My favourite five opshopped finds*

*Well, my favourite opshop finds that I still have. There are some things I've bought and eventually sold and just regret it SO much now, like this cute pink rose dress I got for $2 in Nelson and this AMAZING 60s velvet floral dress I paid $20 for at Tassie Traders and sold for the same price and could just kick myself in the face for getting rid of.

But yeah, these are my top five finds that I've scrounged from charity shops and actually hung on to. My scores do not compare to those of Camelias and Crinolines or Helga, but I'm pretty pleased with my wee collection. It was actually hard to scale it down to five, and I would've had to make it six if my absolute favourite black and white striped top wasn't in the wash.

In no particular order:

1. The copper rose border-print 1950s day dress

I know, I know. I talk about and wear this dress way too often. This dress is the opshop equivalent of that time I met Tim Shadbolt and he kissed my cheek and we walked around Wellington talking politics; a story you just tell over and over at parties and bring up all the time and all your friends know it way too well but YOU'LL NEVER STOP TELLING IT BECAUSE IT WAS THE HIGHLIGHT OF YOUR LIFE. This dress is my big win and my favourite thing to be like 'oh? This? Just from an opshop' about. It's getting to the stage where no1curr about how much I love this dress or how I got it, but whatever, it still makes me happy every time I put it on.

And it was free. FREE. Someone actually looked in their wardrobe, examined this dress, and was like 'nah actually this isn't the most beautiful garment on earth, I'm going to throw it out'. And although that person is of questionable taste, I would like to thank them for bringing this into my life. Actually, Wellington is so small that one day I will be wearing this dress and someone will stop me on the street and tell me it used to belong to them and they donated it to the Aro Street Vinnies. I have seen people around Wellington tonnes of times wearing stuff I donated to the opshop or sold through consignment or on Trade Me. One girl had taken this great 80s fruit and veg print dress I sold and given it a mullet hem, which hurt me a lot to see.

Anyway, love this dress, number one dress, etc.

2. The sheer chiffon 1950s party dress

 

I got this dress from the same reliable Aro Street Vinnies that I got the former at, except I actually had to pay for this one ($4, I think) because I bought it before I volunteered there. As you can see in the last photo it has some unfortunate brownish spills on the skirt, but whenever I wear it people are usually so busy making thinly-veiled insults and being shocked at the site of 21-year-old woman dressed like a four-year-old from 1955 that they don't notice the stains. But seriously, this must be one of those great dresses that was made for a chubby child (I did find it in the kids' section), so the fit is really good on me as a wide and short vintage lover.  

I love the little diamante buttons and the sickeningly twee peter pan collar. I usually wear it with something black and sexy underneath so I don't look too much like an infant, but it also looks amazing with a plain slip and a knitted jumper with that great collar peeking out. 

3. The gray peter pan collar coat

 I got this amazing gray woolen coat, also from the kids' section of an opshop, at the Anglicare Depot in Summer Hill in Sydney in 2010. It was $8. The depot is this big, gross warehouse full of huge bins of clothing to be picked through. You cram your finds into this big burlap sack that you are provided with and weigh it at the end and pay $8 per kilo, or thereabouts. It also has a more curated opshop where the prices can be quite high, but I was happy to pay the price of an airport sandwich for this coat. This is sort of disgusting, but I've worn this so much that the lining has shredded through the arms and body and I have to be careful when I put it on that I don't shove my hand into the no man's land between lining and shell. The piping is velvet and navy blue, if this needed any more cute details. And the pink pin is from the Warhol exhibit.

4. Minnie Cooper red mary janes

 I got these shoes from a little church opshop in rural Taranaki where the old ladies manning the store were super, super cute. They let me go through their stock in the back room and I found SO much good stuff that Jack's parents had to courier a huge bag of clothes down to us because we couldn't fit it all in our luggage for the flight home. I got these for either $3 or $4, and one of the ladies was like 'back in the day we used to call those Mary Quant shoes and wore them with white tights and short dresses', and every time I style them like that I think of her. 

When I got them I thought they were real 60s mary janes, but I later found out the logo on the sole was for Minnie Cooper, an NZ shoemaker whose footwear is renowned for being excellent quality and super comfy. They took a couple of breaking-in wears but now they are by far the comfiest shoes I own and I am constantly stalking Trade Me for more of her shoes in my size. I have tiny feet so they don't often come up, but I honestly think they'd be worth the $400 they are new because of their craftsmanship and durability. I've worn these a lot since I got them and they look amazing still. I've got my eye on these.

5. The leather backpack

 

I found this one Christchurch day opshopping with my brother. It was $4 and I ran over to him and was like 'Will, you NEED this backpack'. He thought it was ugly and I wasn't actually that sold on it, but I bought it anyway and the next day I realised it was THE MOST PERFECT BACKPACK EVER. I haven't had an ill thought about it since. Not long after I bought it, one of my stylish friends said he loved it and asked what I paid for it. I held up four fingers and he was like 'four hundred? That's not bad' haha. Score. Several people have offered to buy it off me since then.

One of my biggest fears in life - this is telling about how chill my life is - is stuffing too many tomatoes in it at the veggie market one week and overloading it breaking it somehow and having to life the rest of my days without the style and convenience of a leather backpack.

