Books

I have always been a big reader. I can't remember a time when I wasn't obsessed with a book series. I used to get through thick, and I mean thick, books in like, a day or so. Crazy.

(I think the books that has cause the most tears and trauma over the past years has been the Skulduggery Pleasant book series. God, those books had some pure evil plot twists that screwed you over again and again. And the characters were so realistic and brilliant and the kind of ones you loved to hate. I definitely recommend reading the series.)

Sorry. Big ol' digression

So after becoming a blogger it's become increasingly more important to have inspiration. I have put together three of my favourite style books/magazines that have been very lovely to flick through when I have almost no inspiration.

You probably know this one, or might've even read it. How to be Parisian is a really well written, lifestyle book written by four very successful women. The book covers romance, style and day to day tips that every Parisian lady apparently knows. I love the sarcastic, melancholy and slightly dreamlike way its written. It's *exactly* what I am like in real life.

I'm pretty sure I got this little book in Kyoto. It's completely written in Japanese, which I can't even begin to decipher, but that doesn't make it any less lovely to have.

Its written more or less in the style of interviews of different well known manga artists, and covers the styles of Kimono, La Mode, School girl and Realism. The illustrations are beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And from what I get, all of them are hand drawn by the artist. That means all the chiffon and lace and all the other types of fabrics were made with just ink, but still look completely accurate.

I love Oh Comely. The magazine is dedicated to "keeping your curiosity sacred" and does so with a series of unique articles and photo sets. It also includes some pieces which are designed to make you think those 'deep thoughts' which make you end up lying on the floor in a state of semi-existential crisis (always worth putting some Danisnotonfire quotes in here. Shout out to any Danosaurs!)

See you soon guys
Strawberry x

Review of Vintage to a Tea

 

I am so sorry for the long wait guys. I've had a lot of stuff going on, ie: a raging stomach bug and a wedding. I just couldn't manage to wedge blogging in. Sorry!

But anyway, recently my Mum told me that she had seen a new a couple of new vintage stores around Nottingham and asked if I wanted to have a nosie.

You can probably guess my reaction.

Vintage to a tea is a vanilla vintage store. Its way better organised than more shops as it has all the clothes divided into 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. Hallelujah! (Once you've been into dozens of vintage stores its almost a miracle when you find a phenomenon such as this).

The style is purist. Its evident that the owner of the shop takes a long time choosing her stock, and boy, does she do it well. The only thing I would fault it on is the price. On a fairly gorgeous pair of sunglasses, the asking cost was £58! I felt exactly the same as when you see an awesome dress in Urban Outfitters and then you look at the tag and sigh with discontent. Its the most depressing thing in the world.

More on the owner though. She was a lovely, exuberant lady and was a great help. I think what made her good was her willingness to find an outfit for each person who came in. You never see that! Its great!

Overall I really loved this shop. However I don't think the owner anticipated someone as young as  wanting to buy her clothes. I think that's why the price was so well out of my range - along with the fact that it was such high quality vintage.

I think I might need to start saving again...


See ya soon guys
Strawberry xxx

The Custard Factory

 It's quite rare that I get the chance to go up to Birmingham, even more so to visit my favourite vintage utopia: 'The Custard Factory'.  The stuff there is so high quality and goddamn gorgeous that I wish every time that I had a bottomless bank account because then I would buy the whole complex. And don't even get me started on the street art! It's like, the best place to go to get inspiration on... well, anything!

I highly suggest you go there, reader. Yes you! It's hands down one of the best places to go to on the planet and I'm 99.999% sure you will fangirl about it as much as I do. If you don't, well, nevermind. I will ignore your terrible taste in shops. (Just kidding! I love you really! but still...)

Sidenote: This was meant to be a review. I failed... oops!

And to end this post, I just want to say that we have managed to write 100 posts! I've super happy and fairly proud of myself that I managed to actually get this far without giving up. So thanks for reading my rambling posts and sticking around! It means a lot :)

 

Let's celebrate! I love this site so much so head over here!:  http://omfgdogs.com/ and also watch this video (makes me laugh every time)

 

See ya soon guys
Strawberry xx

Shame a Shop: Topshop

Hello my lovelies!
Tad controversial title I know, but I felt like this needed to be said.

A few weekends ago, I was shopping in Topshop and I found a fairly desirable pair of jellies. The price? £20. Fairly reasonable I thought, but not that worth it.

However, the following weekend my Mum and I were going through the market stalls in Nottingham Victoria centre and I discovered an identical pair of shoes, and I mean identical. They were £7.

£13 whole pounds? That seemed a little too good to be true. So when I got home, I looked on the internet, and yep you guessed it, still £20.

Don't get me wrong on this, I love Topshop. I think they're great. But when it comes to getting the cheaper option I will always go for that.

