Thrift Avenue

A state of emergency is declared

I am in grave danger and I am worried for my health, sanity, general well-being as well as my bank balance. My shopping habits have been thrown drastically off kilter in the last 7 days and I have spiralled rapidly out of control.

Westfield is directly and wholly responsible for this trepidation.

Seeing as I am off to Cuba in Tminus 2 days, I dug the summer wardrobe out from under the bed. After realising that I didn’t actually like the majority of the stuff left after I’d chucked each item into a pile named “can just about squeeze into” or “can no longer squeeze into”, I therefore had a few specific bits I needed to buy.

Ordinarily, I would NEVER have gone ‘new clothes’ shopping, except for shoes. (I still can’t really get my head round second-hand shoes…foot sweat is a bit too gross). But I had £80 left on a gift card to spend in Westfield and £130 worth of other vouchers. WOO HOO!! I’m a bit bored of Westfield in Shepherd’s Bush, and had heard that Westfield Stratford has a Forever 21 (LOVE that place- I geekily/sadly wrote to them a few years ago telling them they should open a store in the UK- so you can thank me for that!) so I drove over to Stratford.

Has anyone been there? You know when you go to the airport and it’s like a little world of it’s own? It’s like that- like The Sims or something. HUGE. I spent 6 hours on a Saturday afternoon there. By the end of it, I had bought a lot of what I wanted, but I had declared the place HELL. I was reminded of a few reasons other than pricing, as to why I had fallen out of love with commercial shopping centres and a lot of high street stores:

* TIDYNESS: What is with walking into a shop and finding all the clothes flung everywhere, crap all over the floor etc? H&M are the WORST for this. Zara is close behind. I used to work in a clothes shop for a good 5 years. Do they not rota their staff to tidy up?

* CRAP CUSTOMER SERVICE: 1 major bug bear for me is when a shop assistant makes no effort. Staff openly chatting at the till to other staff members about who they slept with the night before, whilst serving me, not actually ever even acknowledging my presence, should have been responded to with a whack round the head with a hanger. Staff don’t seem to want to be there.

* MUSIC & LIGHTING: This makes me sound 90 years old, but please can someone explain why some shops seem hell-bent on creating the most uncomfortable sensory shopping experience ever? When I’m shopping, I don’t need Rhianna telling me she “found love in a hopeless place” at full pelt, accompanied by booming bass. Or One Direction, questioning “What make’s you/me beautiful?”. Well, it certainly ain’t the hideous strip lighting…

Presumably it’s cheap, and it’s bright enough to successfully illuminate the clothes, but I can’t hack it. Give us some natural light. I actually do have a bit of a problem with my brain- (no sniggering, it’s a recognised medical thing!) and it is sort of extra sensitive to light, and after 6 hours in Westfield Stratford, I emerged, laden down with bags, blinking into the dusk of East London, literally with vertigo. The lighting was so bad it had bought on an ‘episode’ that lasted 3 days! Fair enough, I had possibly over done it on the old 6 hours front, but still. My point still stands that the lighting is crap. Driving through central London and home feeling like that, it’s no surprise really that I rounded off my journey by crashing into a parked car. OOPS.

Suffice to say, at the end of the day, I vowed to stay away from high street shops for a long time and certainly never to shop in a shopping centre again.

HOWEVER… 3 days later, I was back in Westfield Shepherd’s Bush. I wanted to see if New Look had a pair of wedges that the one in Stratford didn’t have in my size, and I fancied another new bikini, plus some cardigans for evenings on holiday. I had well and truly contracted the shopping bug. But not just any shopping bug. I feel ashamed to admit this but..I’ve been going against my ‘thrifty’ status. I’ve had a taste of what life is like on the ‘other’ side. And I think I’ve let myself get carried away. It’s ok though, because the first step to resolving a problem, is admitting you have a problem. And writing this post is my equivalent of standing up at an AA meeting. I have recognised that all the Westfield-ing (not to be confused with Westlife-ing which is entirely different and involves dodgy Irish blokes and dodgy ballads) has given me the taste.

I know this because today I found myself on the King’s Road in Chelsea. I had gone to Zara to simply pick up a t-shirt from the menswear department. Only Zara hadn’t opened as I was early. I had the choice of wandering up to the Oxfam Boutique or over the road to the Peter Jones department store. I chose the department store and I bought a massively expensive pair of shoes.

