90s DENIM DUNGAREE DRESS

Working in the city centre can be hard for a fashion lover. Surrounded by shops five days a week means you’re always exposed to the changing window displays of shiny new stock and those distracting Sale signs.

And while Canterbury isn’t exactly a fashion capital, it sure packs a punch for its size. Working at the far end of the stretch of shops and restaurants towards the bottom of town, I pass everything on my walk (sprint) to work. From Fenwick department store stocking designer handbags and higher end brands such as All Saints, to the Whitefriars shopping district encompassing trendy high street names like Zara, River Island and Topshop, and further down the main high street, cheaper New Look which pulls it out the bag on occasion, to preppy Jack Wills and chic French Connection. Not to mention the independent boutiques such as Angels and Peppermint down the cobbled side streets- waaa!

This would all be fantastic if I were there for pleasure rather than business, but feeling the post Christmas money strain, it’s tough. So I put my sunglasses on despite drizzly January weather, keep my head down and let my iPod playlist distract me. 

But you have to keep on top of the game somehow! Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m  a vigilant magazine lover. In my old apartment in Malta, living on my own for the first time, I  finally had the space to display my magazine collection in a giant oak bookcase in my bedroom. Stacks of Vogue, Teen Vogue, NYLON, I:D and Elle piled up high by my bedside, right where I could see them and dream about the dresses and shoes inside them that I couldn’t afford. Nowadays I’m more of a Grazia girl. Every Tuesday I hop two doors down from work to the newsagent and buy my £1.95 weekly fix of fashion, reviews, smart articles and a little bit of info on celebrities that I sort of care about. The cool ones.  

It keeps me informed as to what’s hot, from the trends that start on the streets, appearing on the backs of fashion editors and bloggers, to, of course, the catwalk, and what the designers have in store for us for the coming season and how their ideas have trickled down onto the rails of the High Street shops.

So with this in mind, you can make informed decisions when it comes to giving thrift shopping a go. Somewhat luckily, you might have noticed that the grunge look originating in the 90’s is huge at the moment and will continue to be throughout the summer. We’re talking ‘outgrown’ ombre hair, no matter how much you paid for it, to the beanie weirdly balanced up high on any self respecting hipster’s head, to the plaid flannel shirts over a tie dye t-shirt and under a man’s faded denim jacket... you get the idea. 

This is a great opportunity to have a look around your local charity shops, as although 1993, when Nirvana were at their peak, was 20 years ago, there are seemingly still some people that haven’t had a good wardrobe clear out since then. Hey, better late than never.

Model - Lonnie Beckley FM Models

I found this denim dungaree dress in Oxfam, in August last year. It was £4, and styled with the incredible Stone Roses t-shirt i mentioned in a previous post, completes quite the ensemble you might have worn to one of their gigs, if you weren’t still teething at the time. A super quick scan of ‘What’s New’ on the Topshop website presents this kinda identical copy. See what I mean?

1960s TARTAN MINIDRESS

This is another car boot sale find which i got from the Vittoriosa playing field bootfair in Malta as mentioned before. It is an original Italian branded 1960s mini dress with kilted skirt. Imagine my excitement when the lady said she wanted EUR 50c for it!

Model Lonnie Beckley FM Models

NAFNAF VARSITY JACKET

I'd just like to share with you this little baby I picked up for £2 at the Wincheap boot fair 

in Canterbury (near Morrisons car park) last spring. It's 90s Naf Naf and varsity jackets 

were a major trend last year so it was really lucky. I ended up selling it to my sister so I

could buy a bottle of vodka. Oh well, it looked better on her anyways and best to keep 

this sweet ting in the family.

Model Lonnie Beckley FM Models

BOOT FAIR SHOPPING

There’s nothing I like more than not being hungover on a Sunday. Unfortunately this doesn’t happen all too often. So when I’m not, I wake up as early as I can muster, throw on my fake fur coat over some shabby clothes and head down to my local car boot fair, a walk away at Herne Bay market.

There’s something invigorating about being up early in the crisp air when you’re not obliged to do so. There’s a noticeable difference between being out at 8 am when its not for your morning commute, with no makeup on and with no effort put in to what you’re wearing. Quite liberating really. That is probably the number one rule when it comes to shopping at boot fairs- no makeup and fashionable dressing to the wind. Make prejudice work in your favour... More often than not, goods on sale will not be priced up, letting the seller come up with a price on the spot, putting on your Sunday best is not going to do you any favours. In other words- dress poor. As well as this, stop into a newsagent’s on your way there and buy yourself the paper with a £10 note, you’re going to need change if you’re going to play the “ahhh i’ve only got 1.50” “ok go on then, love” game.

