Links á la Mode: Right Sized April 30, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Fashion, Links á la Mode.Tags: Fashion, Links, sharing, style
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Edited by Retro Chick
Hello and welcome to Links á la Mode!
This week I’ve noticed a few posts on the theme of body size issues, with 39th & Broadway asking whether the Fashion Industry is to blame for our skinny bitch obsession, The Curvy Fashionista interviewing the brains behind Full Figure Fashion Week and Dramatis Personae introducing us to plus size fashion line B &Lu.
Also in this week’s selection you’ll find some great DIY ideas, a Competition from The Coveted, tips on keeping to your shopping budget from Work Chic and vintage shopping hints from The Style PA and Culturistas.
There’s the full version of Links á la Mode here in the forums… there’s a lot of great posts there too.
Links à la Mode : April 30th
- 39th & Broadway – Is the fashion industry responsible for our weight issues?
- A Typical Atypical – When to ignore the fashion houses – the ridiculous, the impractical and the downright foolish!
- Broke & Beautiful – Earth Week! The best of plastic bags are highlighted.
- Capitola Girl Jewelry Blog – Take flight with some fanciful feathered jewelry
- Culturistas – The Culturistas take a trip to the Vintage Expo and give tips on how to shop for vintage
- Debutante Clothing – A private, curator led tour of the Valentina exhibit in NYC
- Dirty Laundry – Who needs Marc Jacobs when you have DIY?
- Dramatis Personae – B&Lu Presents Fun Plus-Sized Fashion…
- Fashion in my eyes – Interview with Sarah Korsiak Cellier, owner of a vintage shop with designer pieces
- FashionMind – Dressing up classy but very bright and not boring.
- Fasshonaburu – A public request for online stores to provide more and better pictures of their merchandise!
- Gladys L – Construction boots or Lotus shoes? The astonishing Chinese quest for female beauty incorporating small feet!
- In Pursuit of Fashion – Bleach for beginners: How to DIY the latest trend, bleached jeans.
- Independent Fashion Bloggers – 6 Do’s and Don’ts for Networking Online
- Retro Chick – Ethical Design Spotlight – Heart’s Desire Jewellery (+ 20% Discount!)
- Style Symmetry – My Storage System for Belts.
- StyleCovered – How fusing trends and culture can create something unique and chic! Who said covering up had to be boring?
- The Art of Accessories – The Art of Accessories show you how to make your own tinted moisturizer, how thrifty?
- THE COVETED – The Coveted: Two chances to win Pequito Bun Vintage Jewelry!
- The Curvy Fashionista – The brains behind Full Figure Fashion Week- Gwen DeVoe dares to bring Plus Size Fashion to the forefront
- The Style PA – Where to go in Leeds for Vintage fashion and beauty treats.
- Work Chic – Blowing your shopping budget? It may be your shopping habits!
Fantasy Baskets April 29, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Fashion, Inspiration.Tags: Dreams, Fashion, gambling, Shopping
8 comments
Does anyone else have Fantasy Basket syndrome? That is, the act of searching through an online store, filling up the “basket” with all of the things you fall instantly in love with. Trawling the shelves and the metaphorical Internet aisle to find the dresses you simple can’t resist, the singular items that you would consider dying for.
Today I spent a while scanning the contents of my latest Fantasy Basket shop. In the past I have dreamt of ASOS clothes, Vivien of Holloway, Topshop. The bigger the selection, the better the Fantasy Basket experience is. This shop had clothes coming out of it’s ears. High street, fashion copy clothes, just dying to be bought. What made it dangerous? The fact that all the clothes were undeniable affordable – in fact, I would call them cheap as chips!
The shop? Boohoo.com – have a look, it’s full of gems!
And here are the contents of my fantasy basket – a bit unrealistic, a bit unlikely. Stuff I wouldn’t probably buy – but in my little dream world I am perfectly at liberty to fal madly, deeply, truly in love with. The illogical, possibly unattractive items that currently haunt my phantom carrier.
Blue Cloud Dress – £15 – such a summer number, I am planning to possibly (shock horror) actually buy this one!
Lovely prom dress (£15) – perfect for light summer ball! If you are looking for a graduation dress that is simple and sweet, this is the one. Oh, and I have no such reason to wear a dress like this, hence it being in my basket!
Summer printed dress (£8 – good god! The price!!). I love it. Oddly. Another possible for actually buying!
