LAURA KIDD: clothes

28.3.17

Ottawa Vintage Clothing Show - Spring 2015

Last Sunday was spent at the Ottawa Vintage Clothing Show. It's essentially a HUGE room filled with vintage clothing vendors. I think it's the biggest in Canada. They seemed to have a few new vendors this time around and each vendor switched up their stock from the last show. It's not only a shopping event but also a time to catch up with some of the vendors and a chance to be around people who share the same adoration and passion for vintage clothing.

I fell in love with two purses, check them out below. The bucket bag was one of the first things I saw and I couldn't get it out of my head. It's so sparkly and was very clean on the inside. I thought it would add a nice touch and some dimension to any outfit. The second purse is such a treasure. I almost walked right past it but I saw it in the corner of my eye and had to have it!

Getting dressed for the show is always a major part of the fun! My steamer died last week so I had to choose something that wouldn't require any ironing. I recently picked up this suit and paired it with some light blue heels to make it more spring-y. They weren't the best shoe selection for shopping but I did almost make it the whole show in them!

Suit: Vintage, The Royal's Thrift Store, $2.50. Heels: Spring, $12.50. Purse: Value Village, $4. Top: Value Village, $5. Necklace: Value Village, $1. Headscarf: Value Village, $3.

photos by Michael Tundo and myself.

Ottawa Vintage Clothing Show - Fall 2014

Last weekend I attended the fall vintage show! I've been going to this show for a few years now and I always love the atmosphere, the people, and of course the clothes. This time around I was looking for clothes and shoes but saw a lot of coats, investment pieces, and jewellery. Everything was very beautiful but I had a bit of a hard time finding plus size clothes (which is typical with vintage). However, I did find a beautiful 70s long teal dress and a 60s mod print top with wide sleeves - both of which you'll see in upcoming posts.

Each vintage show I go to, I always find myself wrapped up in conversations with the vendors about our shared love for vintage. It's awesome meeting people I relate to in that way because the conversations are endless.

Here are some of my snaps from the show.

Top: Gifted. Skirt: H&M, $20. Shoes: Joe Fresh, $10. Purse: Value Village, $4. Headchain: DIY.

Poirier Schweitzer (Montreal) Dries Van Noten.

Poirier Schweitzer (Montreal) Versace.

Le Walkin (Mont Tremblant).

Photos by me and Michael Tundo.

What Tickles My Fancy

Much like every fashion lover, I too look forward to the new fashion shows every season (and bi-season, "pre-fall", OK!). And by "look forward to the new fashion shows" I mean race to style.com to see them. I usually just go to view my select favourite designers that I always have an eye on. And that usually satisfies me.

For some reason not even Prada or Vivienne Westwood's Spring/Summer '15 shows interested me. And that's saying a lot! I don't know if it's me or the clothes but all my usual faves just weren't doing it for me. Not to say I don't love my regulars and they didn't produce beautiful clothes, they did. What I crave in a fashion line is creativity, unusualness and when the clothes really make me think for a second. I also love when fashion shows don't make sense or straight up frighten me. I know this may sound weird, but if I wanted to see plain clothes, I could just walk though a mall.

This is just what I personally need from a fashion show. I know the initial point of them is to showcase clothes so the viewers would consider covering them in the media or actually buying. But seeing as I'm not rich, I want some entertainment, dammit!

This year's lack of what I particularly look for forced me to "click" past the regulars. And what I found was spectacular! Some of them I recognized but didn't count them in my top faves and some I had never heard of before. Now I definitely have a longer "regulars list". I came across some truly breathtaking pieces.

Here's a round up of my hidden treasures that I hope you'll love too. All photos are from style.com, duh.

Manish Arora. My ideal clothing!

Manish Arora. I adored EVERY. SINGLE. LOOK.

Junya Watanabe. Pastel dreams.

Junya Watanabe. I love how weird this collection is.

Love the shag, Galliano. And these weird shoes!

Moschino. Sorry, had to mention this. The Barbie collection was a DREAM. Literally my childhood dreams on the runway.

Gareth Pugh.

One of the ones that made me go "What?" Love that. Gareth Pugh.

