WHO WORE WHAT WHEN

What is in my bag?

Another tedious post that has been well overdone by bloggers across the world. Weirdly it doesn't seem to get old for me, even though I have read umpteen variations of this exact same post concept. Enjoy.

My purse is full of business cards, post it notes, photographs with no room for any cash, so it generally floats about at the bottom of my bag. Many a queue has been held up while I rummage around the bottom of my bag while people moan and tut. I am that annoying person! My sister bought me the Urban Decay eyeshadow pallet for my birthday one year and I use it all the time. The colour titles Peace is the best! Piriton tablets in case someone tries to kill me by feeding me eggs or nuts, and my new favourite bird brooch from Hungry Designs. I also must be the only person in the world without an iPhone. If The Kenneth is reading this...I would like one for Xmas please...or as a Graduation present...whichever happens first (hopefully Graduation)!

My hot pink leather purse is by Loop from Urban Outfitters and has two wee rabbits on it. I have been scouring eBay for the green version with fruit appliqued onto the front, but have not managed to find it yet! Being a computer geek, I always carry my pen drive with me, just in case I need to quickly download an important conspiracy type file a la Sandra Bullock in The Net! My CK sunglasses that I don't get to wear that often due to the atrocious overcast/rainy/stormy weather that we have in Scotland. Always with my marketing head on, I make sure that I have some Glasgow Craft Mafia related promo materials, in this case, a postcard, on me.

Thanks for looking around my bag!

90s vintage? WTF?

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!

So...

Evans get a model that looks like a size uk 12, maybe a 14 tops, to feature in the campaign images for a store that has a size range of 16-22. Strange.

My favourite piece so far is definitely the purple sequins slouchy top.

Not strictly fashion related...

Well it is kind of. Jack had to 'dress a vegetable' for a school project. So we came up with this...

Living in La La Land...

When my sister and I were younger, we used to look longingly through my mother's catalogues which included Freemans, Empire, Kays, Brian Mills and Next. My mother never used to actually order anything so it was always a complete mystery as to why the things kept being delivered to the house every season. Anyway, we used to look at each and every page (yes, this activity occupied us for hours), including boring items like lawnmowers and cutlery, and we each had to choose one thing that we would buy from the page.

I still do this sort of thing now. I don't subscribe to catalogues, (in teh age of the internet, do they even still exist?), but only last night I had Topshop.com and Net-a-porter open in my browser, and said to myself 'right, if you could choose any amount of items, at any cost, what would they be?' I then proceeded to go through each category, adding things I liked to the online baskets. One of the rules of this hypothetical, pointless nonsense is that the items 'bought' have to be things that I would definitely buy and wear normally. No room for frivolity. This was serious.

Anyway, after all the items were added, I noticed something rather odd. My lala-land bill for Topshop was almost double than the Net-a-porter one. Scanning the Net-a-porter basket, there were only five items, yet in Topshop, there were 50. I had anticipated, given free reign, I would have went mental in a high-end designer shop, yet I had not. Don't get me wrong, there were loads of things that I loved on the site, but I guess the 'sensible' side of me was subconciously trying to get more bang for my buck!

Needless to say, this was a complete waste of 2 hours that could have been spent studying.

Here is some of my Topshop basket:

I have just realized, that this is probably why Topshop added a wishlist feature to their website. Doh!

What is wrong with me?

The Topshop Sale launched today and I didn't find one single thing that I was even remotely interested in purchasing. I don't normally shop in the sales, I avoid the shops like the plague in January. The mess, the crowds and the bitter dissappointment brought on by a wrongly priced item, is all too much to bare! I normally prefer to do my sale shopping online, but even today, the first day of the Topshop sale when, stock is still plentiful, and not many items in my size are sold out, I cannot find a single item that commands purchase. I think that working as a sales assistant in Topshop has traumatised me. Sales Assistants everywhere dread The Sales as it means one thing - staying in store later than normal to tidy up after all the messy shoppers! Obviously I am a considerate and tidy shopper and I am no longer contracturally obliged to tidy up other people's mess, but still...the feeling of dread continues.

The two things that I did momentarily consider buying (but didn't) were not by Toshop but in one of their concessions called Rare. As a Topshop employee, my fellow workers and I used to mock Rare as being a bit tacky, cheap and of low quality, and above everything else, not exactly fashion forward.

However, Rare, all is forgiven. This hot pink tulip skirt and grey jersey tulip dress are perfect and very reasonably priced considering these are first reductions. I have always loved this shape, and I will happily continue to wear it long after VOGUE deem it to be passe. I think it is flattering and reminds me of a Vivienne Westwood dress that I nearly  bought about three years ago on eBay.

I also found a wicker Fez Hat. When was this even full price? lol.

Poladroid...

Want to make your digital photos look like technological advances in photography never happened? Go to www.poladroid.net and download the software for free! I just did it and have transformed this pic of me and some mates, and one of Jack from last Christmas from high res digital uber-images to low-tech, vintage Polaroid nonsense.

I am bored.

la la la la la la la tonight!

Twiggy's Frock Exchange. gaaaaaaaaaaah!

dammed eBay & royal mail!

Due to eBay and their increasing greed, charging us little sellers with high fees, I decided almost 2 months ago not to sell there anymore. So with one final flourish of selling...I sold over 120 items in a fortnight...I bid them farewell.

I was absolutely raging to discover, after signing in the other day that I had a mountain of messages from buyers who have not received their items. Normally, eBay redirect my messages to my hotmail inbox. I hadn't received a single one!

About 15 people in total have not received their items from me...mostly personal items, not from Pistol Whip, but that is irrelevant. I am gutted to think that all these people think I have been ignoring them for such a long time. I have also received in the post about half of these items returned to me in the post undelivered with no explanation from the postman.

I think I got out from underneath eBay's clutches at a great time, but I hope these buyers understand that this is not my normal practice at Pistol Whip Vintage! Meh!

What was he thinking?

If you chop the heads off the Galliano models, and I am by no way condoning such action, the collection is pretty amazing...with sheer ruffled skirts and slouchy off the shoulder dresses.

It's something new and different, and I respect and admire that, but I don't really like fashion shows to resemble the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace! Your eyes are drawn, not to the clothing but to the madness on their heads!