Zebra dress (£10). I know, what I am thinking? It’s zebra print. It’s kinda shiny! Hence my basket!
Forgive me for the next one… it climbed into the basket. I didn’t put it there or anything…
It’s a Yeti coat (£15), for chrissakes! What’s happening to me. But it does look warm…
I love this Kimono Dress - and it’s an astounding £8. This one is a little more realistic. It’s orange (because you are all colour blind, or I think you are stupid. Not really!), which is apparently very in at the moment. And is a colour I can wear if I am tanned. But I probably still won’t buy it. Probably.
So there you have it. The reason why fantasy baskets are so good. I saved myself nearly a £100 not buying my mental shop this afternoon. I saved myself from fashion disasters, but got the full pleasure of the guilty rush that follows pressing the “add to basket” button. Ah, this is my favourite Internet game of all. Obviously alongside facebook Scramble (so I’m a nerd, you got a problem?!) and bidding on things I hope I will be outbid on on eBay (I can’t decide isf this is hidden gambling). Great fun!
Update: For those of you who care (and I don’t think I get this trend, I’m not built for leggings), this shop stocks those strange wet look leggings. Including the ruched ones, the sequined ones, the coloured ones, and more. And for example, the ruched black ones are in the sale for £6. Compare that to American Aparrel and you really are making a killing.
Woop! April 28, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Life, Chatter & Politics.Tags: holoidays, package holidays, Travel, turkey
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This is the only word that can sum up how incredibly excited and happy I am. I have booked my holiday. In just over a month me and my lovely boy will be jetting of to the sunny climes of the Bodrum peninsular in Turkey. Even Ben (the notoriously unshakable Ben) sent me a sweet excited “we are going on holiday” text this morning. Times are good.
I am just about resisting putting an exclamation point on the the end of the every sentence. It would successfully portray my ridiculous and quickly tedious hyperness, but I worry anyone who stayed past the title woop would give up all hope after the fifth “!!”
Here is the apartment block:
And here is the little resort where we will be. It’s a great location – quiet with not much nightlife (mine and Ben’s biggest thing – just one bar for the occasional cocktail, but no late night drunken parties!). Just close enough to the lovely city of Bodrum, and apparently full of great restaurants. It’s not particularly Turkish, but as will all holidays if you want to get involved in the culture you just get out and about to experience it.
Anyways, enough about my holiday. I swear I will get over it in the next few days and return to my normal boring self! Sans-exclamation points!
On another note, I am planning on updating my blogroll this afternoon (categorising a bit more, my list is getting super long currently). If you feel you’ve been missed off or want to be added, just let me know!
Why clothes are out to get us… April 27, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Advice, Fashion, Rants.Tags: cullottes, depression chic, Fashion, jeans, pants man, paper fashion, shoulder pads, skorts
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Fashion is, as we all know, a fickle friend. Blasting out of every speaker and dancing across the screen of all TVs, plastered across billboards and in all shop windows. It is impossible to miss, impossible to follow.
“Wear prints and only prints!!” One poster screams. “A Bold colour: The only way to go!!!” screams another. White is the new black, yellow is the new pink, orange is the new polka-dot. Now gingham is cool – now gingham is ugly. Stripes are the only way to go one week, floral the next.
My friends would be the first to say that I love my clothes. I don’t necessarily love fashion, choosing to go with quirky off-the-wall looks and vintage pieces, but clothes are my passion. I have so many dresses I have lost count, my shoe collection is a point of much fear and debate for my unlucky boyfriend. You can, it turns out, love fashion and hate the fashion houses. You can wear the trends yet ignore vogue.
By all means listen to the columnists – it’s their industry, they know what they are talking about. But if you are wondering where the sanity went, here the are weird and wonderful things that I think should be totally ignored.
1. Scorts (or culottes as a young me knew them). Absurd creations – sewn in the middle like shorts, but still capable of exposing your knickers to the world like skirts. A strange and mystifying amalgamation that wasn’t cool in the 90s (even if I did wear them) and isn’t cool now. Just bye a pair of shorts, or a skirt, and be done with it!
2. Depression chic. The idea is great – using the depression/recession as a style influence – reusing old unwanteds, converting out-of-date items. Make do and mend has never been cooler or more on-topic. However, spending hundreds or thousands of pounds to get the truly penniless look? Ridiculous, and possibly offensive.