I like to take a roomy canvas bag along to carry my new finds in as more sellers might have forgotten to bring old carrier bags with them or have run out. If you’re specifically on the look out for dainty cups and saucers, (or deer ornaments) it’s always a good idea to bring along something to wrap breakable goods in (see i told you you should have bought that newspaper!). 

Once you’re there, take a deep breath and start tackling the rows from left to right, up and down. It’s quite fascinating seeing everyone’s unwanted stuff laid bare in front of you, it’s like people watching to the max. Looking through people’s old music is always insightful, (“Didn’t take you for a hair metal fan, sir”), and there are many bargains to be had for vinyl lovers like myself from older sellers streamlining their collections to save up for a holiday in the sun. Boot fairs are also gold mines for super cheap CDs. I love a good compilation myself, and NOW 38 for 50p is a great way of adding a bit of Chambawamba and Hanson to your iPod playlist before dropping it off to a charity shop. Even more so than charity shops, boot fairs are amazing for jewellery finds as more valuable stuff is less likely to be donated.

Try not to look too excited when you spot something you want, maybe pick something up then put it back and keep an eye on it before meekly enquiring how much they want for it rather than exclaiming to your friend that “Ohmigod that’s an original Vladimir Tretchikoff “Green Lady” painting waaa!”.

When it comes to clothes, don’t be shy to get on your knees and have a look through boxes on the floor, sellers might have put the stuff they see as most desirable out front but the stuff more to your taste might be hidden away at the bottom of the pile. 

Check for stains and holes in any clothing items, as contrary to charity shops, where they’re meant to chuck away any damaged items to be sold in bulk to the rag trade, anything goes at boot fairs. And unless you’re planning to cut that men’s Orlando t-shirt into a vest, you might not really want it if it’s got stains under the armpits- gross. 

Also, try to avoid the age old nouveau- thrifter mistake of buying something just because it looks  80s. If it was awful then, it’s still awful now. Think of it like a velour tracksuit a la Coleen Rooney, awful then, will sure as fuck still be awful in 15 years time.

The only exception goes for 90s gear. Anything goes, buy away.

Be tactful when trying to get a good deal on something. It might not look that precious to you but remember the seller has bought this stuff with their own money many years ago. It’s majorly annoying when it’s the other way round and some idiot’s trying to offer you a pound for a pair of jeans (“these are Miss Sixty! I LOVED them”)...Go ahead and test your bartering skills if you think an item is overpriced, but I’d rather lose 50p on something i like than lose all dignity. But on the other hand, these people want to get rid of their stuff and go out for a slap up roast afterwards, so asking for a discount when buying a few items together isn’t going to hurt. They don’t want to take anything home with them. 

On that point I might add that although turning up early is a great way to get all the good stuff before it all goes, turning up a bit later on the cusp of lunchtime is a surefire way to grab yourself some bargains off the sleep deprived sellers just wanting to leave (“Everything 10p!” or even better “Free! Take what you want you scavengers”). My boot fair bestie likes to start off at one site then drive to another in a neighbouring town when she’s done, arriving a bit later and getting the best of both worlds. Great idea.

Remember it’s always ok to make a few mistakes. It’s easy to get caught up in a moment of madness when everything’s so cheap. There was a time when i lived back in Malta and went to a car boot sale in my then hometown of Vittoriosa, (P.S it’s the best one on the island) and by the time I left I was the proud owner of 2 white pleather armchairs with orange cushions. Meeting the sellers the next week when they came to drop them off as planned was the equivalent of bumping into the person you met at a rave and vowed to keep in contact with, oops.

So just learn from your mistakes, donate the faux pas to charity and do the world a favour. 

xxx

CHARITY SHOPPING

There are no rules when it comes to thrifting, but charity shopping can be daunting when you’re just starting out. I’m going to lay down what I think are good guidelines to go by to get the most out of the experience and help you separate the tat from the treasure! 

Firstly, and perhaps obviously, you’re not going to find good stuff in every charity shop you go into. These organisations turnover stock that’s been donated to them by the public and they have no say in what ends up on the rails, the shops don’t have any sort of merchandise buyer and therefore there’s no saying which one is the “best” or “worst”. Therefore, you really do need to shop around!

