Racing Heart Gold Zipper Necklace $350

Madame Butterfly Metal Chrome Zipper Necklace $450

The Lost Bracelet $92

The Rainstorm Necklace $89

Flora graduated with a Fashion Design degree at Mod’Art International in Paris at 2006. She has a background in both the diamond jewellery industry and the fashion industry.

To buy these amazing pieces, you can visit her online store and take your pick! Also, join Reborne on Facebook and show your support!

Lunacy boutique, is based in Port Talbot, South Wales and is the brainchild of Rebecca Bogue who wanted to bring unique fashion to her home town. The boutique is a mix of new & edgy and tradition & vintage. After 4 successful years of trade, Emma (Beck’s sister bought into business and to open their second store in the welsh capital Cardiff.

We met Rebecca (Beck) at London Fashion Week back in February and after taking a look at her online store at Lunacy Boutique we just fell in love with too many things to list, so here’s a few that caught my eyes.

Teacup Earrings £20.00               Jersey Strand Scarf £48.50

Telephone phone bag £75.00         Paper Plane Wash bag £22.50

Check out the website for more great pieces and information on store locations!

Vintage Suede Jacket ∨

^ Debs: “The 70′s suede jacket is my latest Ebay purchase. I’m really into suede and cant wait to work it into my wardrobe. The grey jumper top is actually a cardigan back to front, a great way to get more out of you wardrobe and get the new sweater jumper look”.

Stripe Jacket ∨

^ Debs: “Another daytimer outfit. My black and white striped jacket is my one of my favourites. It goes with lots of stuff and a subtle statement piece. I am a sucker for stripes but this is rather elegant as it’s made from a silk chiffon type fabric. I’m into white denims a lot again and they are a bit more stylish than normal jeans. The gold converse have that extra edge to the normal converse”.

Blue Cords ∨

^ Debs: “Most of my outfits are daytime weekend styles as I am a mother now – not much freedom for partying anymore! Now that spring is here I like to wear brighter colours and mixed with trench is classic and stylish addition and suits absolutely everything. I love the bright blue of the cords with softer warmer colours just to tone them down a notch”.

Chunky Jumper ∨

^ Debs: “I’m really into my jumpers at the moment. I like the laid back simpleness to them and of course they are warm and cosy. This is a great outfit for Saturday night in the pub. I love my All Saints boots with the denim mini skirt – this look looks really great in the summer with tanned bare legs. I am wearing a necklace I made to hang a ring on that someone close to me gave me. This is a great way to wear rings that you like but don’t really suit your style”.

…and some stuff we found

1. Ice Ice Iceberg Jeans £79 from Yoox.com / 2. Vivienne Westwood Anglomania Jacket £485.32 from Net-a-Porter / 3. Balenciaga Suede Jacket £1,795 from Browns / 4. Oversized Halston Cashmere Sweater £1,495 from Net-a-Porter

Directory

♥ All Saints

♥ APC

♥ Burberry

♥ Cheap Monday

♥ Clements

♥ Ebay

♥ Gap

♥ Halston

♥ Iceberg

♥ Kurt Geiger

♥ Prada

♥ Vivienne Westwood

♥ Zara

LIBERIAN GIRLS AND BOYS have better vintage tees than you

In a country where almost 60% of the population live on around 60p a day, most new clothing is out of budget for the average Liberian; so what they wear come from donations from the US and large used clothing wholesale purchases. Liberia’s economy doesn’t have enough buying power to choose what comes into the country…”demand does not control the goods supplied; it’s the other way around”, Vice mention.

It’s war-torn infrastructure means that there is hardly any domestic production of anything, let alone clothing. Trends are determined by what comes into the country and these kids choose the tshirts based on colour, design, size and quality and of course price…the ironic quotes such as ‘LIFE, LIBERTY & LOW CABLE TV PRICES’ and ‘ ENOUGH WITH THE LEARNING ALREADY’, don’t come into play when choosing a shirt for these kids.

