Summer Work

Designer Ringlit, sold at FOUND, Leeds or visit website here :)





So this week I began my summer volunteer work. Working in the British Heart Foundation, primarily dressing the window displays and visual merchandising, and also working at FOUND, a gorgeous and very spacious charity/boutique in Leeds.

I have really enjoyed my first week, the hours are brilliant and not very hefty, I have enough time to dress the two windows and four mannequins at BHF in my shift and at FOUND I have more than enough creative time and space to style up plenty of apparel, and may I say the clothing here is yummy and very good quality.

At BHF the process of working there is much more formal and it seems there’s more admin to be sort, the people at BHF are really nice and helpful which is good, and at FOUND it feels quite relaxed and my boss, Vicky is very sweet, kind and helpful.


I started the week at BHF and my first job was to dress our main window, which was hidden behind a huge rail of clothing which, every single time I left the window I had to come through, it kinda felt after the 8th time, that I really was in C.S.Lewis’ famous novel, except it wasn’t as cold as the snowy forest that Lucy finds at the back of the wardrobe.

My aim was to dress the window in summer attire and with the theme of the world cup, yes, that’s right the world cup. So with this I grabbed whatever red and white clothing I could find, I looked for pieces that would suit the BHF audience, specifically in Wakefield were I’m based, the target audience being mainly elderly women. So, I picked a look that a stylish, elderly lady would wear to the pub, maybe for a pub lunch before the match?? I dressed the misbehaving mannequin in a red jersey evening top, short sleeved with red ruffles running along the neckline, some white chinos, an earthy coloured necklace and then simply threw on quite non-chalant, a white blouse (you can’t really trust the weather in the UK so I needed a back up). I gave the outfit a dark brown, wicker material handbag to bring in a natural feeling to the outfit and something light for the summer. I must have done a good job because my shift was only 3 hours and within that time all the mannequins I dressed I sold something from, which is a good sign.

I also had the chance to play with menswear which I haven’t really done before, I rather enjoyed it but womenswear is much more fun to style. For my final mannequin I wanted the look to be aimed at the more younger customer and I styled the look however I wanted, I didn’t really stick to the world cup theme but I’m glad really because I think my final look was my best. I chose a floral blue and orange dress, with a loose denim shirt for cover up, rolled up the sleeves and gave the look some polka-dot wedge sandals and added another wicker bag (BHF had plenty) then whilst having a little look at the books, I came across a really nice looking cover of a book about enhancing your femininity so I put this with my mannequin- the look overall worked quite well, and when I visited the shop today the dress had sold so I definatley seem to be doing something right.

At FOUND, the clothing and the whole atmosphere of the shop feels much more stylish and modern. The music is much better (plenty of 80’s) and the clothing is much more on trend and fashionable than those at BHF, which it should be because FOUND are aiming at a different customer.

I dressed my first mannequin in a festival look- denim frayed edged, shorts, a faux snakeskin creamy brown patent belt, a vintage triangle sweater, short sleeved with a faint pattern on the front and finished the look with a vintage purple and bronze scarf. This is defiantly my favourite look of the week. I will upload pictures of these next week. The other looks included a summer dress with plenty of cute t- party necklaces, an evening look, quite trashy, with a designer made dress, red block bottom and floral top and to this, I added a load of trashy necklaces this looked quite cool; another look was a summer evening look- chiffon peach/ochre shorts with a blue blouse with a neckbow this look however didn’t make it on the shop floor because a customer snagged the gorgeous shorts before they even got a look in from anyone else; and my final look, looked at the trend of underwear as outerwear so I styled a black lace top with white lacing collar with a floral bodice, black and pink, and put silk polka dot shorts to really mix and match the look and give it an edge.

I’ve had a great time so far volunteering; before I started I thought that I might feel a little disheartened with my work because I’m not getting paid, but its something I love; I have free rain of clothes, shoes, accessories, I can use this time to experiment with looks and I basically play dress up for hours.

Sourced Objects. Still life styling.

So over the last couple of days, I have been rummaging in 20p boxes full of everything from purses to plates, to small plastic boys toys, all in aid for my shoot which is next Tuesday at 3-4pm arghhhh! I have so much to do before the shoot day. I'm planning on setting up a small studio at home with a back drop and playing around with my sourced objects to see what works with what, so then when I get to class this Tuesday I could show our photographer Dave (it also really helps myself) images of the actual set up shots.