Honourable mentions to ballerina dress I got for free when I bought a couch, 1950s chiffon ball gown with a print of flocked bows, the blue velvet cape (not cheap but worth it), 1950s wedding dress also from the Anglicare Depot, and peach pleated skirt that I still wear way too often plus BONUS the black and white striped top I mentioned earlier. Man, this post makes me so bummed to have to work all the time so I can't go opshopping during the week now. Saturday opshopping sucks :(

Hyacinth Girl Beauty

My awesome friend Morgan has finally started her beauty blog, and it is just as excellent as expected. She came over the other day and made me up in the style of one of my favourite bloggers! Read about it at Hyacinth Girl.

P.S. I promise I won't be posting about beauty stuff all the time!

Sitting pretty

Wearing sheer 1950s daisy-print dress from Reycle Boutique, rose gold Repetti mary jane heels from eBay via Ana, heart-shaped perspex purse from Etsy, Datter necklace and ring and misc opshopped belt, plus NARS Afghan Red lipstick.

My shoes sort of blend into my feet and my bag sort of blends into my dress... whoops. I got a new role at work and my boyfriend got a promotion so I wore this out to celebrate. My new thing involves starting at 7am and finishing at 3.30pm so it is actually still light after I finish work, so maybe I'll sort my shit out and start taking better outfit photos in the near future. Maybe not, though.

I don't know if you can really tell (I hope you can?) but I am wearing makeup in these photos. Woo! I am SO excited about beauty stuff lately and I have basically spent all my spare money from my last four paychecks on makeup and skincare stuff. The catalyst for this was my pal Morgan (who will have a beauty blog up and running pretty soon) who is essentially a beauty guru and amazingly inspirational and useful when it comes to me sending her random photos I've found around the internet and asking her to tell me all the products I would need to look exactly like that.

Morgan does these big beauty buys online and I've mooched off her international mail forwarding service to attempt to become more put-together and help towards my yo-pro aspirations. Pretty much everything I do now relates to my yo-pro aspirations tbh. The other day I went to Morgan's to pick up a haul of lipsticks and stuff that had just arrived for me, and got to pore through her impeccably organized makeup collection and damn, it has me inspired. But as this is sort of a new thing for me, I have been pretty lazy with my usual kind of harm minimization deal that I try to adhere to in my everyday consumption.

Because I don't really know a lot about makeup and my mum never really wore it, I've just been picking and mixing with a totally miscellaneous array of products that seem useful and/or fun, like undereye concealer to help with the 6am starts, and waterproof mascara because I am yet to learn that rubbing my eyes all the time = bad for makeup - but also glittery silver eyeliner because glitter. I do try to be as ethical as is possible and reasonable with my general consumption, through buying almost everything I own second hand, repairing my clothes and shoes and taking care of them, and buying local as much as possible - except makeup, because prices in NZ are insane. I am loath to pay $62 for anything, let alone for one lipstick.

However, I do not pretend to be completely consistent and there are always areas in which I could do better in terms of conscious consumption, and makeup is definitely one of them. As I learn more about beauty and how to optimize my face's cuteness, I want more and more to invest in really nice quality makeup that will last well. It is so easy and fun to buy cheap makeup to play around with and try to find out what looks good, but hopefully as time goes on I will be able to justify spending a little bit more to get a product which is quality, natural and not tested on animals, such as Tarte cosmetics’ great cruelty-free and natural products. I don't really want to support animal testing by voting with my dollar so I am going to try my hardest to be more consistent with my approach to makeup and invest in great quality products. I am really excited to conquer my fear of looking like a kid playing in their mum's makeup bag and start looking FIERCE.

NB: This post contains sponsored links but is 100% my own opinion and writing.

'Gramming

Just some recent pics from my Instagram. 

 

The 1950s under-the-sea print dress I got myself for my 20th birthday, tamarillos from Jack's parents' garden, plum crumble in an opshopped Pyrex dish. 

 

Beaded cardigan from Recycle with Blanes 50s dress from Trade Me, my heart-shaped bag thing, breakfast in bed. 

 

Dress from my friend Bobbi Jo, a replica of a 40s dress my parents got made for me in Vietnam, the wine cellar at a place I went for a dinner party the other week. 

 

Cute little 60s striped dress from eBay, matching prints on two 1950s dresses, perfect cardi that my bf's grandma knitted me from a 1940s pattern. 

 

 A bit of my wardrobe, a gingham California Cottons 1950s dress and bolero set, and a heavenly rose-printed velvet 1950s Southwell dress from Trade Me - my most exciting new purchase of recent weeks.

Good work, Sam. Come on, I'll buy you a falafel.

 

Wearing a forest green 1950s cropped jacket from Brag Vintage, 1950s copper rose border print day dress from an opshop, Columbine merino tights, t-bar shoes from Emporium Vintage and banana basket from Jack's mum.

I wore this to go get a falafel and some dolmades and some hair of the dog for my hangover. This is that dress that I was given as a gift from my manager at the opshop I used to volunteer at. She found it while sorting through donations and gave it to me to say congratulations when I landed my Big Girl Job. I wear it so often that I hadn't realised it had never featured on here before. Also wearing a new Ruth Rees Originals cropped dark green 50s jacket with awesome rectangular bakelite buttons,  from Brag Vintage. I have a really similar one to this but in a mid-brown colour that my dad got me three years ago and I've worn so much the lining is starting to disintegrate. I am always searching for its perfect replacement and I think this one might come close.