60s floral two-piece to go

I am head over heels in love with this vintage two-piece. When I saw it at Value Village, I instantly knew I had to have it. The print is unbelievable and the colours are so vibrant. Another great thing is they can be worn as separates or together when I'm feeling more bold. I wore this outfit to work on Saturday and to the mall to visit the new H&M with my friends. I didn't buy much at H&M since it's only been open a few days and we've been waiting to get one here forever, hence it was picked over by now but I did find an amazing toque (see it on my next post!) and a black faux-snakeskin belt. They really do have great, inexpensive accessories and I was very pleased with the size of the store, it's pretty big. Well worth the wait.

Shirt and skirt: Value Village, $10 together. Black top: Jones New York, Rikochet Resale, $25. Purse: Ragtime, $18. Boots: Dr. Martens, gifted. Necklace: Forever 21, $12

All photos taken by Rosie.

VIDEO: Fall Thrift Haul

Here's a fall thrift haul video of the latest things I've picked up at the thrift store. Fall has got to be the BEST time to go thrift shopping. They have the best selection at this time and the halloween aisle is my all time favourite - only until the 31st though. Watch the video to see what I bought!

Pea Soup - White Fur

This past week the weather in Ottawa has been quite warm. I think mother nature wanted to give us one last taste of heat before we get buried in snow and ice this winter. As you can tell, I'm one of those bitter that winter is coming people. I wore this out for dinner, a thrifting trip and to see Gravity in theatres. My thrifting trip went very well. Fall is my favourite season for thrift shopping for a few reasons. One being more selection for blazers, sweaters, boots and coats and two: the weird clothes that I assume were reserved for halloween come out aka my day-to day-clothing. Seriously the halloween section is my new favourite. It seems like they stock pile cool clothes throughout September that they put out in October for halloween costumes. The halloween rack is full of sequins, leopard print, leather, and vintage clothes - basically all of my favourites. I'll be filming a thrift haul video soon to show you everything I bought! All I have to say about Gravity is that you need to see it. There are only two characters and the entire thing is set in space yet I sat at the edge of my chair, completely blown away by how insane and well done it was. Watch the trailer.

Hat and Necklace: inherited from Grandma, Purse: Value Village, $3, Vest: Winners, $26, Top: Joe Fresh, $6, Jeans: Joe Fresh, $15, Flatforms: Joe Fresh, $10, Lipstick: Covergirl Lip Perfection in Enchantress.

All photos taken by Lisa Kidd.

It's in the genes.

This past weekend was incredibly refreshing and relaxing- two words you wouldn't have heard me use to describe my weekends in a while. Relaxing, sure. Refreshing, though, is a very special word. Feeling refreshed- to me- means seeing, hearing and learning something new. I drove down to my aunt Bev's house in Pembroke (about 1.5 hrs away) for a night. We both adore fashion, design, and are into eating healthy so we had lots to talk about and there was a lot I learnt from her. I think a love for fashion must be ingrained in our genes as my grandmother had an amazing sense of style (and still does), many of the paintings in my aunts house were either done by her or my grandmother, and my great grandmother used to make the most beautiful clothes. She first gave me a tour (see below her beautifully decorated abode), we then chatted and caught up, went out for dinner, and returned to her house to rummage through all her old fashion illustrations and favourite fashion books (she's got a tonne!) Sunday morning was spend turning my $1 piece of white rabbit fur into a beautiful and glamorous clutch (stay tuned for the pictures).
She's so talented. And I know that word gets thrown around a lot, especially in fashion, but this lady IS talented. We have a similar sense of fashion and tend to like a lot of the same things when it comes to fashion and personal style. I regret not taking any pictures of her fashion sketches and pieces she's made because I don't think I can convey how beautiful her work is in words. To give a bit of back story- she once lived in Toronto, working in the Toronto Fashion Incubator and as an assistant to Arthur Mendonca but now works as an engineer. So she knows her stuff and she's very good at it. I loved going through all her work and hearing all her amazing stories. I can't wait to spend many more weekends with her- we were both so glad we made the time to get together and really get to know each other. If you're lucky enough to have relatives near you that you haven't got around to visiting, go now! You'll never be not busy so make time and go. You'll be surprised at the good it'll do.