Oh god, I can’t believe I’m telling you this. Next I’ll be admitting to secretly having a thing for Tony Blair since he appeared in Heat Magazine’s Torso of the Week… Oh…

Anyway, it doesn’t matter what you think about this purchase, because a) I’m not telling you how much they were, and b) because I am already totally over the guilt due to the fact that I’ve been looking for a pair of brown wedges for ages to replace my last ones I had to throw away after the strap broke. I had the old ones for 5 years and they had cost me £12.99 from that chavvy shop Select, so I know I’ll get the wear out of these new, super dooper ones.

But the fact is, the feeling of buying something brand new as opposed to second hand, has got under my skin, and if it hadn’t, I wouldn’t have chosen to walk into that department store. So I’m worried about myself.

HOWEVER… I did manage to go some way in redeeming myself later in the afternoon by visiting the British Heart Foundation in Clapham Junction (62 St Johns Road). Get yourself down there if you happen to be in those neck of the woods. The shop was absolutely packed. I hadn’t managed to find any cardigans I liked at all in any of the high street shops, yet I picked up not 1, not 2 but 3 great cardis for under £18 here! - Very pleased with that seeing as I would have paid more than that for a brand new one.

1) Black Fenn Wright Manson cardi with silver flecks, £5.99

2) Gold shrug cardi from Mango, £6.50

3) Red Monsoon Cardi- really soft! £6.50

I’m really pleased with those as they are all high end brands and I got them all in one fell swoop! BINGO!

I also picked up a couple of books. “The Men in Your Life- Timeless advice and wisdom on managing the opposite sex” for 2 quid - we’ll see what my Dad, brother, boyfriend and boss think to that purchase… and “Wasting Police Time- The crazy world of the war on crime.” for £2.50 as it’s always interesting to see what dumb things the rest of the great British public have been up to.

Later I stopped off in Teddington. Again, I combined normal shopping -Jude the Obscure (73 High Street), is a great little shop filled with clothes and jewellery- I bought a jubilee inspired union jack scarf- still cannot decide if I will look like a tourist or a member of the BNP in it- and charity shop shopping -Fara Book shop (34 Broad Street)- get yourself down there. It’s an amazing shop, I always come away with at least 3 books from there and usually on topics I wouldn’t usually pick up in a normal shop, all around about £2-£3 each. Today I got the Lonely Planet guide to Cuba (admittedly a bit late but hey), The Female Brain (Did you know that every brain starts off female and that male characteristics only develop 8 weeks after conception?) , Stiff- A book that promises to lift the lid on what happens to our bodies when we die (not really ideal aeroplane reading admittedly) and Seize The Day, How the Dying Teach Us to Live. (Not wanting to paint a picture of myself as a morbid goth or anything…)

I’m not sure the fact the trend seems to have shifted towards ‘normal shop’ buying AND charity shop shopping, is a good thing. I thought it might illustrate that I can save myself for the ‘real’ shops when I need something for a specific occasion i.e holiday, or when I have vouchers which suggests I’ve retained some sort of sight of the value of money etc etc, but perhaps not, perhaps it’s just bloody lucky I had those vouchers and in fact those vouchers have evil-ly opened me up into a bad, garden of Eden where new, expensive shops are my forbidden fruit and I’m going to end up in even more debt with twice the amount of shops to choose to shop from…I spose at least I’ll have nice shoes on my feet while I eat the fruit/walk from shop to shop.

I have no self control that’s the problem…After this week, can I still insist I’m very much a charity shopper at heart and also insist I haven’t lost sight of the value of money?

Maybe I shouldn’t have inadvertently banned myself from normal shops in the last few months and then I wouldn’t be rebelling so much now. I didn’t mean to ban myself, I just organically, didn’t really want to shop in ‘normal’ shops. It wasn’t an intentional choice. Perhaps therefore I should just give myself a break.

I didn’t expect to be this seduced by brand new clothes and shoes. Good job there’s not many shops in Cuba or I’d be screwed….Who am I kidding? Expect to see a load of cigars in my next post, probably next to a big bottle of rum and a stack load of Che Guevera t shirts that I no doubt got at a “bargain”. 