Most of my family still live around Africa, and it’s the norm for those of us who could, to giveaway unwanted clothing to the people surrounding our lives. It’s so difficult finding a charity that sends clothing to the needy instead of selling it on – but if you ever do find one you trust, then do send any unwanted clothing to people who need it.

THE VICE GUIDE TO LIBERIA

SEQUIN DRESS

Olli says: “I love this dress. I think the high street has become a little TOO inundated with sequins recently. They can be a little lairy/tacky at times. I personally love them when they’re used subtly like this. I feel all aquatic and magical in it. Although, I’ll usually dirty up a look that’s too girly – hence the jacket and whopping great big platforms.”

If you like the style and after something slightly different, then check out our suggestions throughout this piece.

What we found

1. Dress £363: Antik Batik from farfetch.com 2. Jacket £519: Preen from fatfetch.com 3. Shoes £140: Ethel by KG at Kurt Geiger

SHOES

“These are my favourite shoes ever. They were a random find in Next of all places. I got them about 4 years ago, but they’re timelessly stylish and cool.  They go with everything and are stupidly comfortable. I can wear these all night and still skip all the way home. Plus they’re not super high like some of my other shoes – I’m pretty tall, so I can look scary in platforms!”

What we found

1. Lace top £75: Coast Stores 2. Harem pants £146: MCQ by Alexander McQueen at farfetch.com 3. Ankle boots £280: Amp at Kurt Geiger

VELVET CARDI

“I have a big obsession with velvet.  My mum wore a lot of velvet in the 90s, so I’ve stolen some of her goodies.  Velvet is such a gorgeous luxurious fabric.  It just adds something special to any outfit.  This is a cardi/jacket I recently found in a charity shop.  It sadly doesn’t photograph very well, but trust me – it’s glorious!  It has beading around the cuffs and seams.  Super lux baby!”

What we found

1. Military velvet jacket £198: Jigsaw 2. Leather drawstring skirt £425: Rick Owen at farfetch.com 3. Leather wrap skirt £559: Peachoo and Krejberg at farfetch.com 4. Studded heels £140: Katie-Jane KG at Kurt Geiger

PAT BUTCHER

“Now this cardi is a wonderful example of something being SO bad, that it HAS to be good. You have to wear it carefully, black tights and a black mini skirt is ideal – I’m not really into the ‘clashing prints’ vibe that’s popular at the moment. It’s another charity shop find – glorious to snuggle in, and I personally love rocking a bit of the Pat Butcher vibe.”

What we found

1. Flash Knit dress £90: French Connection 2. Shoe boots £90: Carvela Alicante at Kurt Geiger

SHIRT

“This shirt has lasted forever. I wear a lot of big baggy men’s shirts as dresses, or I’ll pair them with leggings. This is my favourite. It’s Ralph Lauren (and only a quid from ebay!), so it’s really good quality. It also looks cool worn open with a body-con dress, lot’s of gold jewellery and 80 Deniers.”

What we found

1. Men’s loud check shirt £55: Curlew at Boxfresh 2. Men’s military shirt: £60: Crossbill at Boxfresh 3. Velvet trim tux jacket £489: Jasmine Di Milo at my-wardrobe.com 4. Shoes £75: Layla at Faith

Good quality tights are really important for outfits like this so take a look at mytights.com for lots of different styles, including new in from Henry Holland.

To know more about Olli then you can visit her very amusing blog here at iliketotalk

Looklet allows you to create looks out of clothes, shoes and accessories picked by stylists. There are inspiration pages and an area to submit the looks you create. The team are keeping on top of everything from new designers to vintage pieces.

The site doesn’t allow you to buy but it does label every item with the designer and unlike those cardboard cut-outs, you can view the back of the outfit too.

We look forward to seeing the wardrobe grow. Good luck Looklet!

I’ve never wanted to be visually impaired as much as I do right now…Really. The new Fabris Lane A/W 09 optical collection is heading down memory lane and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!

