Fabulous Frocks!

...Fab Frocks

from the V & A costume rooms...

(click to enlarge )

bodice detail from a Celia Birtwell designed fabric & dress late 1960's

1920's beaded column gown, Jean Patou

Zandra Rhodes early 1970's

A classic Chanel three piece worn by Gabrielle herself

Catherine Walker dress & jacket designed for Diana, HRH Princess of Wales

for the Royal Tour, Hong Kong

looks like something Morticia would wear!

fabulous glass beaded back detail

floral Dior dress garnished with beads

and a jewel in the crown

a Vivienne Westwood gown I would love to own!

... and here is a soupcon of fashions of the future

new designs from young designers, students of fashion

Vintage Fashion Shoot

A couple of months ago I mentioned HERE

that I was relaunching my vintage clothing business

and that my home was rendevouz central for a fashion shoot,

the clothes were sourced from my online shop

for the Christmas fashion feature in the December edition

of our city's glossy magazine Carlisle Living.

It came out yesterday and l'm pretty pleased with it,

if only a little disconcerted that a model is standing

in the middle of the garden conifers,

my conservatory couch is incongruously

(sorry should that read edgey?!) on the wet lawn

and a 'drunken blonde' is badly hovering my living room carpet!

All's fair in love and fashion, I guess!

www.sarasattic.co.uk

if you click twice they will enlarge!

all featured dresses & more available from

or direct from Sara

Reopening soon!

Since 2002 I have run my own small business, an online vintage clothing website.

www.sarasattic.co.uk

It has grown from strength to strength, mostly in footfall and in profile. It has received favourable reviews from The Sunday Times Culture, Country Living, RED, Daily Mail, webUser and the Independent's magazine voted it the best UK website and 3rd best vintage shop in 2005. I was thrilled.

A business will only give back £'s relative to the amount of time one can contribute to it.

So as I am stretched very thinly around my family,

my employed work and other commitments, this has in recent months taken a back seat.

Therefore early last summer, I took down all the stock,

recycled the majority in true vintage fashion and

kept the best LBD's (little black dresses) and gems.

During the self induced hiatus I mulled, cogitated and mumbled

about the pro's and con's, the why's and wherefores and on my best list making stationary,

I planned and plotted the future worth of my tiny, mini empire.

I reasoned that with 5 million hits in my best years' trading -which averages out to approx 75,000 unique visitors per year, I could make a better go of it.

Plus I had the stock, the experience to add to the visitors

(a decade of fashion buying and retail management)

so as to not let this drift off and flounder altogether.

So! I decided to specialise in Party wear and frocks,

handbags and a few select accessories.

I also decided to relocate the 'Attic' to the Etsy platform.

I respect and admire their ethos of recycling and eco friendly products,

crafts, handmade and vintage. A perfect new home for the Attic.

I have some lovelies to showcase in the new shop very soon,

in fact as soon as the planned photo shoot -all day Monday- is done and dusted.

The shoot is for a Christmas Vintage Party wear

for the new glossy Carlisle Living magazine.

Etsy formats and creates the pages for each item and so gives me more time,

no longer having to resize crop and edit images in several sizes.

Bringing my customers to my new location,

will benefit Etsy and potentially all the other shops on Etsy.

Drop by soon and see what you think of the new Attic and Etsy itself.

Be very careful, you can indecently while away the hours on Etsy,

at every click you will be in the den of beauty and wonders!

'What I did this summer' Part 1

I have been off for most of August and have been quite busy.

So in the spirit of the annual return to school essay, set by our teachers on our first day back, this is, 'What I did in MY summer holidays!'

I have been regularly going to to classes for Pilates, Yoga and also the gym.

I went with a pal to Shambellie House nr Dumfries. This the Scottish National Museum of Costume. A bit of a grand title for what I thought was an average collection and display. It is in need of a makeover, for my taste too quaint and too homespun. We went specifically for the Jean Muir retrospective, which was one room with approx 18 mannequins. Displaying sublime examples of Miss Muirs designs. It was well worth the entrance fee of £3.50. We wondered around the garden and admired the Wicker woman scupture. She was stunning from all angles.

