New stock: super sweet summer vintage dress

This vintage dress is so lovely! I found it in South London earlier this year. It's around 1950s or 1960s. It's a white knit fabric, with contrasting pale cornflower blue strips and a belt. It has a matching cardigan/jacket, which makes it very useful. The hem has been turned up too, so if you're tall, there's another few inches it could be let down (I'm 5' 5").

On sale now on eBay! Happy bidding :)

Blogs of interest: The Girl Can't Help It Vintage Blog

I prefer to put blogs up here that are starting out but I couldn't resist 'The Girl Can't Help It Vintage Blog.' Along side posts about vintage, there are some brilliant random finds. For example, check out handerpants...

Yup, that's handwarmers made to look like y-fronts. I kid you not. I think they might actually be real, they have a website and everything.

Full of treats like that!

New stock: beautiful summer vintage dress

What a gorgeous dress brought to you by boy und schwester vintage clothing! I found this little gem in South London a few weeks ago. It's in very good condition with no staining. It's white knit fabric with a gorgeous cornflower blue stripe running through it. There's a matching cardigan that's very cute and makes it very versatile. It's mid 1950s but is still a bargaineous $50/£25!

On sale here, at boy und schwester's vintage clothing shop on Etsy.

New stock! Beautiful 80s belt

New stock! Finally!

A small string of accessories will be put up over the next week and here's the first item, a lovely 80s belt. It's navy and beautiful. I wish it fitted me, but it's too small :( I hope someone out there fits it and can enjoy it! A bargain at $18.
Look at it here and the rest of it my shop here!

1950s dress with incredible strip skirt

Photo from MyVintageVogue.com
This dress is incredible. It looks so modern yet it's old. Does anyone know anything more about it? It reminds me of Prada Autumn/Winter 2009.
Photo from Style.com
I think the idea would lend itself very easily to a DIY project. You could even just buy a leather pencil skirt and slice it up. Simple.

More vintage interiors...

I thought the last post I wrote on vintage interiors was fairly rubbish to be honest! I surprised anyone read it at all! So here's a better one...

I don't know about you, but it can be easy to get into the habit of thinking the past was always nostalgic and twee. For example, the imagined 1950s often look this:
When in reality, it was a decade with as much cutting edge design as now. The Royal Festival Hall was built in 1951 for the Festival of Britain (note that the shell centre hasn't even been built yet!)
The 1950s also gave us numerous awesome pieces of Ercol furniture. These tables were designed in 1956.
Funnily enough, these tables are still on sale at the Royal Festival Hall, at their shop on Festival Terrace. I'm lucky enough to have a couple of my own Ercol chairs - the spindel back kind.

This reminds me of the modern Bang and Olufsen phone shaped like this.

A really great place to get vintage interior style ideas is from vintage fashion photography. A great way to combine two passions - vintage fashion and vintage interior design! Here are a selection from My Vintage Vogue, a website with a brilliant selection of vintage fashion photographs.





Vintage fashion photographs all from My Vintage Vogue.

Now you can lust over vintage clothes and vintage interior design!

Very expensive trousers similar to cheap ones I have for sale...

Ha ha, a totally blatant bit of self-advertising, for which I make no apologies, but how similar are these £300 trousers from Liberty to the red harem/peg ones I have on sale?!

Best of all mine are only £18 including postage! I've even shown you a good way to wear them. And you can guarantee that no-one else will have them, as they're vintage. You also get to say something along the lines of 'oh, I discovered them at this darling little vintage shop online... oh no, I couldn't possibly give you the name, best kept secrets and all that.'

ps - please actually tell them the name! :)

Vintage fashion

As you may have noticed from my posting, while I proclaim a love for vintage clothing, I don't wear vast amounts of it on a day-to-day basis. Most of the time it's just vintage jewellery or vintage accessories.

There are number of reasons for this.

1. I'm not into rockabilly or anything similar and don't like feeling as if I am an extra in a period film.

2. I don't have the lifestyle requirements to wear my favourite vintage dresses, which are all smart and tailored. I walk to work and can wear jeans. If I tottered about every day in heels and a wiggle skirt, I'd look stupid.

3. I like to look modern and fresh at the same time as wearing vintage clothing. Here's a perfect example of what I mean:

Photo from the Style Scout.

This girl's complete outfit is vintage. Yup, even the trousers. Yet because she's combined up-to-date colours (the pink is very this season) with an interesting variety of silhouettes, she looks incredibly modern. An inspiration to us all, especially if we want to wear vintage clothing but not look like we're about to take our pinny off to freshen up before our hard-working husband's get home from a long day at the office.

