Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses - Dorothy Parker

One of my favourite Dorothy Parker quotes, why because she was so right back then in 30s! I adore beauty and brain in a gal, darling! Sadly I am coming to that time in life where I squint at the London A-Z. So check these vintage reading glasses and another pair of sunglasses (remember my draw full of sunglasses in previous blog) found at a boot sale in surrey for £1.50 each. I bargained the lady down from £2 a pair to £3 for both.



Here’s another little tip I had a pair of vintage glasses updated with new lenses at specsavers a couple of years ago , luckily the guy that was serving me collected all sorts of glasses, a bit of a geek and was up for giving it a go. Today I am the proud owner of pink and white vintage wing reading glasses. It’s all about the wing when it comes to vintage reading glasses style. These ones are next in line for the new lens transformation, books at the ready gals.

Those Victorians

A book on Victorian jewellery has been on my “to find” list for a while because I would like to know more about it and how it looks. I seem too able to recognise jewellery from 30s to the 70s easier than the earlier Victorian baubles and bits. I knew that mourning jewellery was fashionable because of Queen Victorian’s husband’s death, Albert. Also associate cameos, diamonds and pearls with that time but not sure how the finished pieces looked. So I was pleased to find this book hidden away on a shelf at the back of a book shop in Weighbridge Surrey for £12.



Broaches galore, I wonder if I have some already and didn’t realise my treasures.



Check out the late 60s styling of a Victorian lady look, so dated, and loving the big bold statement rings, great scale.



The main lady Queen Victoria looking sad and miserable wears a dramatic black dress with a hint of lace.



On the same day my fella bought me this other book as a gift about William Morris, what a designer! Discovering his work when I was a student at collage opened my eyes to a new way of thinking about art and design and causes. He was a socialist with a business, interesting, very ahead of his time and would most probably have a thing or two to teach ethical business owners if he was alive today.



Everyone in the Morris family looks so fed up and board in this photo. Surely not, must have been the photography used back in the day when they had to stand like status for awhile to take the picture. My how things have changed with all our instant digital photography and mobile uploads straight to face book. Looking at this photo is making me want to find a dress like the one Jane Morris is wearing in this photo (second lady in from the left); I can but wish to find.

Pattern on Pattern

No such thing as too much pattern for me! Found this jersey white paisley print dress for £1.99 in Oxfam in Birkenhead. Then an Antoni and Alison printed jacket for £8 in TK Max in Staines. The graphic prints and black and white were made to clash with each other.

Tom Girl Checks

Two style icons who do checks really well for me are Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz in her gingham check dress storming the yellow brick road and Marylyn Monroe in Misfits doing a sexy jeans and western shirt look. So when I found this blue check dress in a charity shop in Surrey for £4 I got very inspired to play with these looks this summer.



The dress is by Monsoon so I its either late 80s or early 90s and because of this could also do a bit of a Bananarama tom girl look. I bought this and was due to go out that night to the country for a 40 th birthday and as a strict rule I don’t wear charity shop clothes without a good wash. Being so desperate to wear it I washed and ironed it dry in 2 hours.



The check shirt is from TKMax in Croydon £12.99 a good little number to wear with denim and looks just fine with the navy cuffed army style trousers I bought from Debenhams in Croydon, £15 in the sale. Do I ever buy anything not on the cheap the answer is no not in these times love!



Can’t beat a good check for a bit of pattern

Nurse, Nurse!

When I was a snip of a young lady I had my fortune told she asked me if I was a nurse. At the time I was full on designing with a design ego and scoffed at such nonsense. Well she could have been a bit right as my latest fuy is a light blue chambray nurse’s dress, found and bought in Brighton from an army surplus stall for a fiver. I tried before I bought and the guy selling told me it was the same pattern as the uniform dresses used in World War 2. That didn’t help really but I did have a visual of the women in my head that I had seen before that got me interested. It’s very flattering and utilitarian with lots light buttons and more gathers at the waist and on sleeve head that I would have imagined and pockets galore. This dress could easily be a new denim trend teamed with a great belt and boots, carry on nurse denim into next A/W 10 season.


Outside a pub in Brighton checking out my new fuy



Full length of the dress , great shape



Love the button sleeve detail

8os hair combs and long Victorian gray hair

When I found these hair combs I had two memories the first my great grandmother and how she use to wear these in the plainer colours and how she keep her long old gray locks all tied up neat with one or two of these combs. The neatness of her hair and cunningness with her combs said Victorian properness all over it. The second memory, my early teenage years in the 80s, wearing the combs to school, neon flashes trying desperately to lift my navy school uniform. I feel they are due a come back, especially in these colours and the tribal abstract print on the comb would look right on any East London fashion lovely. I found and bought for 20 pence each at a boot sale in Surrey so I splashed out and bought five for a pound.