I had the day off from work yesterday and went into Canterbury and did what I call “the rounds” (basically every charity shop in town!) and bought absolutely nothing at all. It’s so easy to get disheartened and put off but you never know what might be donated the next day! 

Because you have to go “shop-hopping” I always like to make sure I have a good few hours to myself to have a look around, on a day when no one’s waiting for me and I can take my time. I find it really relaxing to go charity shopping on my own, to take my time looking through the over-filled rails, rummaging through boxes and overhearing the general chit chat of the elderly volunteers. One thing I hate to admit, but can be quite heart-breaking is if you go with a friend with the same tastes as yourself, there’s a chance you might be left empty handed while she stumbles across an amazing vintage dress at the other side of the shop. Worst case scenario, and there’s no hope of buying the same one for yourself and planning to wear it on separate occasions, this isn’t Topshop baby. But that’s entirely up to you. You might want someone to come along to knock some sense into you when you’re contemplating buying something hideous.

That being said, you might want to give the hideous things a try. Once on, a mad jumper might look really cool with a pair of jeans and some ankle boots, and a floral grandma sundress might be perfect for a summer’s day in the park. Don’t forget you can always customise certain stuff, especially dresses, to suit you. Shoulder pads are easily unpicked, and if you’ve got a sewing machine, go ahead and hitch up the skirt from unflattering calf length to a mini! If you’re not the sewing type, you probably have a nifty friend who would do it for you, make sure to give him or her some money for it, they might become your secret weapon. 

One thing I must say is don’t kid yourself into thinking you can “take in” something that’s too big for you. Unless it’s 100 percent worth a chance, it’s most probably not going to work. These kind of alterations are harder than just lopping off a bit of the length, I would resign to putting the garment back and leaving it for someone else, karma babes. Same think goes for stuff that’s far too small. Although, if you’re quite petite, it might be a good idea to check out stuff on the children’s rails! Size 14-15 in kids wear is basically a size 8. I bought a lilac fur gilet from the girls’ section once and it’s amazing. Kidswear is usually a lot cheaper too! You might find a denim jacket that fits on the shoulders but the arms are too short, in which case, roughly cut the sleeves off, add a spray of diluted bleach and voila! You have to be open to thinking outside the box.

Be sure not to forget the men’s section as well. If you’re lucky you might come across a cool band t-shirt, like the faded Stone Roses one I bought recently for £2 that nearly brought tears to my eyes with the sheer luck of it. Also naff 90s sportswear is definitely having a fashion moment, and the menswear rails are where it’s at for that. A white FILA t-shirt with at least one piece of fake gold jewellery, some denim shorts and a ponytail is gonna look cool. 

Speaking of jewellery, charity shops are the place to be for sourcing out cheap and cheerful clip on earrings, rings, necklace, brooches... They can really make a difference to an outfit, a chunky gold chain worn under the collar of a polo shirt paired with a flippy skirt and cute flats is gonna take the outfit from overly preppy/pretty to something altogether more interesting. It’s all about the styling! I once had this teddybear brooch that I wore pinned to my beloved orange tartan 60s coat, he was so cute. He’s long lost but for 99p he lived a very fulfilling second life. I must add that brooches might seem hard to wear (“where the hell do I put this?”) but be inventive. A sparkly brooch can be a hair accessory, pinned to a ponytail band or fixed in to an up-do with hair pins, very 1920s movie star.

Look out for other accessories such as bags, belts and shoes too! I generally wouldn’t buy anything overly scuffed or worn in, neither would I buy any fake leather items. A thing I’ve found with vintage shoes, mainly low heeled courts, is that even if they fit perfectly, there’s a good chance they’re going to fall apart. It’s something to do with the ancient dried up glue which sets the suede or whatever to the sole of the shoe, and as what happened to me on two occasions is that your foot starts to slide out of the side where they’ve come apart at the seams. Not the best look... but they were worth it at the time and I got a few wears out of them!

