Shopping Spotlight: This Charming Girl

Based in Glasgow but sold in France, Greece and Spain as well as the UK, This Charming Girl offers a range of both vintage and contemporary jewellery at reasonable prices. Founded by designer Jacqueline Currie in 2006 it gives its consumers not just a piece of jewellery but a beautiful, diverse talking point with a unique design and materials from over 100 different sources.  The website shop showcases many beautiful necklaces, brooches and earrings, some of which are exclusive with very limited stock. If you want something individual and different get yourself online and bag yourself a beauty of your own. Below is Detours top three pieces from the collection for you to drool over…
 

 

 

Among the treasure trove of the online shop are these Decadence Earrings. A Charming exclusive they cost a mere £9.50. Made from from rare vintage pieces they are simply show stopping!

 

 

 

 

With bows as big as ever, this bow necklace is bang on trend. Made of antique brass they are an absolute steal at £9.
 

And for those of you waiting in anticipation for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland film… I present the “I’m Late, I’m Late” brooch. Made from antique gold and priced at a meager £8.50 this is one piece to snap up before its sold out!!

Saving Savile Row

Even when rain washes over its proud, cobbled stones, Savile Row keeps a quietly confident manner. The street synonymous with tailoring has been a valued part of British culture since the early eighteenth century, and little has phased the Row’s crisp and undisputed style – until now. Read more

Swapping: The New Shopping?

Last week I was invited to a swap party. No, not that type. The card came through the post from a friend: come along, it said in glamorous type, and sift through an array of unwanted clothes that have, presumably, run well past their wear-by date. A Swapping Party. To rid friends of their clutter and old, worn out purchases that they have ‘gone off’, only to take them away so they can fester in my already cramped wardrobe. My first thought? No thank you.

Yet, through my cynicism, something on the invite stops me throwing it straight in the bin. Wine. And food. Out of the blue, I feel compelled to explore the positive features swapping has to offer.

On the face of it, this seems like a grown up version of the date outfit frenzy we all experienced as a teenager – panicked visits to a close friend’s cupboard when the amount of dates you’d had with the same man exceeded the number of ‘good’ outfits. Just like then, seeing exactly what is lurking at the back of friend’s wardrobes seems appealing. The thought of others doing the same to mine, not so. This could be the perfect opportunity to rid my cluttered cupboard of fashion failures: if I am brave enough. The cynic inside me advises my thoughts on this dilemma – keep your shameful shopping secrets behind closed doors. No-one will want to see them, let alone take them home.

But this is the beauty of swapping. There is someone out there that may fall as deeply in love with the items as you did that first day you took them home. Someone to see life in the shoes that have walked one mile too many on your feet. There’s no limit on how extreme you take your clear out either – you can be as brutal or kind on your closet as you wish. If you still, truly believe that you will finally be able to fit into your size eight sale jeans by the end of the season, then keep them. Otherwise, swap them for something that actually fits you and leave the skinny jeans to the skinny people.

With Britain feeling the pinch of the credit crunch, there couldn’t be a better time to trust in the swap shop. Making charity shop chic accessible and fun could provide some relief for our empty purses, while still giving us the shop-junkie rush we crave. Food and wine with friends for an evening, then homeward bound with your swapping tucked safely under your arm. How could this fail?

A committed shopper I am, and so by the time the night of the party arrived, I was ready to hit the swap shop. Naturally being one of the last to arrive, I walked into my friend’s already crowded house and scanned the room. The living area had a long rail of clothes at one end, while 15 guests sat at the other excitedly chattering. In the middle was a table filled with nibbles and drinks – it was going to be a good night, even if the clothes weren’t.

I placed my carefully selected garments (a top from Reiss I had only worn once and some skinny jeans that were skinnier than I am) on the bulging rails. The party host, my friend Emma, being super organised as always, had arranged the clothes in order of garment and size, making the swapping easier for us. The clothes were as diverse as the people there – at a glance, I spotted labels from Primark to All Saints.

