Sorelle is the lady behind the popular site pinuppassion.com, where she gives advice on how to discover your inner glamour queen and become as passionate about the pin up aesthetic as she is! The look is covered in great detail on her site, where everything from hair to nails, shoes and the right attitude are discussed, inspiring ladies to join in and add a little bit of vintage glam to their lives.

How would you describe what you do?

PinUpPassion is the largest Pin Up Girl information website, so it shows women how to do their hair, their makeup, fashion, and how to be confident. The most important thing that I like about PinUpPassion is the underlying factor of it: it brings out and gives permission for all women, no matter their shape or size, to feel beautiful. Whether they’re smaller, they’re vava voom, no matter what nationality, it allows them to feel glamorous, and doesn’t discriminate in any way. I like to bring that into everything that I do [on the site].

What inspired you to start the website?

Well I’ve always had a love for glamour, but I myself have never really been the sort of person to bring it out in myself – I’ve always been a giant tomboy until I started the website! It was actually really funny – I never really did my hair, I had short shaved sides, and then I started Pinuppassion. My mum had a website and it was quite successful, and she kept on telling me to start one too, so I thought, Okay! I started researching and stumbled on this topic and saw that people were searching for more information, but not enough was available. So that is how Pin Up Passion was born

Where did the interest in pin up come from?

I think it was just something I stumbled upon, because I wasn’t glamorous at all! Even in my everyday life sometimes I’ll just be in pyjamas or trackies at home – I try not to wear them outside any more! But I’m definitely not glamorous all the time now, I still have my moments. Glamour and self-presentation was something I just fell into and over time I began to learn more about the look – like doing my eyebrows and maintaining them, and before I didn’t care about them at all, which is pretty scary! I think if you respect yourself and you show that to the world, the world respects you more as well. It doesn’t have to be exactly pin up, but just incorporating that idea adds glamour. It’s also not about being shallow and only caring about the outer appearance. You can have both. Develop your outer beauty and work on your inner beauty constantly.

Who do you consider your style icon?

Michelline Pitt and Dita Von Teese, by far! I really like that edgier side of pin up, because there is really cutesy pin up style, but I like the glamorous and dark look!

Michelline Pitt

Dita Von Teese

How important is hosiery to the pin up aesthetic?

Extremely. If you’re ever wearing a dress, you’ll definitely have hosiery on. It’s essential to the look.

How would you then encourage women to incorporate hosiery into a pin up look? What sort of hosiery works best?

Back seam stockings are pretty well the standard. There are some other kinds which feature in the look, like white lacey ones. There’s the standard cookie cutter approach that used to be the norm in pin up, which was mainly the back seam stockings, but now pin up has been revolutionised so you can take different styles and put together different components. So if you want to have lacey hosiery, that’s totally fine as well.

Where would you encourage women to start if they want to achieve this look? 

It’s not a one step system! There’s a lot of girls who think that if they just put on a bandana and red lipstick, then they’re pin up, but it’s more than just a fashion. It’s about the way you present yourself. It’s about the way you hold yourself up, always taking on any challenge with your head up high and still being a lady. So it’s very much about confidence. If you don’t have that confidence at the start, that doesn’t mean you cant be a pin up, it just means you can fake it till you make it! You get used to the looks from every direction for the beautiful clothes you wear, and you’ll get that confidence over time. But it’s definitely not just one step! It’s the hair, the makeup, the fashion and the confidence!

Sorelle wears FireHosiery Vintage Seam tights in black

Is glamour then more to do with confidence or fashion?

If I was to choose one, it would be fashion. A big thing is just to see the modern pin up girls and how they dress right now. There’s a certain style of dress or pants you wear – so for example a dress is usually tucked in at the waste and either flowing down or a pencil skirt. So there’s a few specific styles, staple styles that you can wear to get the look. And then around that you can accessorise. Vintage stockings always come into it. That’s just the basic – if you’re wearing a pencil skirt you always throw on some hosiery underneath.

 Are you seeing more women taking interest in and incorporating the pin up look?

Yes, and it’s so exciting! I was actually just walking down the street and I was thinking about the fact that when I’m walking, looking slightly vintage, it’s the older generations that might appreciate the fact. However, then it hit me that the only people who would be familiar with this fashion are really 80 years old or older. So it’s actually a dying art, which is really scary. So it’s great to see more women going back to that, so they can bring it back! It’s a very classy niche and eyecatching! I think the reason why so many women are going back to it is because it helps them feel beautiful. They’re allowed to! Instead of flicking through magazines and seeing the same type of girl, with the bleach blonde hair and blue eyes looking the same and thinking that is the only way. For so many girls it’s disheartening, and it’s why we have so many self esteem issues among girls. Girls think that what they see in magazines is how they should look, but that look only represents 10% of women. So for this style you can look glamorous and it’s suited for everyone, and there’s so many different styles – there’s the darker style, the more tomboyish style with high waisted pants, eg. Rosie the Riveter, or you can have a more cutesy style too.

Finally, how do men react to your blog?

I actually try to get rid of them! I want to make it like a safe haven for women! That’s why the colours are so bright. When I started I had such an inner dilemma trying to figure out whether I wanted to give the site a different look to suit male viewers too, but then I thought about it more and I didn’t want them around! And that’s the greatest thing – about 80% of my Facebook followers are women, which is great. It’s actually really cool! It’s kind of like girl power; it’s not trying to make guys feel any worse and not saying we dislike them in any way, but Pin Up Passion is just a female corner. There’s always going to be guys who tag along who like the pictures obviously! They can stay as long as they play nice!

Once you empower women they realise they don’t have to please the guys, they can just be themselves. If a guy comes along and he appreciates that then that’s the perfect guy! If they don’t like you the way you are, then too bad! I read an interview with Dita the other day, talking about her various past relationships, and men who’ve said to her “I like the natural look” or “I like you without makeup” and she turned around and said that you cant dictate what makes a woman feel sexy. That’s what makes her feel sexy, so that’s what she’s going to wear. It’s her personality, don’t ask her to change. You either like it or you don’t!