I am the absolute worst at starting a series on my blog only to let it sadly fade away into obscurity. I was scrolling away on Instagram this morning, as you do, when I suddenly remembered I had meant to share more of my favourite vintage style Instagram accounts.
Well, here we are with a second edition highlighting some vintage style accounts you might be interested in following should you share my interest in historical costuming.
As always, #vintagestylenotvintagevalues is a HUGE passion point for me – I am drawn to the lines, colours, shapes and styles of vintage fashion, but I do NOT share vintage values, which are all too often sexist, racist, ableist and otherwise unacceptable. The one-and-only Rachel Maksy collaborated with other vintage fashion lovers and created a great video highlighting the frustrations many vintage-dressers can deal with, as onlookers can conflate a passion for vintage style with a belief in old-fashioned values, or a feeling of having been born in the wrong era.
With all that out of the way, let’s admire some talented people who make and wear beautiful things!
I wrote about Rachel (I’m going to refer to her by her first name so I can pretend that we are friends, because she’s just so cool) in my post on Costubers, but I also follow her on Instagram. Rachel doesn’t take fashion too seriously, and she happily blends elements from different eras together with her own irreverent sense of humour. She also has a super cute dog named Frodo and a quote from The Lord of the Rings tattooed on her arm. I could only ever dream of being as cool as Rachel Maksy.
If you’re looking for pure 1940s perfection, look no further. Every look on this account is a vintage work of art, from perfectly curled hair to dainty heeled shoes. Emi and her equally stylish sister are also accomplished swing dancers, taking their commitment to the era to a gorgeous new level. Her couples photos are swooooon worthy, straight out of a classic black and white film. Truly dreamy stuff.
Karolina Żebrowska
The one and only meme mom! This Polish history geek and costumer has a sassy sense of humour that matches her talent for creating works of fashion art. She has a great series of videos where she showcases historical fashion through the ages, as worn by average folks like you and me. Her posts on Polish historical fashion are particularly interesting to me, as my Polish ancestry is probably the part of my heritage that I know the least about, and it’s interesting to get a little peek into what my grandfather’s family’s daily outfits might have looked like.
I will admit that when I started developing an interest in vintage fashion, it felt a bit discouraging to find that almost everyone I saw in the vintage style community was willowy and thin, while my figure could be described by a lot of words except those. How wonderfully refreshing to discover a talented historical costumer with a figure more like my own! Proof that vintage fashion really can be for everyone, whatever your size or shape or figures.
And this isn’t all of the vintage style and historical costume Instagrammers I follow…there are still enough for a few more volumes in this series!
Is there anyone else you think I should add to my collection of follows? Please, please, please let me in the comments below!