Style on Sundays: Purple Hat Vintage

For the past couple of years Vintage fashion has been on the up and up, so much so that if it’s vintage that you want it’s vintage that you’ll get without the hassle of rummaging through heaps and heaps of clothes, accessories and even home ware in your local charity shops, flea markets or your mom and nana’s wardrobe. Now you can head straight to your high street and pop into the likes of Topshop and Urban Outfitters and purchase your non authentic vintage ‘style’ ensemble for a not so much vintage price.

Some authentic vintage items can be high in price while others can be absolute sweet finds that cost you peanuts, but look like they cost a bomb.  So with Vintage fashion growing in popularity over the past few years, it’s only natural that like everything else these days that once would have cost you £3, will probably now cost you almost £30, even in some of these real vintage shops that shall remain nameless.

Before Christmas my sister kept telling me about this Pop up Vintage store that had opened in Birmingham City Centre on New Street. She told me that it was this cool Vintage clothing shop that stock hand-picked items from Europe and the USA and that you can fill a sack bag with items and pay per bag. But busy body lazy me dragged my feet with getting there to check it out, so the other day my amiga and I were nearby so we decided to pop in and this is what we found…

If you go in you’ll actually find a guy in a purple hat manning the shop too. On the day that we went in, there wasn’t a great deal of selection but still, what was there was my kind of price. The Levi Denim shorts were only 10 quid!! Most vintages shops that I have been in have them priced between £25 to £30 so they were a bargem (bargain gem), and leather and fur jackets for a tenner! In fact everything in the store is £10 or below! 

The day that we took a looksee, only the down stairs was open but the dude in the purple hat (his name’s Gary) told us about some exciting new plans for the shop which at this point I’m not sure if I can or should share, because I would hate for someone else to come up off of his brilliance, but if you like music and cafe culture I’d definitely pop in sometime on the early side of 2013 and get involved in the vintage-ness.

So if you’re looking for something vintage and don’t want to pay silly prices for it, I would definitely recommend popping  in to the Purple Hat Vintage Pop Up Bazaar to see what goodies you can find.

They are situated on New Street, Birmingham next to Café Rouge near the Floozie in the Jacuzzi aka TheRiver, you can also check them out online and Like the Purple Hat Vintage page by clicking here me dears.

 

 

Love Sara (A little lady who loves her some Vintage Bargains). xxx

Style on Sundays: Styling it D.I.Y

It should come as no secret that I love style and fashion which means that my credit card is constantly being abused.

At the end of every year I go through my paper work aka receipts and bank statements and have this horrific reality shock of how much money I’ve spent throughout the year which is always a lot more than I had literally bargained for and become ashamed and annoyed at the fact that the majority of the hard earned money I have spent was thrown away on clothes that to be perfectly honest I really didn’t need.

So last year as an attempt to keep costs down and to also release my creative streak I decide that I had to try and find a way to stop abusing my bank cards but still be able to fulfil my style wants and needs, so I signed up for a sewing class.

The shame in all of this is that I actually learnt how to use a sewing machine in school but decided after one or two attempts that I was a crap at using it so gave up all hope and besides I thought to myself why do I need to learn how to make clothes when I can just buy them. So some ten odd years later when I learnt about the value of money and also the recession, there I was with my sewing basket rushing to night school after a hard day’s work to re-learn how to wind the bobbin up.

Most people in the class were working from patterns which is a great skill to have, but I am just way too impatient for all of that jazz. I wanted to be able to look at an item and say “Yep I can make that”. So going against what my dress making teacher advised I did just that, but of course I had to start off with a bit of guidance so I took my quest to the World Wide Web and found a skirt that was simple, easy and stylish.

If you are a regular follower of For the Love of Moi you may be familiar with a blog called A pair & A Spare this is my favourite blog for DIY tips guides and inspiration and this is where I found the ‘How to’ for this beautiful Sheer Maxi skirt.

      

Image sourced from A Pair & A Spare

What people were paying 30 odd quid for on the high street cost me a fiver to make and it was soooo easy to do.

 

As New Year ’s Eve is tomorrow which usually means that people are rushing around town to find a last minute outfit to wear to see the New Year in with style, A Pair & A Spare’s Geneva posted a DIY ‘how to’ for this amazing Sequin Maxi Wrap Skirt

Image sourced from A Pair & A Spare 

I love the way Geneva has teamed this lush glam skirt up with a simple white cut off top, it dresses it down a little but gives the outfit a fresh and yet still elegantly modern edge.

I am not doing anything fancy this New Year’s Eve but if I was I would deffo be making this skirt.

As for my sewing and DIY skills for 2013, I aim and I quote ‘aim’ to buy my own little sewing machine and make and modify more clothes to save my self some serious money and to add a bit of individuality to my wardrobe.

Love Sara (A little lady full of optimism). xxx