Inspiration: Twin Peaks

I've just finished watching the first series of Twin Peaks, how good is old TV?? I love Sherilyn Fenn's character Audrey, she's exactly the type of femme fatale lacking from current telly. Her outfits are particularly fab - close fit sweaters and plaid skirts with a perfectly permed bob - so 50s for the early 90s.

C x

Tulle Time

I love when tulle isn't a powdery or icy colour - the material is already so feminine, it's great to see it in some stronger colours.

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Charity Shop Finds: Karen Millen Top

Karen Millen knit zip-up top, £5.29 Barnardo's Stockbridge:

(I wanted to make sure it went with plenty of things in my wardrobe) 

I love the zip up the back. The material is a pretty thick knit, so I can see it being worn most during the winter.  I think purple is a really versatile colour, it really does go with pretty much any colour:

C x

Style Inspiration from Alice & Olivia AW11

C x

Banana Republic do Mad Men

Remember how much I have loved finding Banana Republic in the charity shops, like here and here? In the UK, they have 5 shops in London and one in Bath, so it feels like finding treasure when I spot something by BR here in Scotland. I doubt I will ever pay full price, despite the high quality, because the prices are a bit beyond a student budget. However, they've announced a collaboration with Mad Men costume designer Janie Bryant, and it's really making me wish I had lots of money: 

The right hand picture isn't far off what cardigan girls like to wear currently. And that trench is just awesome.

Houndstooth and pearls, headscarf and tweed suit! 

The gentleman's collection is equally gorgeous. I love that shawl collar cardigan.

And hats! I also love that those heels look like they could actually be walked in.

(Images from NYMag.com)

C x

Charity Shop Find - Belated June

Volunteering in a charity shop has been oddly cathartic. Being surrounded by clothes, good or bad quality, has made me appreciate the variety of clothes in my own wardrobe, and when it comes to my addiction to sales and special offers, realising that I can always pick up something similar for even less within four or five charity shops has stopped that feeling of missing out when I walk past a sale without looking in. 

Seeing the kinds of things people donate also reminds me of how ridiculous my consumerist desires could become. Trends barely a month old are recognisable among the recent donations, as more harem pants and floor length skirts than we can sell fill the rails. Sometimes these cast offs match the styles (but never the quality) of the vintage rail, and you can be damn sure it'll be in fashion again one day. A member of my family has this sussed, and deliberately puts clothes into storage, to discover them a few years later when they're next in fashion. Do you ever watch those Gok Wan TV shows where he visits the wardrobes of women with sales addictions, and they have cupboards and drawers bursting with clothes? We buy into the next trend, but where does really that get us? As I was wondering this, I looked through my wardrobe, and noted that since I stopped trying to keep up with trends, my clothes (now around 50% from charity shops) have started to become a cohesive collection of mix and match pieces (how often I would have to buy a new top to match a new skirt!), which offers the potential for longer term style. I may not look on trend, but the money I might be able to save and put towards a life experience (hello holiday) is, for me, worth infinitely more.

So here's the ONE new piece of clothing I bought in June, from Bethany Christian Trust on Hamilton Place. It's a gem, and I consider it underpriced at £5. 

Black wool Banana Republic kilt, £5.

(Antoni & Alison pink silk shirt, satin bow from the sewing kit, Dune pumps)

It's very, very heavy, so not really practical for summer. Oh, actually wait, I live in Scotland, it's probably completely appropriate for July (there were flash floods in Edinburgh, people lost their cars! In July!).

C x

Summer Sales

I hope you're enjoying the start of Summer and have got a good holiday or few days off booked soon. I'm still job hunting, probably because I'm far too fussy with jobs, so I'm avoiding the shops as much as possible. Which makes the fact that the Summer sales are almost here quite unbearable.

Since January I've managed to replace many of the clothes which were now too big for me (I lost a tonne of weight in the last year :]) and I'm nearing completing my wardrobe switchover, so I wouldn't have been looking for anything in particular either. I can safely stick to internet window shopping, and post up here the best of the bargains and the cheapest of the chips.

Artigiano jersey dress, £25 - It's a good day when one is in the position to be in the realm of spending money at Artigiano, it's seriously expensive. This dress has lovely detailing in the back, there's something a little bit 1930s about it that I rather like.

