Sustainable Fashion: Part Two

What is it with me and knitwear in the summer? 

Wearing a knitted vest my mum wore in the late 1970s from the men's department of Marks and Spencer, second-hand LL Bean jeans from ASOS Marketplace, a vintage handbag that was a Christmas present from one of my best friends a few years ago, Kurt Geiger booties, and New Look ear cuffs.

These jeans are so comfortable. I almost always buy jeans from the 80s or 90s; they tend to have a higher waist and wider leg which I love. 

These shoes were love at first sight; I saw them in an airport and had to use every ounce of will power to resist them. I was still thinking about them four months later, so I went to the Kurt Geiger store in Covent Garden. I have worn them so much that they really need repairing, but I'm too afraid that someone will say they can't be fixed...

One of the nicest places to sit in Winchester! Flat Whites' does amazing coffee and really good breakfasts. 

Photographer: Anna Harding from Hello Ding. 

Make Up: MAC and Glossier. 

Sustainable Fashion: Part One

I'm really enjoying the sustainable fashion movement at the moment; I've been reading a lot about reusing and recycling, and I'm trying hard to buy clothes from charity shops, vintage stores and websites like eBay, One Scoop Store and ASOS Marketplace. 

I decided that I wanted to explore what I already had in my wardrobe that is secondhand or vintage; turns out, there are a few pieces that I own that have previous lives elsewhere.  I wanted to explore all the clothing options that I had that to prove to myself how easy secondhand and sustainable fashion is. 

Anna from Hello Ding (who is also a fellow Spitfire Sister of course!) agreed to be the photographer for the project (her instagram is amazing, you can check it out here). 

Checking out the second hand book store in Winchester Cathedral grounds.

This red knit dress was designed and made by Annie Durkan in the early 1980s. My mum modelled the dress for her and was allowed to keep it at the end of the shoot. I had it in my dressing up box from the age of 8, and I used to pretend it was an evening gown and I was off to some fancy party. This was the first time I've ever worn it outside! I'm so glad I kept it in my wardrobe all of these years. 

I bought this book.

The denim jacket also belonged to my mum many years ago. It's very old George by ASDA, darling. This is a wardrobe essential, I take it everywhere, all weathers, all temperatures. 

We stopped by The Square by Coffee Lab for sustenance, which I would thoroughly recommend. I understand the irony of drinking out of a takeaway cup when writing about sustainable fashion - normally I'm really good at remembering my tumbler, but I forgot it. Classic. My tumbler is from Corkcicle and they are amazing. You can check them out here. There are so many benefits to using your own mug - apart from the whole saving the planet thing, you also save money at loads of places. Good vibes all round.  

Jacket - George by ASDA, Dress - Annie Durkan, Shoes - ASOS, Makeup - Glossier & Bourjois

Here's my mum in the same dress 35 years ago...you can't get more 80s than that. 

Mama Don't Take My Kodachrome Away

I have an intense obsession when it comes to vintage style photo booths. I'm not at all bothered by the ones that are for passport suitable prints (where you can't even think about smiling), but the ones that take four different prints are brilliant and a ridiculous amount of fun. I find them romantic; I used to think that if I ever had my photo taken in a photo booth with a boy it would be the epitome of romance.

Although I was obsessed for a long time, it wasn't until 2009 on a road trip from Oregon to British Colombia that I found the kind of photo booth I was looking for. My enthusiasm was so apparent that my friends allowed me to keep the original prints, just so I would shut up about it.

 

There have been a few photo booth encounters since. We found this photo booth at Larmer Tree Festival in 2013, after our performance (www.thespitfiresisters.co.uk, www.facebook.com/TheSpitfireSisters). This photo booth came with a challenge - swap your props between each photo. Hilarity ensued. 

I adore this print taken at a killer party last year - we totally monopolised this booth all night. I have so many sets of photos from this evening, but this one is my favourite: 

There are some wonderfully iconic prints from surprising participants of photo booth pictures. Recently, Vanity Fair published a print from a photo booth of John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy that is believed to be from their honeymoon.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/01/presidents-portfolio-200901_slideshow_item7_8

It was Anatol Josepho who invented the photo booth in New York in 1925. Näkki Goranin, the author ofAmerican Photobooth, wrote in an article for The Telegraph that 'By September 1925 [...] as many as 7,500 people a day [...] would line up to have their photos taken for 25 cents for a strip of eight [...] The New York governor and a senator were among those waiting for the fun of the automatic photo strip' Personal photographs became cheap, accessible, and outrageously popular, but appealed to everyone, including politicians. 