So, message from Grand Master Strawberry today: Cheaper = More money to spend in Urban Outfitters

 

See ya soon guys

Strawberry xx



Review of Hopkinson Vintage

Hello lovely people!

I'm really sorry about the gigantic orange date in the bottom of the photos. I'm working on it.

I'm reviewing one of my favourite vintage places today! Its possibly one of the cutest café/ boutiques on the planet what with its multi-coloured bunting that runs right round the store and its many slightly odd but adorable house furnishings. It really is one of my favourite places.

First impressions:
Outside you can only tell that it is a café, when inside only a small percentage is actually that. In fact, a huge amount of the store is just random stuff piled in corners that you root through.
But at the very front of the store you immediately see rows upon rows of vintage clothing, homewares and random other stuff. It all sort of blurs into a cath kidson coloured blanket.

Clothes
A lot of the clothes is stuff people would never wear in a million years- but that's sort of the point of vintage wear, you have to sort through a lot of rubbish to find the good stuff. Saying that, that is a lot of nice dresses, scarves, sunglasses and jewellery to find if you look hard enough.

Service
Hopkinson is actually a few boutiques arranged onto 3 floors and I talked to each of the shop owners individually. They all were good helpful people and let me look through their things in peace. They seemed to understand how important it is to let the customer look around themselves and not get pestered constantly whether they needed any help or were they looking for anything?

See ya soon guys
Strawberry xx

Leave a comment!

Review of Essie Nails

 I'd love to accept the award of:
KEEPING MY PROMISES

Of course, it has been 3 months since I said I would, but I have finally done my ESSIE nails review.

And let me tell you , they are really great!

I chose a pale lilac colour which I know compliments my skin tone. The packaging was... ok. It wasn't very aesthetically pleasing as packaging goes and there are much nicer styles out there.
Saying that, the product went on very smoothly and looked really nice on my wonky-weirdo nails.

Coats: 3
How long does it last? : 4 days
Score: 8.5 /10

I'll definitely be doing some other beauty reviews in the future so stay tuned!

See ya soon guys
Strawberry xx

Review of Baklash Vintage

I bought a fez there. Don't judge.

First impressions: Heaven. Literally heaven on earth for me. No lying. Every texture, colour or cut you could imagine. It was there. In the bargain basement I walked head first into a rack of massive arctic-not-entirely-sure-it's-legal-to-have-this-much-fur-on-a-coat coats. It was BEAUTIFUL. The whole two floors were CRAMMED full of vintage. There was hardly any space.

Clothes: As I said, the stock was amazing. I think there was an upstairs with more clothes but I'm not totally sure cus' I didn't go up there. Downstairs in the 'Bargain Basement' you couldn't really breathe as you were so overwhelmed by the amounts of clothes. (I am a tad claustrophobic though)
My mum tried on a blue and gold 1970 evening dress (she states it was like a costume from a play called 'Abigail's Party'. Not sure either).  The jewellery was IN-CRED-IB-LE. There was cabinets and tables laden with gemstones and rings and necklaces. *sighs dreamily*

Service: Really good. The shop owner/assistant was funny and made good conversation and was helpful. She showed us where everything was and was really nice about letting me take pictures. A lot of shops don't let me. :(

?/10: 9.5/10

Really loved it!
Address: Market Street, Nottingham, NG1 6HY

Review of beyond Retro (online store)

Sup' guys. Since I last posted I have LITERALLY watched Game of Thrones non-stop. The only reason I had to stop watching last night was because It was well past 11pm and It was a school night. Death to the common secondary school. I mean it was only 2 episodes and then I was hooked. Goddamn. All I'm doing now is eating chocolate (prezzies from my mates cus its my birthday tomorrow. Love you guys) Surfing the web, listening/watching game of thrones and planning posts. How exciting my life is. I should probs review now. On with the review!

First impressions : Very vintage-y. Blue and yellow is their 'colours' and it really fits. I love their home screen pictures. Right now it's advertising ugly Christmas jumpers. (already ordered 2) And the filters they use are great and look aesthetically pleasing (posh word. hehe)

Clothes: OOOHH MYYYY GEERRD! I love beyond retro clothes. Its so...me. Really simple and can be styled in hundreds of ways for all seasons. So much love. Recently I bought a denim fitted dress ( can be seen in past howistyle) and it fits my well. The size was a medium and was a tad oversize but I like it. I have 20 different clothes in my wishlist. I will probably never buy any of it but hey, yolo...goddamn.

Service: Great service and speedy delivery. Big thumbs up.

?/10 : 9.9999/10    

link:  --> http://www.beyondretro.com/

Review of a vintage obsession

Jeez. I'm burning through all the reviews I've planned. I really want to do a how is style but I can only do it at the weekends because it's getting too dark out to do it after school. I guess I can try to do it inside but there isn't a lot of lighting in my house. Bum. I'll get one done. No worries. On with le review!

