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Chanel-style jacket
This post has been a long time coming!
I bought this fabulous colourful jacket last year in a thrift store in San Francisco called ‘Out of the Closet’ (!!). The first time I saw it I knew that its loose weave fabric with golden threads wanted to be a Chanel-style jacket, but didn’t really want to take on such a large project. I changed my mind and had to go back and get it the day after! I paid US$ 8.50.
Making a jacket in the famous Chanel style was not a quick project, but I do love the finished jacket and wear it often, so it was worth it…
Florals? For Spring? …Groundbreaking.
“Florals? For Spring? …Groundbreaking.”
Take a look at these beauties! They are Floral with a capital F. They are also 100% silk.
I got them in the Save the Children shop in Whitby a really long time ago, but the swing tag is missing, so I can’t remember how much I paid. It was less than £5.
Inspiration for this project came from Stella McCartney Spring (“Resort?!”) 2013, also seen on Kirsten Dunst. It’s an interesting look – and it takes a brave person to wear matching florals – but it’s so fashion forward I just couldn’t resist. The top and shorts can always be worn separately.
Turqoise obsession
Here’s a quick and easy make that is perfect if you’re off on holiday and need some co-ordinating items for your holiday capsule wardrobe.
Personally I was looking for something turquoise as I had planned on packing several items that had turquoise as a base colour or a detail colour. Turquoise dominated my summer wardrobe last year; I guess you could say it became something of an obsession!
I bought this T-shirt in the perfect colour – £2.99 from the PDSA shop in Whitby.
Mellow Yellow
Another set of summery holiday pictures, I’m afraid!
This pale yellow men’s shirt is from the British Heart Foundation shop in Whitby and cost £3.30. It’s a rather large size 17.5. The reason for choosing a shirt so large is that the collar was a massive 17.5 inches, making this year’s trend for wearing button up shirts with the top button done up a lot more comfortable.
Blue silk
I picked up this lovely blue silk dress in the Cancer Research shop in Whitby for £6.00. It’s really beautiful silk and it has some small beads embroidered on the skirt too. Unfortunately, it’d been well worn and the underarms were pretty grubby. Plus as you can see it didn’t fit at all.
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Dip dye
Happy New Year, readers!
To help fight those winter blues, I’m going to show you a few projects that I did for my summer holiday wardrobe back in September, starting with a rather nice blouse.
This 100% cotton blouse is so thin it’s pretty much cheesecloth. I bought this in the St Francis Hospice Shop in Romford for a very reasonable £3.00.
It’s size 14 but I’m going for a loose fitting look so I left the size as-is.
Dip dyed garments were very popular with DIY bloggers over the summer as the ‘ombre’ look was so popular, so there are a million tutorials out there about this; here’s my take on it anyway. Continue reading
Happy Diwali!
Happy Diwali to those out there celebrating! This year I was invited to a Diwali party at my friend’s house, and she encouraged all the guests to come in Indian style outfits. Of course I jumped at the opportunity to wear a sari! And me being me… of course, I am making one.
Making a sari is not that tricky. In its most basic form, it’s around 5 metres of material with some trim sewn on, plus a sari blouse which is very fitted and does not reach the waist, and a basic underskirt with a drawstring. The hardest part is really the blouse; my friend told me that these are always custom-made for the wearer. The real difficult part is in wrapping yourself in the sari, making it look good, and not just like you got tangled in some curtains. Luckily I had my friend (an experienced sari wearer) to help me.
Anyway… after many months searching for 5 continuous metres of fabric in any charity shop, I went to Walthamstow and bought 5 metres of (new) chiffon-y curtain fabric from the Textile Centre. It’s cream and teal with flowers printed on a woven satin-y pattern (more pics below). I also picked up some muslin for the underskirt there. Further down the high street, searching for trims, I stumbled into a shop which sold pretty much ONLY Indian-style trims. It was like Aladdin’s cave… completely incredible. I will definitely be back. The trim I settled on was teal and gold, quite wide, and £1 a metre. There were 8.5 metres left on the roll, and I took it all!
So, the sari blouse. They are usually cotton, but I’m cheating a bit and using a stretch fabric. I picked up this ugly blouse in the Scope shop in Walthamstow for £3.95. It’s a perfect cream colour to match my ‘sari’. It’s a kind of permanently crinkled polyester which stretches a LOT.
Pattern Magic: Union Jack
I didn’t do a Halloween costume this year (check out last years’ costume here), but hopefully this makes up for it.
Here at Charity Shop Chic towers, any excuse for fancy dress goes! My friend J, who is American, hosted a party a few weeks ago to celebrate living in the UK for 7 years. The Anglo-American dress code was ‘red, white and blue’, which gave us a lot of scope… obviously I wanted to go as something British. Something patriotic. And something red, white and blue…
For raw materials I selected this rather boring blue men’s shirt from the British Heart Foundation shop in Balham. I paid £2.99.
The shirt itself is quite a heavy synthetic material which has a wierd texture to it.
With this project I am also taking part in the Sew2Pro Pattern Magic challenge, in which we are attempting different makes from any of the three ‘Pattern Magic’ books by Tomoko Nakamichi. I have been a fan of the books for a long time but have not had any success with the really rather complex patterns thus far, so it’s got to be time to give it another shot.
I’m attempting what looks like one of the easiest patterns in the book – ‘Like a Jungle’. It divides the front bodice into four overlapping segments.
Can you guess what I’m going to do with this? That’s right – a Union Jack!
Carrie Bradshaw Month 2: Drunk at Vogue!
And for the Grand Finale of Carrie Bradshaw Month (2)…. one of my favourite ever Carrie outfits!
But first… this story starts with a coincidence. It’s often tough to find things in charity shops when you have something specific in mind. I had been looking for pinstripes for quite some time, but they had been eluding me, until I found this:
It’s pinstripe material! It’s so rare to find material in charity shops here that I grabbed it and ran to the cashier as quickly as possible. This was in the PDSA shop in Whitby and I paid £2.49. The original label was still attached, telling me that the fabric had originally been bought at a shop about 50 yards away on the same street and that it had cost £3.50.
Unfortunately, the label couldn’t tell me what the material was made of, but I’m guessing wool-mix.
Here’s the coincidence part. After searching for pinstriped stuff for so long and striking gold at PDSA, not 5 minutes later I came across these babies in the Scope shop, which is practically next door!
They are mens pinstripe suit trousers and they are 100% wool. I paid £7, which is rather a lot. They were carrying a label which proclaimed them to be especially high quality.
Of course, I had the pinstripe material in my hand from next door so I was able to compare them in the shop, and happily, they are a very decent match (better in real light than in the photo below).
The outfit I had in mind is the absolutely fantastic suit worn by Carrie when she goes for her first meeting with her new editor at Vogue! This is a personal favourite for me and I was delighted to finally have the chance to attempt this.
Carrie Bradshaw Month 2: …and isn’t afraid to ask
Readers, despite my diligent searching over the last 6 months, it turns out it is actually incredibly hard to find a tutu in a charity shop in this country. Who would’ve thought, eh?!
So I had to resort to a vintage shop to find this baby… £14.99 from Rag n’ Bone in Deptford.
I’m sure you all know what I have got in mind for this…
Charity Shop Chic 