Must. Not. Buy. Anything. Repeat. Must. Not. Buy. Anything. Repeat…

It does look good in pink though doesn’t it?

A fool and his money are soon parted

I sometimes like to pretend I know what I’m talking about with regards to horse racing.

I don’t. But I also like to think I’ve come quite close to perfecting the art of blagging in some areas over the years. Subsequently, when it comes round to Cheltenham or the Grand National, at least 3 people will always ask me for tips. I will lean my head to one side, stroke my chin, scratch my head, declare it a difficult one to call and tell them to go with Horse X. (i.e Whoever I last saw being tipped in The Sun.)

Nevertheless, a few days ago, I saw that a horse was running in the 8.10 @ Windsor, called ‘First Avenue’. At 9-1 and with £9 left in a Ladbrokes account I’d forgotten all about, I decided that I felt lucky and that due to the name being so close to this blog, it was meant to be. In my head I was spending the winnings already.

I forgot all about the race. I just checked the results. It didn’t even finish 3rd.

I know gambling is stupid, but I kind of feel like there is a small semblance of a link between the feeling you get cheering on whatever you’ve bet on plus the (hopefully) subsequent feeling when the bet comes in, and the feeling you get when you’ve been rummaging around a charity shop and you come across something awesome for a great price, clutch it with both hands, run like a mad woman to the till, out the door and down the street, elated with your purchase.

It’s a similar feeling of despair when the bet doesn’t come in, to when I visit a new charity shop full of hope that I’m going to find some great bargains and I come away with nothing.

I guess I just like winning.

Sunday’s Spectacular Secondhand Spending Spree!

This afternoon I fully indulged myself in some decent thrifting!

I haven’t been to many car boot sales, so non charity-shopper Jo and I rocked up to Battersea Car Boot,  www.batterseaboot.com , not really knowing what to expect… This one took my fancy mostly because it starts at the more sensible hour of 1200noon rather than the crack of dawn- particularly welcome after drinking 10 beers last night.

Anyway, people are scary! As soon as a new seller got their wares out, people descended on them and rifled through their goods like men and women utterly possessed. I’m not entirely comfortable with the whole haggling thing, so in a slightly more dignified manner, I got this gold sequinned Topshop top for a fiver:

… And a quick eBay search tonight tells me the same top in a different size recently sold for £50 so I’m pretty happy with that!!

Plus Jo, spotted these Jo Malone candles which usually retail at £38 (bonkers!) for £7.

After that, I scooted over to Mind on Wandsworth Road…

….a  shop that has really low prices, and both times I’ve been in there, quite amusing staff! You have to sift through the usual ‘granny chic’ bits and bobs, but when you find something good, it’s brilliant. Last time I was here I got a pair of white All Saints jeans for 3 quid. Today I picked up an Evisu denim skirt for £2.75!

And a random book called Elegance, by Kathleen Tessaro, for £1.25, purely because the blurb describes a woman called Louise, browsing in a second-hand book shop, and also because the edges of the pages are black and look pretty.

The success of the day seemed to be clearing my hangover so I decided to check out a big Fara on Chatham Road at the end of Northcote Road in Clapham… Lovely shop, quite a few designer labels, and some good priced sale bits. I debated about buying a bright orange beach cover up thing for £13, (eBay told me it RRP’d at £60), but I don’t particularly wanna look like I’ve been tango’d on the beach so I decided against it. I then popped into Trinity Hospice on Northcote Road- and was shocked at the ridiculously high prices they were charging. It was a nice shop, and they had good stock, but some charity shops really do seem to take the mick at times. I had a quick sweep round but felt a bit nauseated by the high prices and zoomed off to East Sheen in the hope of popping into the newly refurbishd Octavia shop. On the way, I got distracted by my a)hungry belly and b)the Putney Octavia shop I’ve never managed to get round to visiting. After a bit of an argument with a Sainsburys delivery lorry and a BMW, and a quick scoot around the shop, I ended up getting to East Sheen too late and the Octavia shop had shut :( Gutted- but peeking through the window, it has clearly been completely gutted and re-done and looks bloody amazing!

I then did a quick zoom around Mind in East Sheen, just a few doors up (always good for DVDs and CDs in there).