Larry and I spent my birthday weekend in Manchester, just the two of us. Eating, shopping and lots of walking. On the Sunday, Larry had to attend a corporate event held at Headingly for the Ashes and so I had the day all to myself without clock watching , browsing the shops, the Manchester City Art Gallery, walking the streets,

Albert Square, Prince Albert Monument & Town Hall

the Urbis Exhbition Centre

a pavement of ducks

amongst the stalls in the street markets,

I took tonnes of photos

The Manchester Wheel, a smaller version of The London Eye

and I drank lots of milky coffee

and ate more than one krispy kreme donuts...

Watch for Part 2 coming soon....

Visit MamaGeek and Cecily, creators of Photo Story Friday.

PHOTOSTORY FRIDAY - An Attic day

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

I'm really late with this one, but hope you enjoy it.

Today has been kept clear as an Attic day

This means that all housework is pretty much up to date (?)

dog walked, kids at school, just me at home on a day off from my day job.

Since 2002 my passion for vintage fashion became official

when I opened my vintage clothing website.

Its been a blast to indulge this passion, making the leap from  a hobby into a small business.

I don't invest as much time as I would like, wearing so many hats and since moving home from large rural farmhouse, to urban bungalow bill city dweller. So space and time is at a premium. Most of the stock has been packed up and I haven't done the site justice this year at all.

With the glitzy party season twinkling its bright lights on our doorsteps,

I have been buying new stock over the summer 

and secreting it in all places around the house.

Today was the day I could bring these treasures 

out and I have taken pics of some of the Attic day.

9am - so what have I bought, a real mix!

9.30 - a few tools of the trade

10.30 - getting some good images (a 1980's stunner)

11.00 - it's in the detail (1930's)

11.30 coffee & snack

noon- my current work area/dressing table/laptop

2pm-4pm -weather dried up, so I trimmed garden hedges for two hours 

4pm - s**t kids home already?

5pm -10pm - snatching time to edit/ upload /list on my websites - 

all very time consuming

here 

and 

here

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

What do you want to be

... when you grow up? I read an article recently which asked this question of children and  teenagers from different backgrounds, countries and cultures. It was very interesting and revealing, as the children had either very little or were privileged by way of circumstance or example. It was enriching to hear they all had aspirations and dreams, way beyond their existing horizons.

But the question kept resounding with me and I kept asking myself … 'What do I want to be when I grow up?'

Yes! I know I am grown up already, in age and definitely in experience and  perhaps in some wisdom too!I have been single. I have lived alone in dreary and lonely bedsit land. I have spent Christmas alone twice and new years eve too often to count. I have been lucky enough to travel and live in different countries in three continents, experiencing different cultures.

I have had several careers. I am a qualified hairdresser - 1970s; I am an experienced fashion  buyer, Manager and Area Manager - 1980's; I have worked in the Voluntary sector as an area development manager and I am a qualified Bookseller & Buyer with Diploma- 1990’s. I am long-time married and I have given birth to and raised two children.  The jury is out on ‘successful’. I can only hope it will be said I was a good mum, wife, daughter. 

Why does this question still resonate with me? Perhaps because I know in my mind and believe in my heart that it's never too late. I may sound like a glass half empty type of girl most of the time. But I strongly believe in Hope, that hope is actually more important than love, in that if one hasn’t love, doesn't love, one can hope. Without hope, I truly believe one is lost. So I can 

hope and I can aspire to do more, to travel, to run my own shop, to have a spare room as a library and have a beach hut or vintage trailer in the back just for me.  I study with the Open University to stretch my mind, teach and inform me so I want to continue pursuing this. When I grow up I may earn a degree or two just for me.To be trivial for a moment, when I grow up I 

would like to have the style of Paloma Picasso, the panache of Vivienne Westwood and be dressed by Chanel by day and Valentino by night; I would love to be as eloquent and passionate about art as Brian Sewell or Simon Scahma.

I've done my share of growing up, I am a grown up and allowing for the fact that one needs to make a living, do I want to do more things and have more things to do?  Or do I want to be someone or something more? Do I want to ‘be’ anything again? There is so much yet to do, to learn, to see and to say.  And as I don’t know how big a bottle I am drinking from, I can still keep drinking as I do not know when it will run out. I think it crucial to say the things that are important in that moment. 

