Winterising My Wardrobe

Living in the UK there's no real need for a dedicated Autumn/Winter wardrobe, apart from the odd blip here and there, we never really experience the extremes of temperature my blogging friends in other parts of the world have to cope with. Despite the incessant rain, the past couple of weeks have remained a steady 17°C, pretty much the same as we had throughout August. Whilst my skimpier dresses and bikinis have been stowed away in the suitcase on top of the wardrobe in readiness for January's Indian adventures (which we booked last week - yay!) and the peep toe clogs & sandals packed away in my straw basket at the bottom of the wardrobe, with a bit of creativity there's no reason on earth why I can't keep wearing the rest of my wardrobe all year round. I love my vintage clothes far too much to mothball them for six months.

At the height of the summer I wore this 1970s Rumak cheesecloth dress, which I found in Oxfam, with clogs, sunglasses and a vintage straw basket.

Fast forward two months and I've added a 1970s deadstock skinny rib polo neck (eBay), my vintage lace-up boots and tooled leather bag (both car boot finds), a charity shopped wide-brimmed wool hat and a tooled leather belt from out of the three for £1 basket in the charity clearance shop. I bought the enamel Rajasthani earrings in India. 

I swapped this vintage Phool block printed midi with a trader friend the week that Slow Fashion Season kicked off back in June. 

Showing uncharacteristic restraint I decided to wait until I was back from Greece to wear it - which cheered me up no end.

I teamed the dress with an early 1970s Phool quilted block printed waistcoat (EyewoodWake Vintage), Aldo wool trilby hat (charity shop), a late 1960s Pakistani mirrored velvet bag (jumble sale) and the chazza shopped olive green velvet boots I acquired the same day, they seem destined to spend their lives together. I'm not a typical blogger in that I get no pleasure from wearing tights and I'll prolong the agony of having to wear the hateful things for as long as possible. I spotted a basket of brand new TopShop lurex lace-trimmed ankle socks in a charity shop last year and, at three pairs for £1, bought the lot. The lace trim is perfect for filling that annoying gap at the top of the ankle boots.  

This gauzy Indian cotton dress was a £10 bargain from eBay back in March and worn with clogs was a go-to dress for much of the Summer. On closer examination, it appears by the ginormous hem that she's actually a maxi dress but I'm keeping her midi length, I think she'd look a bit nightie-like if I mess around unpicking it.

This morning I've popped a bodysuit and a pair of leggings underneath and treated her to an exciting visit to the builder's merchant!

The 1950s leather bag was a jumble sale find and the lion buckle leather belt another bargain from the 3 for a £1 basket. The silver Turkoman earrings were a lucky eBay discovery as were the Doc Marten oxblood Darcie boots. I've been kicking myself not buying these boots when they were launched back in 2006, I've only had to wait 13 years to find a pair within budget! Of course the best thing about buying your Docs secondhand is that someone has already gone through the agonies of wearing them in so they're insanely comfy!

During Slow Fashion Season I made a decision not only to refrain from buying new clothes, which as like-minded women, I'm sure you'll agree wasn't really that much of challenge, but not to buy any new cosmetics, instead using up what I'd already got.

Talk about good timing. Just when the challenge came to an end my beloved Barry M launched their new 70% organic Green Origin nail paint, so I splashed out on three classic Vix colours.



Apart from wearing clothes, booking flights to India and embarking on a DIY project (more on that soon!) life's pretty much as normal as our life ever can be. Now that the festival season is over we can go back to buying our fruit and veg from the market - look at all this for less than £10! There were actually three cauliflowers but I couldn't fit them all in the photo....

We've found a few proper vintage gems in the chazzas. Last Tuesday BBC's Bargain Hunt did a feature on the desirability of 1950s Horrockses dresses (HERE) and the following day I found one in a charity shop, talk about a bizarre coincidence.

On Sunday we traded with the fantastic Pop-Up Vintage Fairs in London's super posh Hampstead. Both my late 1960s psychedelic maxi dress and Jon's Leon Patton 1970s wool blazer were charity shop finds during the week both of which we decided needed to be in our wardrobes rather than on the Kinky rails.

Photo courtesy of Pop-Up Vintage

The venue had changed since we'd last traded in Hampstead and our hearts sunk when we were told that we'd be trading on the fourth floor! Luckily the ground and first floors were below street level so the fourth floor was actually the second floor and with a ramp, two lifts and our trusty sack truck (bought after Jon injured his back last year) we were set up and ready to go in less than an hour and a half. Phew!

We had a fantastic trading day selling to vintage enthusiasts from as far afield as Canada, Australia, Japan, India, the USA, Italy and Spain and, of course, the Horrockses dress was one of the first things to go. We chatted to film makers, Helena Bonham Carter's next door neighbour, Johnny Marr's best mate and spotted a few celebs. As always I was thrilled to see these two incredibly stylish women and, as always, they found a few pieces to tempt them on our rails.

Thanks so much for all the 10th blogoversary wishes and all your lovely messages and emails, I promise to reply individually as soon as I can!

See you soon.