3. Paper fashion. Don’t get me wrong – origami dresses and paper accessories are beautiful. Stunning masterpieces of sculpture and originality. For a real person, however? Impossible? It is guaranteed that you would spill your drink onto your new paper ring, or down your sexy baroque necklace. Verdict? Downright stupid, if kinda cool!
4. Shoulder pads. Yes, they are suddenly all the rage again. Yes, designs can look sexy and fresh. In the real world, however, the majority of should pads? Idiotic. I’m talking about the massive gigantic super-pads here – the ones that extend a persons shoulders 2 foot in the air, or turn them into American Football wannabees. Can anyone look cool in this? Not, not even when the looks came straight for the high street.
Image courtesy of here.
5. Finally, I feel like ranting at pants man. What is pants man, I hear you ask (aside, of course, from a superhero invented by the rather appalling apprentice team…). Well, they are the boys who cannot resits flashing their bottoms, all be it covered up in the obligatory boxers. Boys – if girls want to see your buttocks, they will look at it in a lovely pair of trousers, or will even ask. Wearing your trousers around your knees – not pretty!
We’re all going on our Summer Holiday April 25, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Life, Chatter & Politics.Tags: Holidays, Summer, Sun
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Hi All, sorry for the delay. I’ve been feeling lonely this week, and all the ideas I have for posts have been flitting into my brain and then flitting right back out! I can’t remember any of them! From now on, I aim to employ the notebook technique, and scribble the ideas down as soon as I have them!
I’m at home alone today, and aisde from buying pretty things in town (finally bought a traditional mixing bowl for a bargain £2.50!) I have spent the day looking for Holidays to Turkey. We have the dates, and now we just have to search long and hard for the best bargain basement holiday.
I can’t imagine how relieved Ben must be that we are actually going on holiday, as for the past few weeks I have been slowly turning more and more psychotic. I have been repressing the feeling that my sun time is running out, but can’t hid it any more. What is sun time, I hear you ask?
Sun time the amount of time your last holiday will last for – there is the first month or so of glowing warmth and left over suntan. Then follows the period of time where your inner Vitamin D keeps you going, where you still look wistfully back on your trip and bore anyone who will listen with tales of the “glorious scenery” or “historic tales”. For me, sun is my heroin, except one decent dose can keep me going for months!
Now though, it has been too long. I am no longer chirpy and happy – I am instead Little Miss Evil. I snap, I jibe, I hassle. When I don’t find a holiday I sulk, when it rains, I sob. I dream about the sun, the smell of foreign climes, the feel of grains of sand (that is, in-between the dreams like the one I had last night where, symbolically, I was a crazy cow being chased through a field by an evil genius. As you do…). I also dream about my walk in closets and endless tidy space, but at least the holiday idea is feasible!
So hopefully once the holiday is actually booked, I can carry on on borrowed time No more crazy madwoman, and definitely no more late night arguments about why I want to go on holiday more than anyone in the world, and why people should be throwing free holidays at my feet just to make me happy! I will have my methadone, and hopefully can carry on until my “real” hit!
So – holiday’s ahoy it is (and I promise sometime this week I will actually write an interesting post!)
Oh the colours… April 22, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Fashion, Photos, What I Wore.Tags: Fashion, flowers, pink, seasons, spring, Summer, vintage
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I know I keep going on about sunshine and colours at the moment, but it does seem to be that life has sprung out of nowhere this spring. And not just any old life – no! It is bright, beaming, vibrant life, full of flowers and colours and swathes of beauty. I think that the sun has shocked a once dormant vitality out of the cynical British earth – where once our country no longer bothered with seasons, now they spring in abundance, each one more typical and delightful than the last.
I am not the only person who has noticed this. Miss Whistle writes about bluebell woods, and spring being summer themed. All across the country, spring fashions have been replaced with white cotton dresses, smooth brown legs exposed bare to the world. Skin bathes in the sun, wherever I look.
This is a particular garden that I stop and stare at every time I walk to work – it is full to the overflowing brim with bluebells, tulips, daffodils, dandelions. The bright heads raised up to the clear blue sky. Stunning.
This tree, near my house, is the influence for today’s outfit – floral pinks, tones with yellow and chunky wooden heels. I feel like summer epitomised! I wore it with a yellow ribbon, not the silver belt pictured!
