Vintage Party Dresses $15-$30 on Etsy

We've progressed from just not-ugly into the truly spectacular realm, just by venturing above fifteen dollars... there are so very many more absolutely stunning items in this price range  (although, we concede, still a tremendous amount of crap to wade through! Forty thousand listings, many thousand pages... which is why you let us do it for you ;) )

Truly, we found so much awesomeness that there's no way it will fit into one post. So. We're going to introduce some themes. First up, the holiday party dress. When you're saving your possibly-meager pennies to buy gifts for other people, it hardly makes sense to spend $100-$200 on a brand-new dress, or, goddess forbid, get yourself into debt that will make January bleak! Yet we're sure you lament, as we so often do, that you have absolutely nothing to wear! (OK so we thrifted two velvet dresses and two party dresses this year, so we're probably all set, eh?)

Presenting the most lovely, thrifty vintage party dresses to be found on Etsy for the holiday season (click descriptions under pics for full listing and/or shop homepage). 

Red Satin and Black Lace "Spanish Princess" at CallMeChula, Small, $30

Red Scalloped Velvet "Deck the Halls" at McGregorGirl, 6-8, $30

Red Chiffon Romantic Ruffles at MagicalMirror, 30" waist, $15

Long-sleeved velvet minidress at LOLAVEE, 6-8, $30

Emerald Green Long Velvet at SavoyBetty, XS/S $30 

Hunter Velvet "Under the Mistletoe" also at McGregorGirl, 7/8, $30

Blue Sparkly minidress at BeckyPlantsTrees, S/M, $15

Purple Velvet "Pretty Woman" which we just had to buy while writing this, from IonicRoost (sorry, and please send literature for Shopaholics Anonymous), but check out the rest of the awesomeness.

Fabulously Unique Lavender at WillowCreekSparrow, approx. M, $29

We do lament the lack of vintage in not-modern-Small-sizes. We apologize that everything here is so teeny, but we do hope that someone finds the dress here or in one of the featured shops. 

In any case, Etsy is still a great place to find gorgeous, affordable vintage. We'll keep sharing our finds as long as you keep readin' about 'em. Possibly longer ;)

Happy browsing and hot-party-dress-selectin'!

What We Wore: Favorite Colors (and Too Much Black)

Our tastes haven't diverged much in the past 15 years or so... while we now love purple and teal best of all, now, at one time it was purple and green (and black, always the black. It's been ubiquitous). We owned purple and green docs and occasionally interchanged the pairs (a la Punky and her Chucks). People often looked at us as though it was possible we had lost our mind, and that was just fine by us (remember, these were the days when your socks and shirt were supposed to match, along with your shoes and bag and belt. Gag).

Since we don't buy much in the way of patterns, we usually have to base an outfit on black + one color, unless we can find two colors that really complement each other. We believe bright (kelly/spring/clover) green and bold purple are two such colors. Witness today's (reproduction of our) outfit (no time for pictures this morning!):

Outfit 10-09-09 by ThriftyStylist featuring Forever21

Of course this is merely a representation and not the "real" stuff... The real stuff:

Skirt, corduroy, tiered, with ruffles, TJMaxx, $15
Green v-neckT-shirt, Gap via Goodwill, $6
Black ruffly cardigan, H&M via Goodwill, $6
Purple tights, Claire's, $4.99
Hair clip with purple rose and peacock feather, SweetXcessories at Etsy, $7
Black Spanish leather flat pointy boots, no brand name (the footbed has a red heart on it?), $30 at Off-Broadway Shoe (down from $200+!)

Here are the actual shoes:


"Moar" shoes (for Eednic at FashionablyELate!):



They're kind of like elven cowboy boots. If that makes any sense. Anyway, we love 'em. They're so awesome.

Hope you like it! What are your favorite colors? Do you try to match things based on colors in a pattern, or are you OK with "colorblocking" hues that go well?

Happy Long Weekend (to my U.S. readers- Just plain Happy Weekend to everyone else!)!

What We Wore: Corset Belt!

We are wearing a belt! On our actual waist, not to hold pants up! *Gasp*
...And it doesn't look too bad! Maybe we'll try this again ;)



This is the corset belt we mentioned recently, from MetroStyle (which is, incidentally, the same as Chadwick's, both located here in MA). Unfortunately the elastic back is not adjustable, so we had to safety-pin it so it sits on our waist rather than our hips. Oh well! It still looks ridiculously cute. We got a lot of double-takes on the way to work from older women, so evidently this is not your usual day look, or maybe you're only "allowed" if you have no curves (which would be awfully limiting) but we don't really give a damn.

We're wearing a little cardigan from H&M via Goodwill for the office, and the skirt is a linen a-line with "stripes" running down it that are really splits in the fabric, held together with coordinating openwork rickrack-type trim. Awww, how adorable :)!

Earrings by us:


Shoes:


(Complete with terrible 5-second touch-up pedicure; some polish is better than rubbed-off polish, we figured, apparently overzealously).

Moar shoes (stealing Eednic's line!):



We love how the studs on the slides help play up the rock-n-roll nature of this outfit-- also why we chose an army green cami. A little bit punk rock, a little bit girly: that's how we like it.