Artigiano pleated georgette skirt, £9 - Ignore the frumpy styling: these midi-skirts are quite trendy at the moment, and £9 for an expensive Italian version is rather good. Dry clean only though, but these types of skirts should all be.

Gap contrast collar shirt, £19.99 - maybe a touch more than you want to spend in a sale, but I love this fifties-style blouse, it reminds me of Frenchie in Grease.

Gap dot sweater, £9.99 - and this reminds me of something Grace Kelly would wear, thanks to that elegant drape neckline. 

Pepperberry wrap dress, £27.00 - What a pretty colour! I'm really into wrapover styles at the moment, I'm not sure they're strictly 'on trend' but they're classic and suit just about every shape. 

Florence & Fred (Tesco) scallop edge skirt, £7.50 - cheap cute with a capital C :)

C x

High Street Clothes in Charity Shops

When is it okay to buy high street in charity shops/thrift stores?

In my rules of charity shop rummaging, I wrote that in general, you want to go for vintage/designer and avoid high street clothes. But there are plenty of exceptions.

You can change colour, size, even decoration, but the one thing you can't change about clothes is the material. Clothes from the high street are often made as quickly as possible so that they reach the high street while the 'microtrend' is still in. To achieve fast turnaround, materials need to be easy to sew/print/size, so tend to be made from thinner, cheaper material, like thin cotton, polycotton and polyesters. By the time they reach charity shops/thrift stores, cheap material will be well worn, so if it doesn't look tired and worn yet, it may not be far away from it.

But sometimes, there are some real gems. High-end high street shops like Whistles, Hobbs, Jaeger, Cos, Banana Republic and LK Bennett produce high quality clothes, and charity shops in affluent areas frequently receive these types of donations.

Hence my love of the charity shops in Stockbridge, one of the most affluent areas in Edinburgh. Recently, I found this gorgeous Whistles top, featuring a crochet Peter-Pan collar, in Barnardo's. Whistles is a great, high quality company, so I didn't mind the £10 price tag, more than I usually think to spend on a top.

I'm currently job hunting, and I think this would be perfect for office-wear with a smart pencil skirt and cute Mary-Janes. Very Emma Pillsbury from Glee.

(source: What Would Emma Pillsbury Wear)

Franca at Oranges and Apples recently wrote an excellent guide to Edinburgh Vintage and Charity Shops, outlining the best places to find good quality pieces. One shop I'd additionally recommend is the Shelter shop on Teviot Place (Bristo Sq). Its vicinity to the university means there's a great mixture of clothes. I picked up this Banana Republic wrap cardigan for a bargain £5 (the buttons on the sleeves, ohmyIlovethem):

And that's the plaid skirt I got in the Lands End sale a couple of months ago - I LOVE burgundy :)

But I don't want you to think I don't appreciate low and mid high street brands! They regularly make good quality clothes, but finding them in the jumble of charity shops might just require an extra bit of rummaging.. Charity shops have become more savvy in recent years to only stock good quality clothes, and send worn, overused clothes to fabric recycling companies. These can be made into blankets for the homeless and for the Red Cross. This is why you shouldn't bin clothes, even if they're ripped or stained - still donate them!

C x

Tulle Time ~ Cardigan Love

It was only a matter of time.

(image via fairycandles)

If I was a lady in the 1950s, I would wear cropped cardigans and tulle tea skirts all the time, for dinner dances or just sipping a Martini on the porch.

Charity Shop Finds May

Bad blogger, I've had a week off to finish all my uni work (I finished my degree, woo!) and then some time for catching up on sleep. As soon as I let my body relax a bit, I pick up a throat infection. Not fair :(

I've only had the briefest of brief looks so far this month, I took two pals to the Royal Mile shops, and although they didn't find anything special, I was lucky and found a cute flared skirt by Limited Collection at M&S (£7).

(styled with navy, apologies for the rubbish photo, the reluctant photographer is busy)

It's the oddest material, a bit like a waterproof jacket, but I just loved the detail on the button-up front. 

I'm not entirely sure what to wear with it, I was thinking just a plain white tee as a distant homage to Jil Sander SS'11:

But it would be nice to do something more adventurous. Black seems a little easy, so I'm thinking of other colours which would pop off the pink, rather than having a single accent colour:

C x

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