Real exotic suburban bond girl top

This top was found at a boot sale in Surrey for a £1 the older lady I bought it from made it herself and she couldn’t remember what size it was. I absolutely get a kick out of buying vintage things from the actual people that made them. This top reminds me of exotic bond girls making cocktails and photos of my grandmother’s suburban cocktail parties in the 70s. I am going to wear it with my clogs (walking the dog in clogs post)and Charlie’s Angles Jeans (in my tk-maxing post) another suburban cocktail darling?

Fuying ahead for next season with me Frank Usher

This totally 70s Hippy Moroccan Folk dress is a stunning winter warmer, got one of my fashion feelings about this one. Add pattern and cosy in the gloomy months to come. It’s a Frank Usher and I found it in a vintage shop in Rye for £8 . The only shame about this is that the Moths have had a nibble but I think I can do a bit of mending and it will pass for a bit of vintage wear and tear, you pay extra for that you know!

All these patterns for a pound!

Vintage dress patterns transport me right back to being 12 and learning to sew with my grandmother at weekends. She had a stash of patterns she kept in her incredibly organised sewing box and I would update them by adding bits on and off. We would watch old movies and be inspired by the beautiful clothes worn by the glamorous actresses of the 30s, 40s and 50s. Then quickly nip to the market and buy a piece of fabric for 50p and get going with the sewing.

I found all these patterns for a pound in a junk shop in the very hip Hastings Old Town.
Great mix of all era patterns in this bag , my favs the Vogue Paris pattern , very “Mad Men” A/W 2010 ,the His and Hers hippy tops , so cool and the oh I used to wear one like that 80s top and shorts combo

Pretty Spots

Pretty reminds me of grunge when I did the underwear as outer wear thing the first time around in the early nineties. Back then I always had to do things with a twist and the twist would have been a slogan printed virgin on the front and whore on the back of the night dress worn with a big pair of Dr. Martens and black woolly tights. I was so into shouting about my twists in the early nineties. In the tens I am happy to find this pretty night dress, leave it plain and actually use it for nightwear. Although I do hope new girls are deciding to explore and express their twists through fashion and styling. I found this little number in a boot sale in Surrey for 50p.

My mums denim skirt - style memories

When I saw that Stella McCartney had sent a denim skirt down the catwalk for this S/S 2010 inspired by her mothers from the 70s, I smiled. Because brother did my mother have a denim skirt too. She had a denim skirt and Jesus sandals her daily uniform with a change of printed tops. I so wished that she wouldn’t wear it on parent’s evenings and grown up things. I prayed to the style goddess above that she would go in a pencil skirt, stilettos and a clutch bag! (What a nightmare I was)How wrong I was as her denim skirt and sandals represented carefree fun and sister I am so glad about that now. So when I saw this one in a charity shop in Surrey by Per Una for £7.50 I snapped it up for myself. On that day I had already bought a Brown and Tan bag from a boot sale in Surrey for a £1. Then low and behold to finish my out fit I bought a Brown and Cream striped jersey Breton style top for £2.50 from a charity in, you guessed it Surrey. What a haul an outfit in a day all for £11, thanks for the denim skirt memories and a reminder of the style Stella!

Under the Mulberry bush

To find one Mulberry bag in an Antique Shop in Hampton Court ( check out my fist post “the beginning” in January )and then return months later to find another bag felt like it was to good to be true. This one is a great user and a brilliant school - work type of bag. Just realising how sensible Mulberry bags are and I am sensing sensible is the new rock and roll these days.

Garden gnome make over

Sunglasses can’t get enough of them and find it so hard to resist them in charity shops.
I found this pair of Vintage 80s tortoiseshell look sunglasses in a charity shop in Birkenhead. Whilst deciding to buy, do I really need another pair of glasses and then justifying well they don’t take up to much space and they are only 50p, done, sold to the lady with a draw full of sunglasses already. Inspired myself with my last “little I-deer for the garden” post styling the found objects around the garden and decided to give my gnome an ab fab sunglasses makeover, ohh sweety.

First Boot sale of the season and whatwefound there !