A little extra bonus today: Thrifty Stylist Boston BEAUTY!
We're rather obsessed with eyeshadow and usually match ours to our top. Today is emerald green with chartreuse highlights and a nice thick cleopatra cat eye. Our eyes are small in proportion to our head (which is also small, but our face= very round) so if we aren't wearing eye makeup we look like some kind of beady-eyed little alien. Swear.


We're also trying to grow out the ol' eyebrows after years and years of overplucking. We are somewhat tired of looking surprised all of the time ;)

We hate really heavy brows, but hope that a more natural line will help dramatize our eyes and also balance out the proportions of our (we think) enormous nose, forehead and chipmunk cheeks :P

Do you pluck? Or wax? A lot? What are your opinions on heavier, more natural brows?

And what do you think- should we keep rocking the belts even though we're not used to them and not so sure they flatter us? Thanks to all of the bloggers who have inspired us to try, at least!

What We Bought! Metrostyle Clearance Naughtiness

So we were admiring AudraJean's amazing leather steampunk belts last night, and lamenting that our budget could never possibly allow us to own such a thing (never mind that we're still trying to warm up to the idea that belts in general could look alright on us). Then we remembered that we showed you that super-hot, super-cheap plastic version from Metrostyle not too long ago... so we went to look if it was still available, and yes! Still $8. Of course we couldn't stop ourselves from clicking on the clearance link and then the $9.99 and under link... who could resist?!

Here's what we have on order now:

Vegan patent corset belt, $8

Satin party skirt, $10:

Layering cami, $5.99

French cuff button-down with princess seams, $6.99

Purple jeans! (6 other colors, 3 lengths!) $9.99


2-pack of tights (ours are deep royal blue!) $6.99


Lace-sleeve detail sweater, $12.99


Sterling filigree ring, $12.99

We wouldn't normally buy jewelry- since we make it- that's not handmade or at least purchased from an independent purveyor. But that price!!! We couldn't help ourselves.

We could have kept going and going because there are pages and pages of stuff under the $6.99, $9.99 and $14.99 price points (right-click "open in a new window" on each price to link to the whole section!), but we figured $88 was enough to spend for one night! Someone needs to pry our debit card out of our overtired hands at times like this ;)

We can't wait for it all to arrive and hope you find some awesome stuff too! Happy shopping!

What We Wore: Lace Overload

These pics are horrifying. Our apologies. Our man's mirror sucks even worse than ours for proper lighting. But we wanted to share anyway...


We're wearing the green lace skirt we discussed in this blog, a white shelf-bra spaghetti strap tank from Vicky's ($30 for 3-pack), and a little black lace ruffle "jacket" (really more like a cardigan) that we bought on sale also at Vicky's, several years ago- we think we paid $30, down from $79. We thought it was going to be cold (it's not) so we threw this pashmina around our shoulders before dashing out the door (TJ Maxx, for a wedding last month, $12.99).

The jacket thingy is one of the most versatile pieces we own and it was a great investment (at $30; $79 was just obscene). It can be worn as a dressy dress cover-up, with jeans, with skirts... it really just looks great with everything. It's a nice summer tattoo-cover-up for the office, as well (we have a gigantic dragon on our bicep and while they don't mandate that it be covered, we prefer not to answer too many questions about it!)

We are not wearing any of our own jewelry today (for shame!) Our earrings are from Target. Shh! (If you don't make your own, it is a great place to find inexpensive accessories... but they do tend to fall apart).

There's a lot of lace going on here, possibly an overload, but we like it anyway. Do you?

What We Wore Monday: Almost No Black Edition

We really should have taken a photo, because there is not a single internet image available that represents the fabulosity of today's skirt, found at TJ Maxx for $10. We turned it down the first time we saw it (culled from a group of several skirts), then kicked ourselves for two weeks and were THRILLED to come back to the same store to find said skirt tucked deep into whichever rack we had secreted it. Score.

We're talking fully-lined, spring-green tiered petticoat lace. Amazing. It really defined our spring look last year (and there's nothing wrong with it this year, either).

This one is pretty cute, similar, although not as voluminous. It's available online from Firebird Clothing in the UK for 28 pounds... ~$41 as of today...

We paired the terrific skirt with a bright pink sweater. This is not a color combination we would normally go for, but because we'd been dying to wear this hand-painted silk scarf our boss brought back for us from a trip to China-- it has bright green leaves and big pink flowers-- we went for it.

The sweater we found for under $20 at Filene's Basement- it's similar to the one at right (unfortunately sold out) from Target... We really enjoy the boatneck detailing-- anything a little "different," you know... and they do still have a few nice pink sweaters on clearance like this one in plus sizes, this one in deeper pink, and this one, too, all $25 or under. We are definitely not above Target clearance for essential pieces!

We capped off the floral motif (from the scarf and floral lace) with these adorable rose-applique boots we bought on Etsy... Black boots are a subject for another day... one might say (our friends might say) that we have a terrible addiction and one can only own so many pairs, but we so enjoyed the ribbons cascading from the lace today. Hooray for girly details!