Vintage Style Playbook: Corporate Dressing with Vintage Flair

Vintage Style Playbook: Corporate Dressing with Vintage Flair

Corporate vintage style Dressing

Corporate vintage looks are one of the most polished and put together choices in your vintage playbook.

These looks are an instant way to boost your credibility, authority and have your style noticed for the right reasons.

How you pull your look together is all a matter of personal preference, but having these guidelines in place, you’re far less likely to experience buyers remorse.

Today we’re looking at the staples you’ll need to pull off a vintage look in a corporate job.

vintage style separates and shoes

Tonal dressing

Pick your colour palette for the season and layer your pieces accordingly. You’ll be able to mix and match these into other looks, but for the office, creating an ensemble with a harmonious colour balance is a cornerstone to the vintage look.

Keep your patterns simple, and when in doubt go for textural variation rather than polka dots, plaids or paisley.

Waist line

Your natural waist is a beautiful thing, and knowing where it is will make a huge difference to getting this look right. Your natural waistline is the smallest part of your waist, often in line with your belly button.

You want to choose pieces that sit either on or just above your natural waistline, not below.

Keep it defined with matching belts or simply by tucking in your blouse.

 

Length – Hemline is everything

Below the knee is a must for corporate environments. We’re talking just under the kneecap, not mid calf or ankle length. Hemlines that end mid calf are problematic for all but the most shapely legs and finding something flattering off the rack is extremely difficult.

Ankle length is suitable only for evening wear, so if you’re in any doubt, have your skirts hemmed to your own measurements.

Shoes

Vertiginous heels have no place in vintage style corporate wear – can I get a collective sigh of relief?

Lower heeled pumps, kitten heels and structured flats are both practical and business like.

TIP

When you’re searching online for the right kind of shoes trying these terms: Kitten heels, Low heel pumps, court shoes.

For separates try: Blouses, pussy bow, midi skirt, knee length skirt, pencil skirt

 

 

vintage corporate coats bags

Coats – Black is Boring

Overcoats play a large part in vintage dressing. The huge variety of colour and shape is something sorely missing from our business districts, certainly in Melbourne where basic black has become boring black.

You don’t need a huge wardrobe of coats but choosing a colour and silhouette that works for that season and your main colour palette, will add that ‘next level’ touch to your vintage game.

 

Bags- No schlepping allowed

Matching your bag to your shoes and the rest of your ensemble is a sure fire way to amp up the vintage factor in your look. Changing out your handbag to match whichever colour you’re wearing that day is also an excellent incentive to keep the contents of your bag streamlined and organised.

A structured bag that is large enough to hold your work essentials without becoming overstuffed is a good guideline. And never, ever, schelp along a nasty reusable shopping bag with your lunch!

TIP

You don’t have to spend a packet to find a great bag. Here’s what to look for in quality instead of just brand name: Metal feet, metal zippers, real leather (it can be cleaned and fed to last), solid stitching not glue.

 

corporate vintage style brooches

Brooches & Other Bling

Keep it simple.

Brooches are an ideal way to add a little more individuality to your look but be careful not to go overboard.

For corporate looks stay away from heavily jewelled or sparkly pieces. Instead opt for pieces with distinctive structure or understated novelty.

This is the perfect style addition to allow a stronger influence from your favourite era.

TIP

While it may be harder to find these sorts of office appropriate pieces from times when women weren’t in the office (think 1920s), the best solution is to source from a later era that referenced the original. For example 1980s brooches can often be seen to take on a more Art Deco look.

Corporate vintage dressing

 

 

Building a wardrobe of vintage style staples requires a game plan.

You need to have a handle on your lifestyle and what it actually demands as opposed to the “dream life” you’d like to dress for. It’s by falling into this trap that we find ourselves with closets overstuffed with things we never wear. Trust me, I’m still fighting with mine.

Dressing within the confines of a certain era is not for everyone, and this is by no means the only way to wear vintage or vintage style fashion. The choices are endless, and unless you have the time and budget to experiment with anything that takes your fancy, there are certain guidelines that can help you find a shortcut to your perfect style.

BONUS: Download this style guide as a handy PDF!

 

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What is a Wet Set?

What is a Wet Set?

vintage hair styling wet set

Thanks to the proliferation of information on the internet, it is getting harder and harder to find the answers you’re looking for.

When you ask Google, “what is a wet set” I’m pretty sure you don’t want to see some of the images I’ve just had to burn from my eyes. (No don’t do it.)

In short hand terms, a “wet set” is any kind of shape, usually a curl, you set into your hair while it is wet and wait for it to dry into place. This could be big bouncy curls, or it could even be traditional finger waves. This setting method fell out of fashion as it is time consuming and honestly, not the best option for all hair types. It is very rare that I do a full wet set on my own hair due to both time restrictions and my naturally wavy hair type.

The options for drying your wet set are two fold; you either wait until it dries naturally (like overnight) or you’ll be using a dryer. I do have a vintage bonnet dryer, both the upright and portable hood kind, but neither of these are hot enough to dry my hair quickly. Even two hours under these is not enough fully dry my set.

Vintage hair bonnet dryer

As someone with wavy hair, prone to fizziness, an overnight wet set also causes me problems. Because I haven’t smoothed and dried my hair first, it hasn’t smoothed and sealed the cuticle. So while the initial result might look fabulous, any hint of rain or humidity turns the set into an absolute nightmare.

My own version of a wet set is more of a “damp set”, in that I have dried my hair off completely before employing rollers or pin curls to move my hair into the desired shape. Sleeping in wet hair is also a health risk and after a time can cause fungal infections on your scalp (ick!) because of the warmth and very high humidity as it dries. By having dry hair to begin with, then dampening it with setting lotion or even just a little lavender water, I get a much better finished set and avoid having a wet scalp all night.

Wet sets need to be planned in advance and can actually help you cut your morning routine in half. They last longer than a hot set (from rollers or an iron), and are particularly good for super straight hair that is stubborn to curl. Choosing a setting pattern and method is where the fun begins with this process, and the results are only limited by your skill level and hair type.

1950s vintage hair illustration

  • DO NOT use velcro rollers. Ever.
  • DO NOT wet your hair with hair spray or mousse unless you want crunchy curls you can do nothing with.
  • DO NOT use heat tools on wet hair.

 

  • DO use a natural shampoo and conditioner that promotes healthy hair and scalp
  • DO use a silicone free conditioner to keep your hair bouncy and without weighing it down. Conditioners that use silicone for shine make it harder fort he hair to hold the curl.
  • DO use a vintage chiffon scarf of with a similar grip (not silk) to cover your hair while drying. It helps prevent fly-aways from the rollers and keeps the curls in neatly while you sleep.

 

This video is an old from back in our archives (but still a good one), and will show you just how to tie a headscarf to help keep your curls in overnight.

 

Now that we’ve finally set up our new vintage salon space here in Melbourne, it’s time to make more videos.

If you’d like to see how to do your own wet sets, or would like instructions on how to create particular hairstyles using the wet set method, just leave me a comment!