It is a god given fact that I cannot be within half a mile of Richmond bridge during shop opening times, and not visit the charity shops littered down there. The Princess Alice Hospice shop usually turns up a few good bargains, but today’s buys came from my favourite Richmond bridge shop- Fara. It’s a really big shop, staff really chatty and friendly, mainly clothing focused but also have a good selection of kids stuff and some household bits n bobs. I’ve been keeping an eye out for a Cuban cd that I can whack in my car in order to get me in the Cuban mood for my holiday in 2 weeks (HOORAH!) and I found it! - Havana Mambo! … The rest of the albums give away my terrible taste in music… Having said that, I do believe there are not many better songs than Bryan Adam’s Summer of 69.

The secondhand spectacular was finished up amazingly by a visit to my lovely friend Lara, who gave me the best belated birthday present ever in the form of this wicked mug she had made for me. Thanks Lara! xx

Showing off at Sam Beare

Show off

SEMI NAKED WOMAN IN HOT PANTS ALERT

Made ya look….

Did you know, Kylie Minogue’s iconic gold hot pants in the Spinning Around video were bought for 50p from an Oxfam shop?

Even Kylie loves a bargain!

Let’s go Shwopping… says M&S.

Marks & Spencer’s PR department has recently gone into over-drive with the launch of it’s latest initiative, ‘Shwopping’, aimed at encouraging it’s shoppers to bring their unwanted clothes into the store, whereupon M&S will then pass them on to Oxfam who will resell, recycle or reuse them, but importantly, NOT send them to land-fill.

www.marksandspencer.com/shwop-shop

M&S seem to have chucked a load of dosh at this, roping Dad’s favourite, Joanna Lumley, in to be the face of this campaign, a clever choice I think- using old Jo to appeal to the slightly elder generation, whilst also coining the slightly misleading term “shwopping” (you don’t actually need to buy anything in order to donate anything) and launching a big online social media campaign to appeal to the young ‘uns. 

Whilst boosting Marks and Sparks’ reputation as an ethical retailer, this campaign, if successful, will also massively benefit Oxfam who will get their hands on the donations. Great news for both companies! It’s also very refreshing and I for one am genuinely excited that a big established, reputable high street clothing company like M&S is basically shouting out from it’s communications department “DONATE YOUR OLD CLOTHES TO CHARITY”… absolutely ANYTHING that can help change people’s views of charity shopping gets a massive tick in my book. The notion at least in my mind, being that if the public themselves donate half decent stuff during this campaign, they’d be more inclined to have a nosy around any actual charity shop they might otherwise usually pass on their high street, in the hope that others have also donated half decent gear and they in turn can grab a bargain. 

However, aside from highlighting the issue and hopefully encouraging people to donate to charity shops, I’m not sure this campaign is going to be that successful for anyone other than M&S’ and its brand enhancement. I’m not sure how many people are going to drag their discarded and unwanted clothes with them when they go shopping to M&S… and if they do, and I’m wrong, will other charity shops miss out because everyone’s off casts are going to Oxfam? I really hope not… 

At least perhaps Cancer Research won’t miss out as much… They have been running the “Give up clothes for good” campaign alongside TK Maxx for the whole of April- very similar to the M&S campaign.

http://www.tkmaxx.com/page/giveupclothes/give-up-clothes/page/giveupclothes

Don’t get me wrong, I do think both these collaborations are wonderful ideas, but I wouldn’t be surprised if both shops are dissappointed with the lack of donations. On my ‘mission red floor lamp’ mentioned in my previous post, I visited TK Maxx twice in 3 days and didn’t see any donations in the box… Perhaps I visited at the wrong time but people seem reluctant to donate to charity, especially during these hard-up times-  they are more willing to car boot everything or ebay stuff and make a fast buck- and I can’t say I really blame them completely. I regularly eBay lots of my unwanted stuff, but I still make sure I also donate to charity at the same time. What is quite interesting is that perhaps the companies have also recognised this as both stores have introduced an incentive to the donor as part of their campaigns- with TK Maxx you can win a £1000 gift card, and through M&S’ quite impressive Facebook ap, there is a weekly draw to win £100 as well as the ability to collect points every time you donate/interact which ultimately let you into ‘insider’ competitions.

