fashion?

I have recently been looking at my fashion sense (or lack of) with an increasingly critical eye.  I think it was an inevitability seeing as I now choose what I sell so am essentially a walking advertisement for my business.  This comes with many pros and cons, for example; I now never leave the house without my jewellery on which does make me feel more “finished”, however finding jewellery that matches the mood/era/colours of the outfit that I have chosen means that I generally don’t have time to do my makeup which leaves me feeling decidedly “unfinished”.  I know that now I am scrutinizing myself more it would make sense to pick out my outfit the night before, maybe lay it out all ready to put on but nine times out of ten when I do make the effort to do that, the following morning I hate what I picked last night and cant see why I would ever have thought that looked good.  I envy these people that seem to be able to throw anything on and breeze into town with perfect hair and makeup while I run red-faced and out of breath for the bus and then end up searching around in my huge bag for about ten minutes trying to find my ticket.  As a lover of all things vintage whenever I feel like nothing looks nice I will always retreat to cut off shorts, chunky knitwear and cropped shirts, however this has never been particularly fashionable.  Until now it would seem.  Now everywhere I look there are cosby jumpers, burgundy knee socks with cut off high waist shorts, sheer blouses with button down cardigans and of course the classic re-worked satchel bag.  Suddenly  I’m seeing people walking around proudly showing off their faux vintage coin purses or raiding their parents wardrobes for anything circa 1980.  So I’m going to enjoy this trend while it lasts, and then when its over enjoy being out of date again even more.  

eBay trials and tribulations

Hello, so today I spent a large proportion of my time musing the correct etiquette for eBay.  I’ve been a fan and a user for some time now and some of my favourite pieces have been picked up from there, but there is always the dilemma of feedback.  Now I’m very much the, instant payment instant feedback sort of girl, however there seems to a be a growing trend of “I’m not leaving it until you do” and this can often lead to a kind of stalemate.  I recently bought a cropped blouse which was described as being “in perfect vintage condition” which can mean two things:  either it is in fact not vintage at all and has had its brand new high street labels cut out just that morning, or, more often than not, it is genuine vintage but in such terrible condition that it takes a lot of work to form it into something sellable.  This item was the latter.  It wasn’t a cropped blouse it was in fact a shirt that had been clumsily hand sewn at the bottom using the technique of what can only be described as a rusty spoon ramming wool through holes.  It was awful.  So as you can imagine it took a lot of work to try and salvage it, I had to unpick the stitching which was so knotted in places I thought I was going to rip the poor thing to shreds.  Then there was the laborious task of measuring, cutting and re-sewing it into a piece that I was happy to sell.  Seeing as it took ten days to arrive from Durham to Cambridge I wasn’t going to give it a glowing review, however, as a fellow ebayer I decided to hold back.  I simply put, “not exactly as described but a lovely piece nonetheless” how restrained of me, I thought, how generous.  Not according to the seller, “don’t expect feedback after that” was the message they sent me.  Now, I have been using eBay long enough to know that a standard positive feedback comment goes something along the lines of: ~*~*~*A+ super star ebayer~*~*~*would recommend J J….etc etc so I know that mine was a little shorter than they probably expected, but surely they must have realised that what they sent out was not “in perfect vintage condition” apparently not.  After a week or so of emails I managed to get a feedback comment of “paid invoice”…WOW.  Thanks.  So, a warning to all eBay fans out there.  Unless you want a lengthy battle, often ending in bitterness and bad feedback (is there anything worse? ) just put feedback of, “would deal with again” and carry on living your life.  I’m currently in a stalemate situation over an item that was described as “over sized granddad jumper” hmmm size 6, over sized for an eight year old wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.  I’ll let you know how I get on.

August

As this is my first post I feel like I should introduce myself and my world a little bit.  I’m Hollie, I live in Cambridge with my boyfriend Sam, and our hamster Travis.  I’m obsessed with vintage clothing and accessories.  This is where my small business came from, I own a stall on Cambridge market called BoutiqueVintage from which I sell clothing from the 20’s-80’s.  I am passionate about finding unique, quirky pieces that are wearable and beautiful.  I source all of the stock myself and never buy “job lots” as I’ve found that most of the time you end up with one nice piece and fifteen write offs.  I also work as a store manager for a denim retailer so at the moment my life is quite hectic!  This blog is just an opportunity for me to write down my thoughts, feelings, ideas, inspirations and frustrations about fashion, life, love and juggling two jobs and a social life.

While I have been starting up my new business venture I have become something of a social recluse communicating only through email, twitter and facebook.  My life has revolved around getting home from my regular work as quickly as possible so that I can trawl the internet for new finds to present to my long suffering boyfriend.  I seem to have finally built up a big enough collection to sell items and not have to immediately replace them with something else.  I‘ve got to say it’s a nice place to be.  I love finding my vintage gems but working full time and keeping on top of the stall and everything else that comes with it, the website, twitter, facebook, requests etc etc was getting a little tiring!  This week I went out to lunch to a little pub by the river in Cambridge and wore a beautiful 70’s yellow silk shirt tied at the waist with a plaited brown belt, it was a lovely sunny day so I wore it with brown brogues and a cute 80’s leather shoulder bag, here's a picture of the shirt, let me know what you think!