Launching an optical collection based on nostalgia is brave, but Rod Lane and Mario Fabris know what they’re doing having been in the business for over 35 years. It is clear that passion for quality and originality is what kept the brand strong and turned their 1993 Fabris Lane brand launch into an overnight success. Check out their awesome history here.

With names including Dorothy, Florence, Woody and Winston it’s obvious that there is more to this collection than just the physical. Optical designer, Clare Officer explains that “People like to tap into iconic characters while wearing our more vintage shapes”. It seems a waste not to.

Fabris Lane mention that “inspiration for all the new collections is drawn from iconic eyewear shapes, classic styling through the decades, and an admiration for quintessential modern English style.  2009 is the year Fabris Lane has truly come of age as an international eyewear brand”.

All Hail the kings of mind-blowing eyewear…

Good vintage websites are hard to come by and if they do attempt the online world, their sites struggle to stand out in the competitive e-commerce world. Their designs and functionality are basic and sadly they are never quite showing off the products very well. That is one of the reasons I have always been hesitant to buy vintage online.

Or this is what I thought until I found the ‘Merchant Archive London’ website. With its amazing product shots, descriptions and easy to navigate shop they easily compete with Net-a-Porter, Matches or other established online stores.

Browsing through the one-off items I can barely contain myself from clicking buy whenever I could. From Victorian Jackets, 1920s capes and 1940s burlesque jumpsuit, it just gets better and better.

It’s great to see how one-off products, that must have experienced so many things in their lifetime, finally have a shop that matches their wonderful uniqueness.

Would you buy vintage online?

Victorian Jacket (£170)

1940s Burlesque Jumpsuit (£265)

Edwardian dress (£520.00)

…for pushing the boundaries of shoe design!

It’s no surprise that the ’Virtual Shoe Museum’ is featuring Beth Levine and her book ‘Beth Levine Shoes‘ by Helene Verin on their homepage.

Beth Levine (31 December 1914 – 20 September 2006) was an American fashion designer most known for her designs from the 1940s through the 1970s.

Referred to as the “The first Lady of American Shoes Design” she was best known American women’s shoe designer from the 1950s to the early 1970s under her husbands label Herbert Levine.

She set out to create designs that would make women with average shoe sizes look more delicate and feminine in their shoes, and in the process changed the silhouettes of American fashion. She experimented with cutting away more and more of the leather to expose more and more of the foot, in the process creating shoes that were regarded as both sexier and more elegant than her predecessors.

It sounds like we should be grateful to her!

She was a true inspiration, who would come up with a topless shoe?? Check out the video to find out some more about her and her shoe creation.

Moon boot

Kabui

Under Construction (1955)

Paper shoe

Tuxedo

…when you enter ‘Radio Days‘, a cute little shop close to Waterloo station in London. They stock vintage clothing, collectables & memrobilia from 1920′s – 1970′s.

I came across it at the end of my lunch hour and had to dash back the next day for a proper look! The goodies in there didn’t disappoint. I’m always on the hunt for 1950′s inspired dresses as they are perfect for my shape and I was so excited seeing the cute prints and shapes they had on offer.

Sadly they didn’t have one in my size (sooo close though) but as I left, the owner checked if I was ok. When I explained I couldn’t quite fit he got a glint in his eye and said “I might have just the thing for you”. Out he pulls two of the most stunning halter neck dresses!! Oh how lovely…  but then came the agonising bit of trying it on to see if it’s meant for you or not. They weren’t but that is half the fun of it as when you do find your vintage piece and it fits, you know it’s meant to be.

The owner was so lovely and instantely knew what I liked: What amazing customer service?! It’s worked out for them too as I will be back regularely to make sure I don’t miss the dress that is meant for me and oh the joy it will bring when it finally fits!!

Mh wouldn’t it be good though if they had a service when they let you know when a new item in your size comes in??

As fashion is going back in time and will always come back, make sure you visit ‘Radio Days‘ to get you fitted in the latest, yet original, retro clothing!!

Address
87 Lower Marsh
Waterloo
London SE1 7AB