Stuff from Oxfam + blather

Wallis animal print shift dress, £8.99

I feel convinced that if I stare at this long enough, the pattern will eventually resolve into a face.

Droopy & Browns floral pattern dress, £40.00

BRILLIANT. It somehow wouldn't be quite as fantastic if the brand weren't called Droopy & Browns.

Sequined skirt, £4.99

I am actually terrifically tempted by this. The other two are great, but neither of them are my size or really my style. I suppose this isn't really my style either, but it's so colourful! And sequined! And I like the grid.

I would wear this skirt with my disgruntled panda T-shirt/sweater

(front)


(back)

and pretend to be a circus.

And here are some shoes. You can wear them and pretend to be a French gentleman circa 1801.

Audley leather slip-on shoes, £14.99


Black heeled shoes, £9.99

It's in the buckles.

Grey leather lace-up shoes, £7.99

OK, so these would not let you feel like a French gentleman circa 1801. But you might as well wear oxfords as much as you can before they go out of fashion. It's strange to think that I might some day regard oxfords with the visceral horror that grips me when I see crop tops.

Image from ASOS

Speaking of ASOS, what about that cage dress on the front page, eh?

I'm not sure if this image still comes up when you go the website, but it was on there yesterday when CK tipped me off to it. (Hi, CK!) The first thing I thought of was Susie Bubble's post about Bordelle, but she's definitely not the only fashion blogger to be into cages -- just Google "cage dress" if you don't believe me.

The thing that strikes me about the ASOS version (apart from the fact that I was unable to find it anywhere on the website, despite inputting as many cage-related keywords as I could think of) is that it seems completely to miss the objective of the Bordelle-style cage/strap thing.

This is, in a word, squeeziness.

Image from Bordelle

So ASOS's spin on the cage dress craze seems to be
1) Hey guys wouldn't it be great if you had cage dresses only they were totally loose with all the attendant loss of sexiness?
2) BTW we're not actually selling this cage dress. We're selling the white vest underneath. It's a good white vest, though!

Well, why not?

- Zen

The pleasures and sorrows of not-work

I've been having pretty good luck with charity shops lately. You know how sometimes you go and it's just a sea of old lady shirts and sandals? Though I shouldn't be snarky about old ladies' clothes -- I've been cooing over Advanced Style lately. It is a blog featuring old people street style! 'Old people' sounds derogatory but it shouldn't be, any more than 'fat' should be. The photos on the blog have been making me think about how women's fashion and men's fashion differ and how central sex is to women's fashion in particular ...

But that's a post for another day. Anyway, as I was saying, you know how some days you go charity-shopping and it's just a sea of hideous shirts and funny-smelling beige trousers and the occasional bizarre kitschy porcelain ash-tray shaped like a clown? Boy have I had those days. But shortly after I acquired the super tat lui, cute and sturdy Karlen Törbel shoulder bag, I've been enjoying a series of neat charity shop discoveries.

This dress being one of them.

Dress - Et Vous via charity shop; socks - Artbox; black canvas jazz shoes - F-Troupe via TK Maxx

It's super cute right!!! Don't tell me if you disagree because I won't believe you. It came from the Oxfam online shop -- £10, which is not dirt cheap, but pretty good considering it was unworn and still tagged up.

Also considering it is the cutest dress ever! I love the buttons and the faux-belt buckle.

From the same source, new shoes! I have too many shoes already and will never buy shoes again. (I may breach this undertaking.) But these are so happymaking!

Stephanie Kelian - purple wedges

That heel is 3.5" but -- okay, I am having to exercise heroic restraint to stop myself from indulging in the cry of every shoe-infatuated, self-deluded girl: "It's really comfortable!" Let's be real: a 3.5" heel is never comfortable. The human foot was not made to be elevated in such a way.

But they're wedges, so they're walk-in-able, and they aren't as uncomfortable as some of my other heels. And they're really fucking cute. Will you just look at the twirly whirly punch-out pattern on the toe. Whenever my feet start saying "hey how come we're throbbing so much :(" I will just console myself with that pattern.

I got a couple of other dresses from Real Life charity shops, but I haven't memphotographed them yet, so that'll have to wait for another day. But seriously, I recommend Oxfam online. I suppose it is kind of cheating in a way, "I clicked through a bunch of links" doesn't quite have the same ring of "I rummaged through a rack of smelly old bathrobes while being eyeballed by the weirdo behind the counter before I emerged triumphantly with a rare vintage Chanel piece!" but it does make you click through several pages of fawn knee-length corduroy skirts from Marks & Spencer if you need that treasure-hunting thrill. And it has neat things at OK prices. Por ejemplo:

Amazing blue knitted jacket with weird gold decorations, £19.99


I ... what is this? Some kinda beaded top, £6.99.

I think this is weird but for that very reason think it would look awesome on somebody more avant-garde than me. Like, a real fashion blogger.

Hobbs apple print skirt, £21.99

This is kind of expensive for charity shop clobber, actually, but it is pretty cute and requires very little Ability to Pull It Off. I mean, I'd wear it.

Floral halter dress, £19.99


Grey herringbone trilby, £9.99

I would wear this with the beautiful floral halter dress and pretend to be Philip Marlowe trying to solve the mystery of how he became a girl in a beautiful dress.

