Violet Vintage Jewellery, London

Who doesn't love Vintage jewellery??

I absolutely love the stuff. There's no such feeling as finding a gorgeous piece of jewellery: a piece that's a one off to have in your red velvet jewellery trinket box. So when I saw a small article in Look magazine about a website dedicated to the yummy vintage stuff I ran to my desk to check out the products.

The pieces are incredible: (some too expensive for my student purse strings, but if I had the money..yes please) even the name, 'Violet Vintage Jewellery' is cute and stylish. The company even has a reworked section on the web-page which consists of a number of pieces of vintage jewellery that has been redesigned and reworked into more contemporary settings. Each piece is designed in Violet Vintage's London studio and handmade by an artisan jeweller in Lincoln. Each item is 'exquisitely boxed in our signature Violet Vintage packaging' and if it's a gift your after your personal message can be written on a sweet little card and popped into the pretty box. Gorgeous.


I know it's fab to rummage through boot sales, vintage fairs and flea markets (and being a student studying what I'm studying I do thankfully have the time to do this and enjoy it) but for those without a second to spare the site is perfect.

Here's some of my favourites..


1950's Vintage Stratton gold robin beauty compact £38



Silver Tone Oui & Non Disc Pendant £24



Solid gold vintage whistle charm on Edwardian chain £250



Vintage 1960's simple gold and pearl ring £85


Beautiful 1920s Blue Ballerina Compact £84



Vintage gold tone leaf bracelet £50

Monochrome Magazine

When I lived in surrey for the two years I was studying at UCA,I sometimes ventured into London, whether for a shopping trip, whether with my uni class for a brief or whether to just go get a yummy cupcake from Hummingbird Bakery (believe me they are so worth it!), and whenever I visited London my eyes where always on the prowl for anything and everything that looked good to me. Fabrics I saw, posters on the subway, flyers/leaflets, any sort of freebies (being a student and all :s) just everything around me, after all London is one of our top, if not the top city we have in Britain for creative talent and inspirational finds.


Anyway...

Yesterday I went to my dads house and whilst I was there, I had some time to have a look through my old sketchbooks, which is always good fun and sometimes cringeworthy. I came across a freebie magazine I grabbed whilst in the most fabulous of bookstores on this planet, R.D Franks, in London called Monochrome Magazine.

I had a quick flick through the mag and Im just infatuated with the art direction. It's not very me but for some reason it just grabbed my attention, I usually like things quite simple, but with a little edge, but the layout of this mag is all over the place, there's hand written text in some places, imagery dotted everywhere with overlapping text and imagery, and not only this but the magazine is half english half japanese. I love the look of the pages with the notepad background: some pages are just of one single image surrounded by its negative. I've looked for a webpage for the magazine but I cant find one and I want to share this with you guys so i've taken a couple of shots to give you a sense of the whole mag :)

London baby??

London is like marmite- questionable.

I’m as far from an original London girl! i moved down here last September to go to uni to study fashion for 4 years, well 1 yr studying fashion foundation and then 3 yrs studying fashion promotion and imaging and being me i get homesick a lot! So i do go home quite a bit on the trusty old megabus-this is my time to think, seriously. I have so much time on the bus to schedule my week, look at my timetable for the following week, catch up on the weeks news (as i did at the weekend with the huge Sunday times newspaper and the independent for this weeks round up of London fashion week!-blog later, promise..) and coming through London is always interesting. Even though i have lived 30 mins outside of london for a year i still feel like that virginal tourist that’s constantly checking out all the window displays, the very geometric concrete buildings, Selfridges ever changing windows, (which i always hope no London red bus will pull up to the side of my megabus, blocking my view!) the bustle of baker street near the huge blocked Primark store. I’m trying to get to love London because due to the sheer size it annoys me and sometimes terrifies me! Im hear for another 3 yrs, i have to learn! Not only does the size aggravate me; there is a lot of pompous people about too, however weighing interesting people to the pompous, i think 2:1 to the former.

I feel as though every megabus trip helps in some way to enhance my feeling for the city. I love people watching and ldn has a hell of a lot of people to watch, including lots of up and coming students, (the futures work force!) elder women and gentlemen just leaving small, quaint galleries, backpacks and beige sandals included, W.A.G. wannabes, London ‘in it’ girls, cockney geezers, fashion trend setters and followers: i could go on but i will be here for ever and my coffee’s getting cold. Not only are the people interesting, the city itself has lots to offer-lots of exhibitions, The House of Viktor and Rolf at the barbican centre i saw last weekend which was amazing; recently, London fashion week, that is a must for every year (and still will be even though the fashion week has been shook a little this week with the bigger cities trying to kick us out of the fashion circle, have these people ever met the fashionistas of ldn?!) the business guys and gals doing their thing, in monochromatic attire, all the valuable newsagents! Etc.....

well looking at what i have just wrote maybe ldn is a good city to live in, or near to. Maybe i should try and read the Evening Standard every day to really get to know the city, or will this just scare me and make me wanna run away, who knows?!