Suzanne Carillo

Continued from the series: The Ultimate Guide to Shopping & Styling Vintage

Let’s talk about vintage blouses and in particular, my favourite style of vintage blouse, the pussy bow blouse and how to style the vintage bow blouse.

Wikipedia says that the name literally comes from little kittens that had a bows tied around their necks. Hard to believe that name stuck through all these years.

I haven’t been lucky enough to find any vintage blouses to purchase for myself. I think they are harder to come by in good condition.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t some great pieces out there as I found these beauties for sale online.

Vintage Bow Blouse by suzannecarillo featuring tops

Created way back in the 1890’s by such designers as Omar Kiam pussy bow blouses became popular in North America in the 1960’s and were favourites of Coco Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent.

I find them super sexy as Joan from Mad Men shows us here…

Although I don’t have any vintage versions of this I do own two vintage inspired reproductions put out a few years ago by H&M.

And I’ve also created a similar idea by using a scarf.

One thing to keep in mind when you style a vintage bow blouse is if you are petite like me, closing off your neck with the top done all the way up will shorten your visual height. If you are able to find a top more like the one Joan is wearing, or my H&M reproduction, where it has a lower neckline before it ties, it won’t visually shorten your body.

If your neck is very short anything that cuts it off isn’t a good bet. If you have a long ballerina neck you can wear 10 scarves and a pussy bow and still look great. You lucky swan you! ; )

Having great style is being aware of your body. We all have faults. If you can learn to accent your good qualities and camouflage those you don’t care for as much it will you will look better, feel more confident and distinguish yourself from the crowd.

Finally, a Polyvore set on how I would style two of the vintage blouses I found online contemporary.

How To Style A Bow Blouse by suzannecarillo

Do you like this style of blouse? Is it something you have or would wear?

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I told you about us going out to see the fabulous play Metamorphosis (which was brilliant BTW) on our girlfriend's day this past week.

What I didn't tell you was the story about the gal sitting next to me during the play.

Her and her girlfriend arrived just a couple of minutes before the curtain went up.

She had her phone on…one of those extra large screen ones by Samsung that look like a miniature TV screen.

She then proceeded to leave her mini TV on for the first 20 minutes of the play!

It was a bright light in my eyes and I could literally read every single one of her stupid extra enlarged emails that were sized for the legally blind. She had the font enlarged so much that only one sentence would fit on her screen at a time. You could read that email from outer space.

I was so pissed!

I tried looking at her with a big bitchy scowl on my face. She just ignored me. Plus I started missing good bits of the play.

Then I tried mental telepathy…sending searing brain waves,

"SHUT OFF YOUR FU**ING PHONE! SHUT OFF YOUR FU**ING PHONE! SHUT OFF YOUR FU**ING PHONE!"

Over and over I screamed this to myself.

She didn't seem to notice. She was too busy responding to her giant email.

We had paid some good $ to get decent seats and here this chick was ruining the play for me.

Shoes – Nine West, Jeans – AG, top – Nordstroms, Velvet Blazer – Winners, Necklaces – by me

Just when I was at my breaking point and I thought I would explode I turned my head to finally say something she miraculously switched off her phone.

Maybe the brain waves had worked after all.

"Whew."

I said to myself.

"Avoided one slap-down."

But apparently that wasn't enough.

She kept rubbing her leg against mine and hitting my knee. You know the kind of people that somehow are unable or unwilling to accept that the amount of personal space in that theatre seat is the same for them as it is for everyone else? No, they refuse to believe that and instead, try to spread out beyond their seats into the space someone else has paid for.

They spread their knees like some old man watching TV in his basement. Stick their arms slightly over each arm rest. Place their feet in your foot space, so they can "stretch" their legs.

The repositioning continued.

Did she have Parkinson's?

Why was she fidgeting so?

Was she sitting on an ant hill?

She was like a fly buzzing around me. Just when you thought it was gone, back she would be, moving something pushing her way into my space.

Then…out of the blue…she up at GRABBED my knee. With her whole hand!

WTF???

At that point I simply turned to her, incredulous and said out loud,

" That's MY knee!"

She looked at me and laughed a little…

" Oh yeah? Sorry! Ha ha!"

I can tell you if this had been a man I may have slapped him.

(If he looked like Michael Fassbender a slight scolding {or not} might have sufficed.)

As it was a woman younger than myself I didn't.

When I told my husband this story all he wanted to know was, "Was she young & good looking?"

Ah men.

(sigh)

Predictable.

I suppose I need to thank my lucky stars that she wasn't some old creepy ugly dude but call me old fashioned, I kind of like my personal space to be….

you know…

personal.

Especially when I've paid good money for it.

When I told my girlfriend about this story she exclaimed, "I had no idea you were going through all of that!"

Have you ever had anything like this happen to you? On a plane or bus? My Dad said I overreacted! LOL

Tell me how you handled it.

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