Roll out the green carpet, get the tea earns full to the brim, drum roll, first boot sale of the season few weeks ago. Never mind big fancy celebrity premiers this first was so full of it, real life , the type of public gathering Martin Parr would of wanted to photograph until his hearts content. Since being with my fella in the burbs (vintage retro heaven) and him being fully converted to shopping alternatively (he was half way there before I met him) I have noticed a cycle to finding and buying vintage clothes and retro home wear. It’s all about the charity shops in Autumn and Winter and boot sales in Spring Summer. Although its a double edge sword in the Summer the weekend booty’s may be full of finds galore but the empty space that occupies Sunday early evening without the Antiques Road show is to much to bear.

Never mind, moving on, for me boots sales are fab because they are unpretentious and democratic. Everyone has the same size pitch and I sense it’s what life must have been like in the olden days (love that saying) at markets before we had shops and shopping centres. I love snooping and rooting through what people don’t want anymore and guessing their lifestyle. Also how they display their finest goods and what prices they ask, their homemade graphics and how they decide to label goods or not. The fact that you can buy something and if your lucky enough to get offered a carrier bag the brand advertised on the bag is insignificant and doesn’t relate to the item inside, anti branding, love it ! As well as the mix of goods on sale or for free, yes for free I spotted one stall with everything on a plastic blue sheet with homemade signage saying “Everything Free”. I missed out on a free big Roland Rat costume head, don’t ask me why but I am sure it could have been used for something somewhere in my life .How could a big brand compete with this sellers generosity and green heart? I have been informed by my fella in the last couple of weeks he has noticed how physically bigger boot sales have got expanding into the farmer’s next field or the next car park. With more boot sellers since last year it’s a clear sign that austerity is going to be so very in for the next few fashion seasons!

Just heard about the coolest concept for a boot sale at Vintage at Goodwood, it’s a car boot sale with class as the cars have to be classic to get a pitch. The Festival is 13, 14, 15 August 2010 and the first music and fashion led celebration of creative British cool from the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s & 80s, featuring the leading DJs, bands, collectors, purveyors of vintage clothing and vintage vinyl from each decade, as well as contemporary bands and brands,Oh my! Many fabulous happenings sounds like and festival and beauty of booty not to miss.

My first boot sale of the season had a mission attached as I started a blog in January this year called whatkarenfoud documenting my fashion and lifestyle items I find and buy in a year (fuys) from Charity Shops, Boot Sales and the good old Jumble sales. Trying to keep up with the blog has started to kerb my buying a little, darn! I am realising even more about my style and what I am drawn to since blogging my finds. Secondly we had friends stay and entertain they like a good booty so I asked them if I could document what they bought to for my blog and they were up for it. We free styled at the booty with the photos and it helped that they can both do photography as well a many other talents. So here are some of the photos from our finding and buying extravaganza at the first boot sale of the season.

Wimbledon Boot sale - 21 Apr 2010 - 31 Dec 2010
Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium Plough Lane Wimbledon London, SW17 0BL
Public admission before 8.30am Cost: £2 after 8.30am Cost: £1

www.vintageatgoodwood.com



Hand made signs such cool graphics , real!



More books , costume for my history of fashion shelf and a picture book 50p each



Anything that says cocktail glamour I am in ! 1960s drink mixer £1



Iconic flying ducks £2 , bad buy the one of the birds beaks was missing, never mind , win some , loose some.



Fab yellow pint glass , love the frosted effect and looks like such a girly pint glass 50p



Pink bottle with stopper , great for storing bubble bath adding a bit of glam to the bathroom, star buy 20p



Pool ceramic shell , great buy collectible bought for £3



Hand made rug sold to me for £4 by the lady who made it. She told me it took 2 weeks to make, I asked her if I could photograph her for the blog as she looked great a very elegant older lady but she declined. I wish you could of seen her.



What a buy , very 80s Lady Diana, its a big size but looks great with a big belt, love it worn it lots already £1



Love the shape of this vanity case and has a laptop look to it to , a good school bag.



Keith in action finding those retro bargains.



Keith doing his display of finds.



Marinas check dress very Hoxton



Marinas amazing vintage straw hat , I wish I had seen this first , but got to admit it looks fab on her.



Marinas 80s style leather woven top very tribal.



Marinas plates



Love this plate of bits and pieces for 20p each



Mikey in action buying his lamp.



Mikeys tanker, very cool !



Mikeys lamp



Mikeys picture



A stall featuring a British bulldog as its star item !



Red white and blue girls , fab !



"Everything Free" was so impressed with the lady that did this, had a good chat about nothing with her.




Gutted I didnt take this home it was on the "Everything is Free" sheet !



A full car boot full of our booty !

Photos : Karen Savage. Keith Ellis, Marina Perez Fuchs,Mikey Chestnutt