Vintage - the dressing up box of shopping (and other top tips for shopping on a budget)

Playing with old styles is not something I've done that much during the so-far fashion education of my life. A want of funds however is changing this.

Preparing for my very first Mercedez Benz fashion week in Stockholm this week - rather lately, as in the weekend before, as I often find myself underprepared - I turned my attention to Stockholm's second-hand and 'vintage' clothes shops.

First port of call was Myrona near the shipping port of Frihammen. Here sits a rather a mammoth charity shop like nothing I've seen before back in the UK with three floors of second-hand clothes, furniture, books, bric-a-brac, fabrics - you name it.

Amongst the tired t-shirts and worn leather soles of 80s heels I came across an oriental-style powder blue dress for 105 kr (that's around a tenner in British Sterling). It was actually more than I wanted to spend believe it or not but the allure of this eastern wonder got me. It's the second second-hand oriental-style piece I'd bought in as many weeks without meaning to.

It's mid-length - sits just on the middle of the calf - that lovely slimming, womanly length and although I'm not really one for pastels, I am one for change, something different.

Spurred on by my Myrona buy, I headed to Beyond Retro in Stockholm's Sofo district; an area of cool hangouts, retro stores and a major hipster population.

There's a great range of vintage, retro and re-made items using old fabrics. The prices range from cheap to H&M prices but what's great about this and many other second-hand shops is the choice and the potential to look different.

I mentioned recently about my fear of becoming a Stockholm clone (http://stormonthecatwalk.blogspot.se/2013/08/i-think-im-turning-swedanese-i-think-im.html). Buying vintage is one great way around this. One man's rubbish is another man's treasure, and another woman's chance to buy something different. If fashion is about showcasing personality, it follows that buying only high-street brands where items are made en masse, the risk of losing one's personality amongst the clothes rails is high.

That said. Heading to high-street stores with sales that are hanging on for dear life after weeks on discount is another good place to head to. These are the heavily reduced items that utimately no one else wants - sometimes for good reason - but that are available to you for but a token.

I got a cute tee from Zara yesterday and a mottle green chunky knit jumper from Bik Bok, both for  49 kr each (that's a fiver each).

Don't say I don't ever share my secrets.

Enjoy MB Stockholm Fashion Week lovely people.

v

A few things I've learnt....

I recently bought a new t-shirt with my birthday money - nothing expensive - just a nice motif tee from H&M. Then I went camping. And I went bike riding. 

Word of warning, don't wear a brand new white t-shirt when you go on a bike ride - splatter back is not a good look and trust me, if you don't get the mud out as soon as... big fat mud-stained bummer.

V

Bridget has it 'all thought out'

Ok, so her name is not Bridget. Its actually Emma, but the wonderful beloved Bridget Jones was the inspiration behind my recent photo-shoot exploring notions of the fashion everyday and representation of character through fashion.

I think we pulled it off.

Hell, look at the bunny jumper for crying out loud. Meadham Kirchoff thank you for the inspiration, Its a Gift thank you for the bunny shaped jelly motifs.

Dynamite. 

v

a place for pastels

i'm quite keen on the idea of pastels. they look beautiful on the glossy pages of Elle or Vogue and utterly dreamy on the catwalk - Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren, Prada.

wonderfully sweet or sickeningly saccharine, whatever you may think of these floaty, airy-fairy spring tones, pastel shades can and do evoke a real sense of femininity. they may not empower women in an 80s power suit, high heel, red lipstick kind of way but what they can do is lift our spirits and heighten our senses of prettiness and girlish desire.

in itself, wearing pastels challenges traditional notions of what it is to be a powerful woman. in this day and age, we can wear head to toe shades of lemon, peppermint and dolly mixture pink and still represent a strong sense of independence, freedom and self because its not just about the trend, its about the attitude we wear with it. 

pastels needn't be soft or wishy washy. i for one like to embrace the childhood dreams of princesses, unicorns and fairies evoked by baby blue, sugary pink or lemon. 

pastels can be empowering purely because they make us feel good and pretty. they're just pretty for pretty's sake.

and what on earth is wrong with that?

v

 

Stuck on flowers

In my last post I suggested wearing flower stickers head-to-toe a la Christopher Kane would be something I would do.

Christopher Kane spring 2011

I didn't quite go that far but yesterday morning I found myself carefully placing pink rose stickers from a craft store on my arm. Not exactly chic I'll admit but there maybe something in this. Prettier than a tattoo and far more temporal, why shouldn't one decorate the body with print as well as one's clothing?