Leather messenger bag, £24.99

Mind you, there is the occasional er unsuccessful purchase. Like this weird lace vintage dress, which has since gone back in the post.

Wow, that looked terrible on me!

- Zen

On footwear

New shoes. :)

Aren't they beautiful? They make me exquisitely happy; I wear them with everything. I can honestly say I want no more from life in the matter of footwear -- not that if a pair of knee-high flat black leather boots on sale were to walk into my life, I would spurn it and walk away. But my new shoes have effectively stilled any sense of yearning.

And yet, it's as if buying them has tripped a switch in my brain and turned it back onto gazing obsessively at shoes. I don't really feel the need to buy them; it's just quite nice to speculate what one would do if one did.

And is it just me, or has the shoe section on the Oxfam online second-hand store improved remarkably? If I were not so very well-supplied in the feet region, I would be tempted to buy these:

Gino Ventori black ankle boots, £3.99

I like the buttons, and you've got to admit you can't get much better than £4.

Gant brown leather and suede boots, £65

And if these were my size, instead of being a vile unattainable 6.5, I would buy them right now despite their unOxfam-like price. I'm not 100% sure, but they look exactly like a gorgeous pair of boots a friend of mine owns, which I have been quietly coveting for the past term. The different textures! The shades of brown! The fact that they look a little like riding boots and a little like boots for the style-conscious spaceman!

There are the sensible, pretty Fly London Mary Jane wedges, which one does not perhaps have a passion for, but which one knows would be much worn and would go with everything.

Fly London wedges, £29.99

And an obligatory nod to the always wearable classy black patent heels, vintage --

Vintage Miss Holmes black patent heels, £9.99

or designer --

Salvatore Ferragamo black patent court shoes, £39.99

I've got to say, though, of all the shoes there? I'm most tempted by these hypnotically dreadful purple snakeskin loafers.

Peter Kaiser purple snakeskin effect shoes, £13.99

Yes, they are awful. But are they not also somehow transcendent? Think how well you would have to dress all the time to pull these off. They would add an interesting touch to these spring pastels the shops keep throwing at us, in defiance of the gloomy fact of the weather.

- Zen

Zen's picks from Oxfam online - #1

Vintage 50s dinner coat and dress set, £145

I have a new means of procrastination: the Oxfam online secondhand store.

It's a sad truth that it's difficult to find affordable vintage in the UK -- of course all depends on your definition of "affordable", but what with shipping costs those beautiful Etsy shops selling gorgeous vintage dresses at $20 a pop are rarely an option, and even on eBay the real beauts soar beyond £20 pretty darn quickly. Sue and I hardly ever win eBay auctions because we are so cheap.

The nice things about charity shops is that they are affordable. The less nice thing is that often they are an exercise in wading through a sea of Marks & Spencer jumpers. The Oxfam online shop is not dissimilar to its real-life counterparts in that respect, but it has some really gorgeous pieces if you dig a bit, like this vintage lace dress:

Garmel of London dress with lace overlay, £35

And this highly bargainous Prada jacket:

Prada pinstripe wool jacket, £34.99

(It did occur to me to wonder how one would know it was Prada -- but hey, if one is going to trust N. E. Ebayer when she swears her item has only been worn twice and retailed at a million, one might as well extend that trust to Oxfam.)

And even Marks & Spencer has it in them to come up with something pretty neat once in a while.

Marks & Spencer cotton/polyester jacket with damask pattern, £9.99

I love the glossy brocade effect on this jacket, and ever since I saw it I've been wondering what one would wear it with. I don't know! I don't think it is that wearable and I am a bit dubious about the fit and yet I am strangely infatuated with the jacket all the same. (A chunky scarf? A little dress? Jeans and unexpected shoes?) I would so buy it and find out what it'd look good with if I were not on a shopping ban right now.

So, um, after about a coupla hours surfing the website I decided I had best put my wasted time to some kinda use and do a Lemms post about it. Here's a handful of Zen's Picks -- nothing over £20 unless it was awesome enough to merit inclusion. Click on the pictures to go to the Oxfam website!

Dresses

1970s dress with matching belt, £11.99

1970s shift dress, £13.99

The description on the website claims that this is handmade. This isn't a great picture, but from the close-up of the fabric it looks like it would be super cute on, and I love the angled pockets.

Jacques Vert sheath dress, £16.99

I can't decide if one would look like someone's great-aunt or totally awesome in this -- I suppose it would all hang on the fit.

1980s jersey crossover dress, £17.99

1970s handmade dress, £25.00

I didn't like this one at first, but the more I gazed at it the more charming it became. I like the grid pattern, the glossy material and the gorgeous deep colours.

Kaliko loose roll neck dress, £19.99

High street secondhand rather than vintage, but if the colour is anything as rich in life as it is in the picture, I think it'd be gorgeous.

And I was going to go on to coats (-- then waistcoats -- then tops -- then skirts), but I looked at the list of links I'd collected and, well, it is bedtime. I'll save it for another post. You should tell me if you buy any of the dresses linked here so I can hate you secretly in my heart!