Scarves are the real jackpot, in my opinion, when charity shopping for accessories. They’re unlikely to be more than a couple of quid and can drastically switch up an otherwise bland outfit by adding a pop of colour. When it’s so easy to be confined to darker colours in Winter, my bright pink tartan scarf takes my khaki parka, black jeans and biker boots to another level. Vintage neck scarfs can also be fabulous game changers. A floral scarf can be tied into a bow round your hair or dress up a plain handbag as easily as it can be used to cinch in the waist of a soft baggy tshirt dress for a girly day at the beach. Always look out for silk scarves, they’re much better quality and won’t keep slipping out of place like shiny synthetic ones will. Silk scarves are likely to be designer labels too, I’ve got a pretty Liberty print one and a loud tropical floral Pierre Cardin one, both from charity shops and if I’m not mistaken they were both 50p each. You could also cover a plain notebook in a silk scarf, or do whatever you want with it really for 50p. 

On a last note, city centre charity shops are always going to be more expensive than ones off the beaten track. They’re also more likely to have a “vintage section” which is quite a pet hate of mine as these have really only been introduced in the past five years when shops have cottoned on to the fact that some items are sought after, as a vintage, eclectic look has become a major trend and they “get it”. I wouldn’t have a problem with this if it wasn’t that the prices are majorly bumped up to vintage shop levels. Obviously vintage shops are businesses that rely on profit rather than a charity organisation and well, frankly I just don’t really like it and it kind of cringes me out.

You’re not going to find this happening in outer-city areas and it’s always a fun day out to get the train to a neighbouring town with a couple of friends and go explore the charity shops there! Because of the recession, rising rent prices and reduced business has sadly put a lot of shops out of business on the British high street, and that’s why there are a lot more charity shops which get their rents massively subsidised popping up, especially in lower-income areas. My idea of a perfect day would be a trip to a sleepy seaside town, somewhere like Ramsgate or Margate, taking time to have a look around the shops for cheap as chips loot, before heading to the beach with some actual fish and chips before calling it a day. 

INTRO

I’ve been meaning to start a blog like this for a while now, so I thought what better time to make things happen than January. 

I’ll start by introducing myself, I’m Nicole, currently 22 years old and I live with my boyfriend Dan and my deer ornaments in a sweet little one bedroom flat in a place called Herne Bay on the south east coast of England. There’s a small patch of sea that I can see only from where I’m sitting and that makes me very happy.

I haven’t always lived in England, I was born and raised in Malta where my dad is from and lived there until I was twelve, when I moved to a place called Canterbury with my mum and younger sister. I now work in Canterbury in a shop called Third Eye which sells band merchandise and alternative clothes and accessories. There is also a vinyl section at the back of the shop and a tattoo parlour and piercing studio upstairs. 

I like my job and being surrounded by music lovers and scene kids everyday, it keeps me in touch with street style of the youth of today, and also with the past- I have always loved old music of the fifties through to the eighties and have collected records since I was thirteen, which was a weird thing for a kid to do anyway, especially without a record player which I finally got for my sixteenth birthday. I loved the images and graphics on the record sleeves and the feeling of holding a piece of history, items older than me. This was around the same time I began a love affair with vintage clothes. The charity shops which I would scour for ages, to the dismay of my friends, connected me to a fantasy world in which I could only imagine what it was like to live in times gone by.

These meccas of unwanted goods were minefields to me, there is this excitement I get to know that you could come across almost anything if you were in the right place at the right time. Something that is unwanted by it’s previous owners but is potentially treasure to you. Treasure that you could, yourself, buy with the limited pocket money provided in your early teens. 

I’ve bought all sorts of shit from charity shops. It would peev my mother no end to see me return home beaming from a Saturday in town with my best friend with some bulging miscellanious carrier bag full of, what I can now confirm, was sometimes, junk. I once bought an 80s skateboard because I thought it “looked cool” and had these wacky graphics on it. Infact I bought two. The next time I saw an orange one with “NightMare” emblazoned across the grip tape I had to buy it, I reckoned I had some sort of rad collection going on. God only knows where those skateboards are now, but they made me so happy at the time, and served their purpose as props in mine and my best friend’s Myspace photos.

Nowadays I know exactly what I’m looking for. Actually, with vintage shopping you never know what you’re looking for until you come across it, there’s always that element of chance. But with years of practise, I now know what I’m not looking for, and that’s really the key that prevents you from becoming a hoarder and buying loads of rubbish you don’t really need and wont wear. In this blog I’ll be filling you in on my vintage shopping experiences, throwing in a few tips along the way. I hope that you enjoy my musings and might be inspired to get in on the thrill of shopping for pre-loved stuff, clothes that tell stories and are unique. You don’t need to follow the crowd and trends to look good, for real  style is classic and will never go out of fashion.

xxx