Fashion transfer stickers? Hmmm... maybe not.

Replaying

Fashion has a wonderful way of making everything ok.

Spring summer 2012 and fashion tells us it’s ok to dress like a dazzling twenties flapper (Ralph Lauren) or a souped up athletic taboggoner (Alexander Wang). 

Yet so often we just let these opportunities go by. As grown-ups, we are so concerned with other people and their perception of what we are wearing that often we don't have the cahoonas to wear whatever the heck we like and own it.

I am one of these grown-ups. But now that 2012 is here, a new year, I am resolving to try a little harder and take on the challenges fashion presents to us. 

You want me in pyjamas Stella, head to toe in a flowery stickers Mr Kane, ok.

So to get started and show willing, with the knowledge that fashion says its ok to do all of the above. I fashioned a dress out of disused Homebase warehouse packaging plastic, tied a piece of black ribbon around it, stuck on some Velcro, donned a pair of wellies and went skipping through the woods.

Peek-a-boo

Like a meercat in a sandwich bag, my eyes scanned the surroundings for any potential human movement before I remembered the brief I had set myself and started to have fun.

In the woods in a plastic dress. Enough said.

My experiment into plastic as fabric got me thinking about its previous outings in fashion. Way back in 1967 when Paco Rabanne was using the stuff in his designs, linking circles of plastic in pastel shades with stainless steel. 

Rabanne and Miyake do plastic fantastically

In autumn/winter 1980, Issey Miyake went super fetish sexy, constructing a pillarbox red plastic bodice which followed every contour of the beautiful female form - using plastic as second skin, Miyake synthesised the ultimate embodiment of Jessica Rabbit.

With the mass of gold seen in the autumn/winter collections (Gucci, Proenzer Schouler, Balmain etc.) and the gathering of ethereal, irredescent shimmering tones seen in this year's spring/summer collections (Christopher Kane, Maxmara, Chanel etc.), I decided to put my best foot forward and create my own metallic masterpiece.

Now I'm no graffiti artist, let me tell you, but I do feel there's a lot to be gained from having fun with a spray can. So I decided to get my Banksy on.

I was on a budget so I used a can of interior gold paint my sister gave me (the top had fallen off but this was fine, I could hold it). 

Attempting to be sensible, I took my chosen item of clothing (a plain cream M&S jumper), my can of spray gold, marigolds and a sheet of plastic into my open garage (lots of air is a must), shook the can and sprayed away. 

Unfortunately, my unending optimism didn't quite help the spray can top to stay firmly on whilst spraying, so as a consequence, there was a constant, very cold and very numbing drip of condensed gold paint dripping from under my finger.

I carried on regardless. There was nothing I could do to remedy the splodges which had already imprinted themselves onto the fabric and actually, I ended up quite liking the result. 

In under ten minutes I had created something very very slightly reminiscent of Proenzer Schouler’s electric catfish prints spring summer 2010.

Now, I like Proenzer Schouler.

Big time.

There is something so beautifully unintentional in their designs, I feel like I’m dipping into designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez's whirling brains when I watch one of their catwalks. The fabrics and prints are devastatingly sumptuous.

Obviously, my creation has no where near the skill of design or vision, but its definitely wearable and I've seen a lot worse. There's also something quite like Stella McCartney does military about it.

Jolly cold in gold

After my stint at reinventing an old jumper, I wished to carry on pursuing my new hobby so I took my inspiration from the warped Christmas season. 

I try to do my bit when it comes to the environment; recycling and reusing is a must in my house. So with Christmas long gone and crazed present opening well and truly over, it was time to reuse the poor wrapping remnants.

Sprucing up a cotton shopper bag with super shiny gold wrapping paper seemed the perfect antidote to post-Christmas boredom. After my dip into DIY accessorising, and whilst perusing online fashion magazines like a kid scans the toy section of an Argos catalogue, I found images of the delightful Blake Lively wearing Gucci’s gold leather pleated skirt and smiled with great satisfaction. The similarity in appearance of the two items was  uncanny. Well almost.

So, to sum up. I made a dress of plastic wrapping, pranced around in the woods wearing it, DIYd a gold Gucci-inspired bag, graffitted a jumper and wore it out on a cold day.

Fashion, BRING IT ON.

KL Doll

Screw the make-up range. Karl Lagerfeld as a doll is all I could ever want.

This little wonder should be in every child's stocking this Christmas. Style education.