For sure though, at least these 2 big campaigns should bring donating to charity shops into the fore front of peoples minds and hopefully make them think twice the next time they are spring cleaning their homes or passing by a charity shop. The charity shop is a fantastic place to find bargains and unique items that no-one else will have while also giving money to people who really need it. So whether you drop your unwanted frocks off in M&S, TK Maxx or take it direct to an actual charity shop, VIVA LA CHARITY CHIC!

P.S This is me at 3am in Oxford Street… can’t remember the photo being taken, but excessive consumption of white wine and rum obviously does not cloud charity shopping thoughts! (Dress £5 from River Island but bought from Traid Clapham Junction, Leggings £8 from Topshop but bought from Traid as well and Bag £2 from Cancer Research Ashford.) 

Also worth noting my friends utter disgust when I told her that the wet look leggings she was admiring by rubbing her hands all over my knees in a drunken manner, were bought from a charity shop. Most amusing as she snatched her hand back and held it suspiciously in front of her as though inspecting her limb for signs of infectious disease…. Must try harder to convert friends to charity shopping!!

Mirror Mirror On The Wall…

I am rejuvenating my flat and after a jam packed morning featuring a trip to Ikea and a mad dash to TK Maxx to pick up an amazing red floor lamp (who knew you could be in love with a 5ft2 inanimate object?), followed by achieving the unachievable by managing to get said floor lamp into my Renault Clio (no doubt providing the other shoppers in the car park with ample amusement), I spotted a charity shop I had not seen before;

Thames Hospice Care on Stainash Parade in Staines. It’s not open at the weekend so perhaps why I haven’t spotted it earlier.

The shop was actually really quite lovely. Lots of space, prices really reasonable, and it had some good ‘home’ bits and bobs. Definitely worth a rummage and the staff were really friendly as well. I think the till lady actually called me ‘madam’. I don’t think I’ve been called that in about 10 years without it being said in a sneering manner and preceeded by the world ‘little’, probably in reference to a hissy fit about a Barbie doll or something.

Here’s a link to their website and their other shops: http://www.thameshospicecare.org.uk/shop-with-us/thc-shops-2

Anyway, sat in the window was a mirror which instantly reminded me of the mirror in The Best Film Ever Made… Mary Poppins. Nobody probably has any idea what I’m going on about, but if you are one of the few hardcore MP fans, you’ll know the bit I mean. I snapped it up at the bargainous price of a fiver! Just need to decide where to hang it now.

On reflection (BOOM BOOM…sorry, couldn’t resist) it doesn’t look much like Mary’s mirror at all…

…and actually is a bit more evil queen in Snow White, which probably suits me better anyway. ;-)

From Trash to Treasure… Upcycling, but at what cost?

Yesterday a newsletter from a shopping website landed in my inbox. The title was “Reinventing the classics- discover upcycling”… Curious, I clicked and read on… “Switch on truely unique style… Upcycling- breathing new life into old or unwanted items by using them to create something unique- is a hot trend right now.”… Yes, ok, so far, fair enough.

And then it showed a picture of in my opinion, quite frankly, an absolutely horrendously hideous lamp made out of ‘reclaimed’ (i.e random) chair legs, that had a £950 price tag attached to it. Seriously- nearly a grand for some old wooden chair legs stuck together with a light blub and lamp shade splonked on top. Absolutely ludicrous.

In this current economic climate, ie. buggered, everyone’s naturally looking for ways to penny pinch and be a more thrifty shopper and ‘upcycling’ has been added to the vocabulary of both the shoppers and the savers world. But I can’t help but feel these companies are quite simply taking the piss. I could glue a few chair legs together myself and save a grand. Likewise, this comic covered chair is pretty cool but who in their right mind would pay £525 for it, when surely even the least creative person could do this themselves with a bit of glue and varnish. 

I can only think that these companies are appealing to rich and/or lazy folk who a) don’t need to save dosh and b) can’t be arsed to transform something themselves.

This has, however, given me the idea that maybe there is some dosh to be made if people are actually willing to splash this much cash on ‘upcycled’ items… Maybe I need to dig out some paintbrushes and get arty and crafty and sell my beautified junk to East London hipsters, just like they did on The Apprentice last night…Naaaah, I can’t be arsed either.

For more over-priced upcycled items visit:

http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/themes/upcycled-home-accessories?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=upcycling_09.04.12_theme_1&utm_campaign=09.04.12_upcycling