First impressions: Quite small  and what I'd call 'proper vintage'. As in loads of 50's dresses and piles of mink. I loved the interior as It was very downton abbey-esque. Lots of Victorian wallpaper and one vintage style mirror

Clothes: I'd probably say the dresses are for more 25+ as none of the dresses were vaguely near a tiny size 6. (Not saying if you're over 25 your fat. Just saying you're not a short vaguely sort of doing that growing into woman thing size. That.) Loads of floral and many kinds of textures. I LOVED the accessories. ACCESSORIES!!! *cue animal drooling* It was all so pretty!!

Staff: There didn't need to be many staff there as the shop was teensy. Really nice though and were helpful and pretty cool.

?/10: 6/10 they didn't'
have my size :(

Review of A new shop

Yes that's actually what its called. (even though I know it's DEFO not new. Watevs*)
On with the review:

First impressions: EEK. I was a tad intimidated by the shop as it wasn't totally my style. There were lots of spikes and studs and was what i would call very 'american vintage'. I liked the walls as they were covered in writing in RAIIIINBOW colours which I contributed to with a range of smilies, tiny fish and scribbles of my name (just a heads-up: if you 'Maddy' written in shades of pink, its le moi)

Clothing: As I said, very American vintage. There was a lot of tattered denim and metal stuff so I'd say it was 'urban' (not. like. me) The stock was good and it was not stupidly placed so you couldn't get there :)

Staff: Quite nice. they were mostly talking to each other which was better than other shops were you could practically see the awkwardness between them.

?/10 : 7/10 Good but not my style

BTW: ITS MY BIRTHDAY IN 8 DAYS!!!! OMG*(&^%!

See you soon my lovelies xx

Vintagenewbie

*look at me going all gangsta. 

Review of The Oasis-Birmingham

Eemageerd!!! I love this shop soooooo much!!! (like you couldn't tell...) It's so amazing and quirky and has a massive cardboard cutout of daenerys stuck in the front of the shop. Amazing I know. Here's the review

First impressions: Kind of intimidating as the shop is a bunch of super quirky and massively Gothic mini shops. When you actually start to understand the Birmingham accent ( which sounds like dothraki to me) and get over the constant signs that advertise genital piercing it's so cool and fun and quirky.

Clothes:  Loads of gothic dresses (great for halloween) and random trinkets. I bought a denim circle skirt with loads of random stuff stuck onto it and a necklace that has freaky playing cards as the pendant thing. Rest assured I will wear them for the next 2 weeks.

Service: BEST EVER. The guy who sold the skirt tried to sell me a song.. sung by him...live. I denied. The genital piercing people were the most friendliest ever and the little figurines selling people were cool too.

?/10: 9.5/10

Visit it NOW
P.S. Apparently Boy George used to work there as an assistant

Review of : Thrift $tore

Omigod. The review of white rose got so many views! I mean wth!? Where did you all come from?! Thanks soooo much you lovely lot!!

First impressions: I love the store front. It's so colourful and pretty and I luv the thing with the dollar sign as an S. Much creativeness going on there. Inside it was very 'western'. Lots of pine and those animal skulls.

Clothes: Very good quality vintage although it was lacking in stock. I found the use of space was not great and they could have put more clothes racks up. For example when you walk in there's a HUGE amount of unused space and the back of the shop where the changing rooms are could have been used more. Downstairs was the denim section and jeez did they have a lot of denim. Lots of cuts and shades of blue/green etc.

Service: The staff were very friendly and told us where to find things. They did their job well and were quite smiley.

Overall the shop was quiet and maybe could have had some music on. Very pretty and 'american' . Not totally my style but good for people who like the REALLY odd. (There was a lace swimsuit thingy. Me no understando)

?/10 = 6/10

Plz check it out!

P.S

I cant find it online. soz!

Review of White Rose (aegis trust)

Went shopping yesterday. My mum took me to some of the vintage/charity shops I'd never actually been to before. And let me tell you, it was LUSH. I went to loads and I couldn't talk about them all so I'm going to spread out these reviews over quite a few weeks.I'm going to start with the one I loved the most, White rose. They support the aegis trust which is lovely and means I'm doing nice things while i get good clothes which to be honest you can't go wrong with if you ask le moi. OK I'm gonna shut up now and get on with my review.

First impressions = One big smiley face from me. It was  kinda on the small size as a shop but that's ok. The people there are really nice and there was a lovely Californian bloke who was very helpful.

Clothes = Definitely feels like they took the time to choose their stock. There isn't a big selection but they make up for it in quirky clothes. Their style is sort of geeky/floral/English. Definitely me. (Although I would grunge it up a bit.)

Service= I thought the 3 assistants was a tad excessive as it was a small shop and they didn't take credit card (Not permanent. The machine wasn't working.) They were very nice and smiley though and made sure we were ok.

?/10 = 8/10

Good stock and lovely staff. Check it out!