After nearly four years of running Pistol Whip Vintage.com and seven years selling vintage on eBay, I am closing the store. My heart isn't in it anymore, what with being bogged down with Uni and Styling work, and also the imminent launch of the magazine. It will be a sad time as I put so much work into it, but I cannot wait to get stuck into my new little venture!
As a self proclaimed Vintage Aficionado, I am always excited when new vintage shops spring up on the internet. Despite running Pistol Whip Vintage, I still shop other stores all the time, as I am constantly on the look out for fab vintage. I heard about Bitching & Junk Food a while ago and immediately forgot all about it, only to be reminded today by Topshop's Inside Out Blog.
My first impression was 'Wow!' finally some UK vintage sellers who are making an effort with their store photography and styling. I think that because I am so used to 'clever' USA based vintage sellers such as Nasty Gal, Bleubird and Urban Collection, it is always such a letdown looking at UK based online vintage stores that utilize tailors dummies as opposed to live models and have next to no photo editing skills or computer know-how.
On closer inspection, I realized that they only sell '80s and 90s vintage'. Whit? 90s vintage? I can understand 80s vintage, but 90s??? Maybe I am getting old, and need to understand that there are obviously a load of new younger, whippersnapper type vintage buyers and sellers who don't remember the horrors of bomber jackets and cheap synthetic shell suits from this era.
Personally I think that for an item to be classed as 'vintage' it needs to be a minimum of 25 years old. The Vintage Fashion Guild agree. The prices are steep, with some 90s dresses selling for £50/£60 and earrings at £18. In stark contrast to this, I was excited to read that they will be having giveaways! More info can be found on their site nearer the time.
The store has some nice pieces. I especially like this fringed leopard scarf and Kiss t-shirt:
and some really awful (90s?) pieces...
The styling was a bit off in some of the pics, a lot of it being a bit 6months ago. After a while, if I had seen a pair of these on the models, I wouldn't have been surprised:
Still, I feel I should applaud the people behind the store for attempting to give those pesky USA based vintage sellers a run for their money! The reason why those sellers are so popular and successful is because they pay close attention to what is on the runway, and are extremely good at forecasting trends and styling the shoots to replicate them as closely as possible. This, unfortunately is where B&JF falls down. But they are new and hopefully will go from strength to strength in the future and wave the flag proudly for British UK sellers!
