I was thinking about my current Pinup Girl Clothing favorites recently. And while I love all my PUG pieces, I came up with five outfits that I’m really into right now:
The surprising thing about this list is that while most of my PUG items are skirts, right now, three of my top five outfits are dresses. Who knows, though…in a few weeks, the list could be completely different!
I had so much fun participating in Mary Blair March last month! Here is a wrap-up of some (but not nearly all!) of the outfits I wore, with a few favorites from other times thrown in for fun:
Next year, I’m going to choose a specific week in March to celebrate Mary Blair, and promote it. Hopefully, even more admirers of her work will join me then, in wearing lots of fun prints in different styles! And if we’re really lucky, maybe Pinup Girl Clothing will have added to their Mary Blair collection before then…I would love to add more items to my wardrobe!
I’ve been aware for some time that people have found ways to wear some of their Pinup Girl Clothing dresses as skirts. This usually involves folding the bodice of the dress down into the skirt, which is a little complicated for me, but I discovered that my two sundresses (the Nancy and the Lydia) are fairly easy to wear just by putting a peasant top on over the top of the dress.
The Nancy is the easiest dress to do this with. The neckline is low enough, and the straps thin enough that I didn’t have to do anything other than put a belt over the place where the top ends. And the olive-green peasant top is perfect with the colors of the Mary Blair butterfly print!
The Lydia’s straps aren’t quite as accommodating, so I had to fold them down into the bodice of the dress before putting on the peasant top. I was worried that this would result in a bulkier look, but I actually think it turned out ok:
I’m glad I experimented with a new way of wearing my dresses, especially these two, which are still a little too summery to wear on their own at this time of year. Anytime I can find more ways to wear my Pinup Girl items, and especially more ways to wear them throughout the year, I consider it a win!
It’s no secret that I love Mary Blair, an artist who created illustrations for Little Golden Books and also worked as an animator for Disney beginning in the 1940s, on films including Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland. She even posthumously won the Winsor-McCay award for her contributions to animation, and a Disney Legend award for her contributions to the Disney Company. Pinup Girl Clothing has a collection that was made as part of a collaboration with her estate, and features her whimsical artwork and bold colors. It was thanks to this collection that I first learned about Mary Blair’s work and legacy early in 2015. I have added quite a few of these pieces to my wardrobe, and now I have transportation, animal, and other novelty prints in both skirts and dresses. While not all of my Pinup Girl  outfits feature Mary Blair, well over half of the skirts and dresses I’ve purchased do have her artwork. I don’t have every Mary Blair print Pinup Girl has produced, but I do think it has become a full-blown obsession for me!
Yesterday, I shared some pictures of my new Mary Blair butterflies Nancy dress from Pinup Girl Clothing. I played around with styling it a little bit, and I love the way it looks with my Laura Byrnes bolero. The dress itself is a little busy to wear with a brooch, but the bolero provides a nice solid background to pin one on, and I really like the way this Erstwilder (bull)frog brooch goes with the outfit, both in color and in theme!
This Nancy dress from Pinup Girl Clothing is the Mary Blair print that almost wasn’t mine. I ordered the dress last winter, but I sized up, because I was still figuring out how Pinup Girl styles fit me. Unfortunately, that was a huge mistake, and I ended up with a dress that, while it had gorgeous atomic colors of bright yellow, green, and pink on a cool grey background, and a fun butterfly pattern, was huge on me…baggy and too long and just plain awful. At the time, I simply returned it, because I didn’t want to take a chance that my normal size would be too small. I was disappointed, though, because I really loved the colors and print, and this dress continues to be the only item of clothing with that design.
Fortunately for me, Pinup Girl had a sale over Labor Day weekend, and I was able to save an additional 25% off the already-on-sale price, making the dress almost half-off! I was still worried about the sizing, but the fit is perfect, and of course I still love the atomic colors and the fanciful butterflies! I’m also glad to have added another style of dress to my wardrobe, especially since it’s in a fantastic Mary Blair print!