I still have a lot of growing up to do. I hope when I grow up I won't be saying I would’ve, could’ve, should’ve. I hope I will be saying I will, I can, I shall and I’m going to start that right now…

... what do you want to be?

ABC WEDNESDAY - i is for....

... I-con

to be frank I had trouble on this one, all I could t

hink of was ICE, but l couldnt find any of my own images

 to go with it, and that IS the point right, that its our own photos!?

So l reached for my old faithful the Collins Concise tome and looked for inspiration...ah too late now!

Here is a well known and loved Icon, The Princess of Wales, 

unfortunately I cannot find the photos I have of her, 

which I took when she visited my home town of Canterbury at the  Cathedral in the early 1980's. 

However I do have this, 

an I-conic  vintage Jacques Azagury designer dress from my Vintage store, 

well it isn't anymore as I'm keeping it! 

The original was sold in the now famous auction of many of her dresses.

Ballerina length dress with black bodice  

embroidered with blue stars.  

The drop waisted skirt is a double layer of blue organza. 

Designer: Jacques Azagury

...and this is my dress

http://wednesdayabc.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to stop by Mr.  LINKYat Mrs.Nesbits place, to see "i" posts from all around the world. And....we'd all love it if you left comments, or, even better, if you want to join the fun.

A HORMONAL HAZE!

I'm so stressed, I cannot really believe it is me, but I almost always am these days.

So okay, I've had a busy week of evacuation exercises, work pattern changes, strikes and picket lines and busy, busy times on a busy reception, busy... do I really need to say busy again? My current routine, which as I've mentioned before involves juggling work, home, kids, animals during the week, whilst hubby works away. Not to mention the housework and the zillion other claims, which admittedly I put upon myself! This is something a world of other mums do and probably better than I. It isn't anything new, rare or indeed different. We women do joke that we can multi task, but actually I do hold up my hands and say that I do multi task but none of it do I do particularly well ... and it's all getting a wee bit tedious, actually.

Twenty years ago, we lived 'down south', we were you could say 'DINKY', double income no kids yet. Married for 6 years, together for 13 and enjoying 2-3 holidays a year, work, cars, eating out, living the Thatcher dream! (or so we thought then). I held an assortment of retail buying and management jobs, I was well paid, organised, (I was honest!) I was highly motivated and I enjoyed the responsibilities of buying and managing staff, of fashion trips, Fashion week, fairs and flying to conferences. I worked 10 and 12 hour days, sometimes on top of a 60 mile commute to London and beyond and back again daily! I was confident, successful and an achiever.

We made some choices that changed our lives and we had two children. When they were toddlers we upped sticks and moved from the sunny seaside of Kent, to the dark, dank and dreary climes of Cumbria. Great for walkers, climbers, ramblers, farmers and fish! I've had a variety of part time jobs here, which I've chosen so they worked well around the kids' school hours and hol's.

For a time I didnt work at all as I was busy setting up my onlone vintage clothing site (http://www.sarasattic.co.uk/). But I soon felt isolated alone all day on remote farm and so found another job that fit around the family.

So what the hell happened? How can a week of part time work, (granted over five full stressful days), two teenage kids that don't really need mollycoddling anymore, (even if I do fuss), a dog, a rabbit, the usual housework, keeping on top of the garden, some bill paying and a Tesco online shop, drive me to cotton wool wobbly despair? I have the coping skills and stamina to deal with most major domestic/emotional castrophes, l know this cos I have been there, when the shit hits, you can count on me. Please don't misunderstand, these are my choices and I stand by them. But the daily grind seems to be getting the better of me!

SO whats with the stress? the headaches? the angst? the miserable moods? I like to, no hope to think it's the mid life change and all this brings to bear. This too shall pass.

A menopausal mum in crisis with two teenagers in the house. This house is a hormonal haze. No wonder my husband only comes home at weekends! I can't blame him, I wouldn't come home at all!

...5 days off now, breathe deeply, smell the roses, tomorrow is a new day ... yeah well obviously, DUH!