Having said that, I do wear older vintage clothing but it does tend to be saved for more special occasions. I'll post pictures separately.

Blogs of interest: The Fashion Forecast

Another blog I'm enjoying is The Fashion Forecast by Hanna Heichler (the address is actually hannaheichler.blogspot.com.)

It's a fun fashion blog with lots of news and updates. Chanel's Particulière nail varnish? It's back in Selfridges! It's on Fashion Forecast and there's even Selfridges telephone number on there to help you get it!

Another great story is that Erin O'Conner is the new face of Hovis. Yup, the face of a loaf of bread. Actually, more truthfully, Hovis are supporting a sandwich designed to feed models healthly over fashion week at The Model Sanctury, which Erin set up. The full story's here. She also recommended Miss Kitty Litter Vintage, which I will second, for it's thoroughly awesome name!!! It's got a nice selection of vintage and is in it's early days so have a look and support it. I love this brooch - such a shame it's gone! It was perfect too - really big, about 12cm long. I would have loved wearing it.

My favourite Sartorialist photo ever?

Photo from The Sartorialist (sorry, hope he doesn't mind!)

I adore this photograph. I think it comes close to absolute perfection. My favourite from The Sartorialist so far (although to be fair, I haven't gone through all of the archives yet, I save them for treat days!)

The lighting in this is just so, so good. The colour, the pose, the clothes, the lighting and the back ground remind me of vintage fashion photography. Maybe 1950s or early 1960s. Yet it looks totally modern and fresh.

Genius at work.

ps - I saw Scott Schuman and Garance Dore the other day in Berkeley Square. They look every bit as gorgeous and put together in real life. It made my week. I'm not kidding.

A little bit of what I'm wearing...

For some reason I was immensely pleased with yesterday's outfit. I think mainly because it was a day I wasn't doing anything and could have got away with zero effort - i.e. an old t-shirt and jeans. Somehow the whole thing just came together really easily. It was very comfortable but felt rather effortless and chic - or would have done if the shirt was ironed. I really need to buy an ironing board.

A Reiss jacket on sale about 6 years ago, H&M blue grandad collar shirt (btw, who else is massively excited that H&M will be selling online soon?!), Accessorize flower necklace on sale, Zara jeans, my current Converse trainers and some Cath Kidson red fingerless gloves (they don't stock them anymore, but I found these ones on Etsy which I love.)

The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that's none of it is vintage... that's right, I love and sell vintage clothing but don't wear it all the time. Shock horror! Well, I don't wear vintage all the time, and I'm not ashmamed of it! It's something I intergrate into my wardrobe but it's not a way of life or dressing. More on this subject anon, for there is plenty to say.

The gloves were a final touch, I liked the extra shot of colour they added. I wore them all day - they're brilliant, on a string, like children's gloves. Very useful for sitting at a cold computer when your blogging!

Thanks to my lovely flatmate for taking the photos.

Oh, and don't forget to check out the shop, the free shipping promotion only lasts until the end of February! That's Sunday!

Blogs of interest: Matisse Forman

I thought I might start a weekly feature on interesting vintage fashion blogs I come across. For the first one, it's an Australian blog called matisseforman.blogspot.com.

Matisse Forman is a model and stylist based in Brisbane who together with a creative team express their 'passion of creating beautiful images that are visually delicious through fashion, art and photography.' And they certainly are lovely images! Mainly using vintage clothing, they create images with a slightly dreamy, nostalgic flavour that are saturated with colour, keeping them modern and fresh. One to watch in my book!

A few favourite images...

How beautiful is this image! I love the hair and flowers. It reminds me of Roberto Cavalli Spring/Summer 2008 'candyfloss hair.'

The smoke in this picture is just so atmospheric. I'm not encouraging you to smoke now mind you!

New stock

Ooh, I'm excited about the new stock we have in! And, not only that, we have better photos of the old stock. Can't ask for more than that.

Red harem trousers

Spotty red shirt

Remember I made the What Katie Wore t-shirt? Here it is again! Multi-coloured blazer

Awesome 80s blazer

Green 80s jacket

Acorn jumper

Denim shirt

Mustard shirt (on a side note, I don't know how many of you will remember the last time wide leg trousers were cool, but these grey ones are from them.)

I'm not exactly fond of this photo of myself, however, I do love the trousers.

Mustard coat

Yup, those are Alexander McQueen heels. They're NOT for sale. The almost equally awesome cardigan is.

Getting inspired by the latest Prada and Celine campaigns with headless models. A lovely 40s silk shirt.

A lovely 70s/early 80s shirt.