myself if you don’t mind.
♥
Leanne
Wow, what a marked change through the years. You’ve really blossomed into such a glamour puss, and it’s great to see how that’s evolved. I have a very similar cherry fascinator too lol. I look forward to keeping up with your lovely style through 2011.
I really enjoyed this post. It’s amazing to see how dramatically an individual can re-invent their image, given the right incentive and desire to put forth the effort.
Very inspiring!
<3
Wow Gem, haven’t you changed! It makes me so happy to see how your confidence has grown, you look so happy in all the pictures from last year. And I love your red hair but boy you looked good as a blonde too! x
Great post! It’s so interesting to see how people have developed their style! I haven’t been into vintage and retro for that many years and I think it’s fun to see that not all the blogger’s whose style I admire have been it either. It feels like so many have been “forever”, but I think it’s refreshing with people that change over the years (yes, it’s called evolution).
Wonderful post! It’s amazing how much you’ve changed. You have a fantastic style and it’s so great to see how its changed.
I’m tempted to do one of these. You inspired me! Although my style hasn’t changed a great deal in the last few years. Although when I was in highschool I did consider myself a Goth, alas, not many pictures of that!
Fantastic post! I really need to do something like this. I’m moving to a different country and yesterday was going though TONS of pictures (that should really be put into albums) with oh my dear the hair, and the outfits hehehee. My style hasn’t changed that much, it has got more sophisticated and has improved, but I’ve also discovered certain styles thanks to you for example, that I wouldn’t have been brave enough to attempt as a younger “fashionista”. With regards to my hair, I’m still fighting with it, so kudos to you and your master of such great hairdos!
Applause for post wonderfulness! I have LOVE reading this – and seeing you in another incarnation.
My fave pic of you – I think possibly ever is in the 2010 montage, in the black dress with your primark belt. Your hair was longer then and those waves are to die for š
It’s fab seeing how your style has evolved – and also somehow reassuring. Sometimes it feels as though everyone else into vintage has emerged like the Venus of Victory Rolls on an authentic art deco clamshell, so it’s nice to see an evolution.
I was a very poor goth (I used to wear flapper styles and swap 20s mixtapes with a friend at my local club) and am now closer to very poor vintage (because I still like black velvet, dagnabbit, and when it’s done well goth is a really beautiful style). The main effect of my style pendulum swinging towards vintage is that I wear much more colour.
I keep telling myself that my style changing has stopped, so now is the time to really invest in a good wardrobe which covers all basis. and that buying clothes wont be a waste of time as i will like this style forever! i keep telling myself this… but i think my style is changing and the perfect wardrobe just doesnt exist and there will always be something new/old to add to it, that i just HAVE to have!
The 2009 green dress with the white belt is absolutely stunning!!
Do you always look fabulous??? xx
Ha ha! You should read todays post for the answer to that.
Hi, I found your profile on ifb, hoping we could follow one another with google friend connect? I follow you now š
Love the transformation you have done, really amazing! Retro looks are so beautiful, aren’t they? I myself, I’m in love with the 70s.
xx viviane
hippiebohoreloaded
eek! Some of these earlier pictures look like me xx
Great recap, obvs a lot of work! I’d like to rediscover lipstick…
I am not brave enough to go through my last five years š
WOW! What an amazing post, I can’t believe how much you’ve changed. Having only started to get to know you last year I assumed you had been this way for years.
I absolutely adore your style now but I have to say you looked fabulous with blonde hair!