Diary of a Vintage Girl Blogger Pens an Entry with Us

By Felicity Loughrey
March 16, 2011

It’s hard to imagine, but Fleur de Guerre, the blogger behind Diary of a Vintage Girl (subtitle: “the life and times of an English pin-up”), once had dreadlocks. The red-lipstick wearing, perfectly coiffed 28-year-old vintage fashion blogger was once an alternative kid in baggy jeans and band t-shirts. She then became interested in rockabilly and, she jokes, her sartorial style, “gradually crept back in time.”

Fleur De Guerre’s full embrace of the 1940s pin up style took place when she bought a vintage cotton dress while on vacation in San Diego seven years ago. “It took a year or so to transform my wardrobe completely,” she said. “I just love the vintage style.” She now owns in excess of 40 vintage dresses, a few suits and vintage handbags, a coat and lots of vintage reproduction pieces like her eponymous Fleur wrap-dress from her collaboration with British brand Heyday Vintage.

A self-described “full time forties enthusiast and part-time model," Fleur de Guerre started her vintage fashion blog as a place to post her modeling shots. “I had no idea that other people were writing vintage blogs. I soon found them, of course.” Last year, Fleur de Guerre won a Cosmopolitan Blog Award for the best UK blog in the lifestyle category. The top blogger also writes columns for The Chap (a publication devoted to the iconic English gentleman), Milkcow (a U.K.-based 1940s- and '50s-focused culture magazine) and World War II Re-enactors magazine. “I probably wouldn’t have got my writing clients without the blog,” she said.

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To pull her vintage style together, Fleur de Guerre scours eBay online auctions. “I mostly buy '40s dresses.” A recent eBay find was a vintage dress she wore to her friend’s wedding—a cotton teal-green frock with a ruched-detailed skirt. “Definitely one of my best finds. It was dead stock—never worn or washed.” An early adopter, she’s been shopping on eBay's online auction site for a decade. Other favorite eBay finds: an art deco cocktail cabinet and an art deco three-piece sofa suite (“that barely fits in my flat!”).

Would vintage fashion blogger Fleur de Guerre ever consider taking her retro style further back in time? “I love the '30s but original stuff is much harder to find and I’m not sure the length or the cuts do me any favors. Same for the '20s—I can’t wear anything cut loose at the waist as it just doesn’t suit me.” And we wonder if there is something about wartime Britain that appeals to de Guerre? “Without sounding shallow, I am interested in the social history of the 1940s, but that interest has followed from the mostly superficial interest in the clothes.”

So does vintage fashion expert Fleur de Guerre ever slip into jeans and a t-shirt to wear around the house? “Not really. I don’t have any jeans that aren’t high-waisted 1940s-style. The only time I wear completely normal clothes is to go to yoga class because yoga pants are yoga pants.”