Our lives are so well recorded now through social media and camera phones that photo booths can feel like surplus documentation, but there is something about the history of photo booths and their longevity that makes them feel special. 


 

You can find Näkki Goranin's article entitled The History of the Photobooth at: 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/donotmigrate/3671736/The-history-of-the-photobooth.html.

Signed Sealed Delivered

Nothing is as satisfying as receiving mail. I occasionally get letters, postcards appear sporadically, but online shopping deliveries are a frequent arrival in my mail box - possibly a little too frequently for my bank account to successfully cope with but let's not focus on that right now. I'm a huge fan of ebay and a regular ASOS customer but recently it's Etsy, a diverse marketplace selling everything from greetings cards to swimwear, that my heart belongs to.

Etsy is where beautiful and ridiculous dreams are made - literally handmade, by creative brilliant people who seem to know what every person wants before they know it themselves. I have lost entire afternoons and evenings to this website because it's simply not possible to escape a search engine circle.

For example, I typed in my current TV obsession Parks and Recreation and found these:
 

www.etsy.com/shop/thelordoftheearrings

Quite frankly, my ears feel naked without them.

Obviously, the next logical search to type in would be one that combined two of my favourite things, vintage travel posters and Harry Potter. 

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TheSeventhArtShop

They actually exist. I could have these hanging on my walls in a matter of days, and my life would be complete. 

I always end these Etsy sessions with a broad search of 'the 1940s', a decade which is close to my heart (see www.thespitfiresisters.co.uk and twitter.com/spitfiresisters). The results are endless and totally absorbing. A few of my current favourites:


This amazing '40s coffee pot.
 

www.etsy.com/shop/theoldtimejunkshop

A 1940s pie dish - I have no idea how to cook but I'd give it a good old go if I had this to cook with.
 

I can't recommend exploring Etsy enough. Get involved. Find some much needed television based accessories or a lovingly refurbished vintage tea set, and look forward to something exciting arriving in your mail box.

Hold Me Tight And Don't Let Go

This article originally appeared in Vintage Life Magazine

I'm wearing dungarees. My life is in boxes. I'm eating cereal straight out the packet because I packed all the bowls. I'm mildly stressed.

I'm also massively excited. My room was beyond the point of tidying, and the tidying was never going to happen, so I can just sweep it all up and tidy as I unpack at my next place. While moving isn't renowned as the easy way to get out of cleaning and tidying, it is regarded as a highly appropriate moment to get rid of some things. Throw some stuff away. Create a new start with less clutter. Go for a minimalist approach.

I'm ignoring that. My name is Hannah, and I can't throw anything away.

I like to collect things, and to keep things, and to find things again that remind me of the past. It can be my past or someone else's past, but I like the idea of time travelling via objects that I've kept for reasons I can't always remember. I've kept so many birthday cards, postcards and tickets that I have several shoe boxes full of the things. When I go into charity shops, the first things I search for are the old photo albums or loose photographs and letters. It breaks my heart to see things like that that aren't claimed. I want to look at the faces in the photograph, investigate the story behind them, and learn their history.

That's the reason I find it so hard to part with things; I can pick something up in my room and remember where I was and who I was with when I found it in the first place. I have books on my shelves that people recommended to me but I haven't got around to reading yet, and I have records that are waiting to be played that I purchased because their cover art was so beautiful. I have a problem with clothing as well; my wardrobe rails were buckling under the weight of knitwear, and yet I still think I'll wear every sweater I've ever owned this winter, even though everyone knows (including myself although I'm in denial about the whole situation) that I'll wear the old man charity shop sweater until December, and the 90s LL Bean fisherman's jumper until February, and all the others will wait patiently on their hangers just begging to be worn. 

I'll try and be ruthless when I'm moving this time around, because the packing process is hugely delayed by my sentimentality. I think I am addicted to the feeling that I will have things in the future that will be able to transport me straight back to this moment and the moments that came before it, and I find that unbelievably comforting.

Four thousand jumpers, but I've packed the only two bowls I own. I reckon cereal tastes better straight out the packet anyway.