Before I left to find all my objects for the shoot, I wrote a list of actual pieces I saw on the Fall 2010 catwalk's- the colour palettes of the accessories, the shapes of the accessories etc...so when I hit the charity shops I wouldn't just go straight to the bag section and spend money and time on myself when I had work to do :S

Today I am going to be heavily customising some pieces I picked up. I read recently '50 Years of Fashion' a book/reference magazine on the 50's style that I am trying to capture (but not forgetting to modernise) for my shoot. In the 50's there were some key accessories that women wore all the time, for wherever they went, even if it was just to the beach, the 1950's lady wouldn't have been seen without these, they include: a hat (pillbox with tulle, feathers, ruched flowers-type of hat and decoration show the personality of the lady); gloves; shoes; clasp handbags and clip on earrings. With these in mind I went searching, I love to look at old things it's nice to feel a little nostalgic at times isn't it, and to know that your putting someone's unwanted things to use, giving them a little life is great.

The pieces that I am going to customise are; the gloves, on the fall 2010 catwalks there were a lot of gloves on many of the shows, yet the gloves I could get a hold of really aren't like the catwalk ones so I am going to customise the gloves by opening the wrist section and making the top part of the glove more looser (as seen on the catwalk); the brown and cream court shoes I have, I'm going to try and attach some lace around the opening of the shoe, as seen at Dolce and Gabbana; whilst on my travels I bought a shower cap to customise and make into a hat so I bought some fabric and I will simply ruche the fabric so it resembles the flower hats as seen at Dolce and Gabbana. I found an almost identical silk scarf from Age Concern and I bought it for £1.85 and it just looks so similar to the print on the Marni catwalk, the colour and the shape of the print-unbelievable.

Hopefully the shoot will look creative and modern and the products will look stylish, I just need to remember that the shoot is an accessories shoot, not a homage to the 1950's.

Vintage Monday!

Ok so today me the lady and jj went to leeds to do some vintage shopping, not just clothes: accessories, furniture, jewellry, books (god so many books!).

We only shopped at one high street store, and im kinda ashamed to say it but i am a student and i needed some cheap stuff (look at me justifying myself!) cos im going away to Cyprus, Paphos for 2 weeks in a weeks time so i needed some cheap tanks and t's for my jollies, so we nipped in quickly to Primark. Like i said this was the only high street store we visited the whole day, thankfully, cos leeds is full of little gem-charity shops and vintage stores.

We started at Scope, from the outside it kinda looked a little drab but like i said, GEMS! when we got in i headed straight for the clothing rails all full with so many clothes from all over the place and from all types of people. There downstairs was untrue, just full of books and furniture dirt cheap (not dirty!), we found a very comfortable (well, you gotta sit down somewhere to read through the mounds of books on sale) light grey sofa that cost only £50 what a bargain, if i wasn't living back with the rents again and was living by myself i woulda picked that up, popped it in my bag and ran away! After Scope we walked through the main shopping strip in leeds centre, heading to one of my favourite vintage shops in Leeds, ironically called 'Vintage' :) and the shop really does what it says on the tin.

As soon as you walk in you can smell the age of the clothes. Between the labels Aquascutum,Fred Perry and DKNY you see mounds of vintage clasp bags all different shapes and sizes (most bags a tenner) and at the back of the shop theres a huge shelf space entirely for vintage trainers, all at £20 each! I ended up buying a leather, patchwork (all earthy colours) bag, that hadn't even been put out onto the mismatched shop floor yet, at a tenner you cant really say no! I also grabbed a really cool mustard and navy blue patterned silk scarf and a battered, slim black leather tie...all this for £15, what?!! Theres sumfin wrong there...nope just really REALLY good prices.

After here we went for dinner at Wokon, noodle bar- beef teriyaki yum yum!

Onto Oxfam, the biggy charity shop, which by the way im gonna try to change, we need to help all the other, smaller charities too people! The books here were incredible, my brother has a slight obsession with old books, in this one visit he bought 5, all older then 1930! You should check out his work, and see what he does to these books to modernise them, its amazing.

After the biggy, and R.S.P.C.A which to my astonishment sold pianos! We went to the British Heart Foundation, which apparently every two weeks gets Harvey Nichols 'cast offs' but i did a lot of rummaging and didn't really see that much but hay hoo still a really cool and full charity shop.

On the way to the bus we passed the leeds centre market where we bought sooo many cherries for 80p!! We saw some amazing stuff there too, i came across a table selling shoes, clothes, accessories, old books and everything was a quid each!

We've decided we are gonna do the charity shop rounds once a month to update my wardrobe and to get some srummy food and not forgetting all this goes to good causes!

Brill day! xx