Queen of Holloway wish list

My love for dresses knows no bounds. Although I am not a woman who has one look (I'm too fickle to stick to one style of dressing!) I do have a bit of a thing for vintage / reproduction vintage dresses. I LOVE polka dots and crazy patterns. I'd always wanted to be able to buy clothes from Get Cutie but their vintage sizing means that a size 24 is more like a 20, so too small for my size 22 body. Plus they're very expensive. I also like Collectif for retro dresses, but I have never been on the site and found a dress in a size 22 - they always seem to be out of stock.  I discovered Queen of Holloway via ebay and fell head over heals. I could finally buy some delicious pinup style dresses for decent prices. I now have 5 QOH dresses, but there are so many more that I want! Above is my wish list. Under no circumstances am I allowed to buy all of these, but the leopard print swing dress and the turquoise sailor dress have been on my list for ages so maybe I will have to order them soon!

This was my first Queen of Holloway purchase - Lovely pinup dress with cherries on, from ebay for about £18 (might be a bit more expensive from the real site, but still super cheap). It's a size 24 (a size bigger than I normally wear) and it fits really well. Love it. because it's a pencil dress I think the 22 would have been a little too snug on my belly / boobs, but having said that the fabric has a bit of stretch to it and is really skimming and comfy. QOH standard sizing goes up to a 24, but for a few quid extra you can ask for a custom size. I love this dress, and so I got some more....

The polka dot dress is a fab party dress with a full on swing skirt. The green dress is bloody awesome - It's a Frida Kahlo print, the same as Get Cutie use to do but it cost me about £35 rather than £100! I probably could have got away with a 22 in this one because it's quite generous on the bust. The fabric is amazing - thick and firm, but also soft and stretchy. the Paris print dress wasn't so good, because oddly the stretch goes from top to bottom rather than side to side (surely a mistake?!), so I couldn't get it over my boobs. I ended up cutting the lining out and recreating the body of the dress. Super scruffy work, but the dress is now wearable (albeit SUPER lowcut!), and the pattern was to good not to keep! The pin-up cowgirls dress was the one that really stopped my heart. This is the (Alexander Henry) fabric that I nearly spent loads of money on in order to try & make my own dress. Thank goodness I didn't because this dress looks amazing on - I need a belt to position the waist properly as the skirt is so full, but for £35 I was one happy bunny when this arrived.

A few words of advice - these dresses are normally shipped from China and they can take a while to arrive so make sure you order well in advance of any events you might want them for. The website is a bit of a pain to use, many of the categories don't have any dresses in, but they're on the site if you search. I advise you to click on 'All products' and take the time to look at what they have. Also, they often have almost identical dresses with just a slight difference (like one has a bow and the other doesn't) so look carefully, because sometimes you can get the same basic dress at a cheaper price. They have a range of @Audry Hepburn inspired dresses which are super elegant, and they also make copies of dresses from the series 'Mad Men', so they're good for fancy dress (or if like me you'd very much like to look like Joan!). They make 50's style wedding dresses and coats which look gorgeous, and for under £100 you couldn't go wrong. Once you own a QOH item, if you snap yourself wearing it and send it to the site you'll get a 10% discount on your next purchase (you'll see me in the customer gallery, as I love a good discount code!). I think that any plus size beauties looking for some pinup / swing dresses should take a look at this site - the quality isn't bad considering the cheap prices, and some of the dresses are identical to more expensive versions sold on American sites like 'Pinup Girl'.