Giveaway – Vintage makeup case – END MAY 2009 April 20, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Giveaways/Offers, Vintage.Tags: antiques, competition, Fashion, freebie, giveaway, prize, vintage
21 comments
Well, it’s my first ever giveaway. It’s not a publicity stunt, although I am aware how many people (myself included, occasionally) google search ”blog giveaways”. It’s actually the case that I found a beautiful item at my local car boot sale, and simply couldn’t leave it behind. The problem is, I have no display space, so had to justify it to myself very hard! My final argument? If I buy it and give it away, I know someone with a penchant for pretty vintage items and with somewhere for it to go will have it!
The item: A beautiful pale pink and white vintage make up tub from Yardley, originally a pale pink makeup base/foundation. The tub measure approx 7cm in diameter, and can be reused a cute blush pot or with top up foundations. If this is the case you will need to clean it, as it has traces of the original makeup inside!
As you can see, the front of this lovely box has a raised bee, and is labeled Yardley London. Soo cute and very kitsch! The back still has the original instructions for applying the makeup!
I can’t work out if this beauty is Bakelite? It feels it, but to be honest it could be any type of vintage plastic.
An interesting item to convert into a working makeup pot – with the addition of a cheap compact mirror and a foundation top-up this could be reused!
Itf you want a chance of winning this item, leave me a comment – and it would be nice to know where/what you plan to do with it! Make sure to leave your email, or a link to your blog, otherwise I won’t be able to find you!
UPDATE: This competition is now closed – no more entries please 
Spring Blossom & Pretty Plates April 19, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Photos, Vintage.Tags: 50's, antiques, blossom, kitsch, spring
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Spring is at it’s best at the moment – sunny, and the air is filled with the scent of blossom. I’ll give a proper blog post tomorrow, but for the moment you can have a look at some lovely 50′s plates that I have bought to begin replacing our generic IKEA crockery!
The oddest night ever… April 15, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Media, TV & Film, Rants.Tags: antiques, snow queen, theatre, vintage, wedgwood
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Lat night we went to the theatre to see the Snow Queen. All geared up for a dramatic extravaganza, full of sparkles, costumes and acrobatics, we ended up completed shocked.
Let me give you a brief synopsis – this should explain why it was odd!
- Large man wearing the mirror stood on stage accompanied by large group of “accomplices” – all wearing masks on their bottoms. Lots of toilet humour in this one!
- Two friends, the boy gets iced and kidnapped by the snow queen. On the journey to find him and bring him back, Gerda encounters an number of people…
- A large woman with a rake in a garden of dancing flowers – wearing flower covered y-fronts. Gerda falls asleep in the big garden woman’s skirt, and is awoken by a rose.
- Gerda meets two people/crows – a woman (played by a man) and a man (played by a woman). After some flirting and horrible groping between the bird couple, they take gerda to the prince thinking he might be who she is looking for.
- The prince and princess are hanging from ribbons in the ceiling and dance for a bit.
- Later on in her journey Gerda meets a pack of robbers who are going to eat her. She becomes the toy of the daughter, along with a bird-creature and a fat reindeer.
- After telling her story to the horrible violent robber-girl, her and the reindeer are allowed to go to the north pole.
- At the north pole, they meet three midgets wearing thneedswho are fishing with a colander and a stick. They fish out three fish – a strawberry fish, a lemon fish, and a football fish.
- Eventually she finds the boy and they leave to go home.
Understand why it was odd?! I think, quite honestly, this was the Snow Queen on Acid! Absolutely absurd, acted for some reason in an Italian accent, and complete rubbish! Still, we went for free, so I am very glad we didn’t spend nearly 30 quid to see it!
On a completely different (and hopefully more normal!) note, have a look at some of the lovely little finds from a weekend in Stafford. First, this clock – it’s little and vintage, and still ticks. It isn’t all that great at keeping time, so I am planning to take it into a clock man for tightening! Oh, and it’s a travel clock, so slides closed. A bargain – only £3.50!
My other gem was a wedgewood teapot, to re-sell!
60′s schoolgirl April 14, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in What I Wore.Tags: bertie, crinoline, Dress, Fashion, Shoes, sixties, vintage
11 comments
I promised more outfit posts – so here you are. Especially since today’s outfit was actually interesting, not boring as they often seem to be at the moment. I’m realy going through a vintage crinoline stage – I love the look of the matt block colour, and the vintage white details. It’s scuh a flattering dress, with darts and stripes to really add contouring – plus it was £6 at the Affordable Vintage Fashion Fair!
I also made the most of my new (and beautiful) Bertie shoes – bought in the sale, so I was very chuffed! Not as cheap as the vintage tights or dress, but still pretty bargainous – and they fit perectly!