Five minutes and a quick announcement from Emma and the party began. The house transformed from a regular two-up two-down into a two storey swapping centre. A full length mirror in the spare bedroom became the changing rooms, and soon the neat rails lay in a dishevelled heap. If it weren’t for the wine, it could have been the high street.

More experienced swappers had already spotted their prey and wasted no time in claiming it. As for me, I meandered through my size section and struggled to find anything to take home. I wandered over to the shoes and found that, just like on the high street, there was nothing to fit my size eight feet. But through the torn down rails and tired shoe-boxes came light – shiny, shiny light. I had found the accessories.

Boxes of beaded necklaces, bracelets, bangles brooches and cuffs lay waiting for me to fall in love with them. Which I promtly did and took them home, pleased with my beautiful new pieces that didn’t cost me a thing.

Swapping parties are also staged on a grander scale. Futerra is a company that runs what they call ‘Swishing’ events. Petra, from www.swishing.org, has been involved with the company since 2001. “I think there are people attending the events who think it’s just going to be a load of old tack. But most are pleasantly surprised,” she says. “It’s light on the wallet but it makes you feel good. You’re not buying anything new and adding to waste but you’e gaining some beautiful additions to your wardrobe.”

Solitaire Townsend, one of the founders of Futerra, who specialise in environmental and social change, has given the whole thing an environmental twist: “Now you can save the world without having to wear s**t clothes,” she declared.

 Perhaps most importantly, swapping is a much greener way of updating your wardrobe. According to TRAID (Textile Recycling for Aid and International Development), shoppers buy 2.15 million tonnes of new clothes and shoes that the high street churns out each year. And year after year, masses of these clothes are thrown away.

 ”You can’t really lose by having or attending a clothes swapping party – you could get rid of some old clothes that are cluttering up your house and get a new outfit for free,” says Jane Marshall of Green Uses For Waste, who offer shoppers new ways to bin their waste. “You’ll also have the satisfaction of knowing that you are ’shopping’ in an ethical way. Cutting down on cheap throwaway fashion is a concern for many who do not want to contribute to the 900,000 tonnes of shoes and clothes that are thrown away in the UK every year.”

 So, will I be making my purse redundant, and abandoning shopping in favour swapping? Maybe so. Dismissing my initial fears I have found that there is a lot more to swapping than meets the eye. To be able to swap my clothes in favour of more attractive pieces, have free range on my friends’ wardrobes, consume wine and nibbles, and at end the night, walk away with new things without spending a penny is obviously appealing. But to make use of ethical ways to free my closet of clutter beats the Top Shop rush any day. The purse strings won’t stay tight forever but for now, the shoe fits – and I shall swap a few of my extravagant habits for something a little trendier.

Shop wins award for third year running

A shop in Ashbrooke has been voted as one of the top 100 shops in the country for the third year running.

Wilsons Super Shop, on Queen Alexandra Road, is one of only two shops in Sunderland to win the award.

Richard Wilson, who owns the store, said: “It’s great for people to recognise the high standards that we strive for and the hard work that we do.

“My staff will go around the shop with older customers; carrying their bag and helping them find what they are looking for. They keep the shop well stocked and clean.”

Richard, who owns the shop with his wife Denise, said: “It shows how high our standards are. It shows that we are regarded as the best individual shop in Sunderland.”

Denise said: “Well obviously it’s a proud thing to win an award for three years on the trot. It shows how hard we work.

“Its really good for the community as well, it shows that we have something to be proud of within our community.”

To win the award the shop is rated on categories, which include shop layout, availability and interaction with the community.

Of the top 100 shops, 81 were in the list for the first time, proving the level that Wilsons Super Shop is achieving.

Independent Achievers Acadamy spokesperson Nick Shanagher, said: “We’ve had an amazing response this year and standards are higher than ever.”

“Consumer surveys consistently show that local shops are rated more highly than supermarkets. And our Top 100 list includes many of the UK’s best retailers who are proud to serve their local communities.”