Secondhand / vintage / charity / ethical and slow fashion chat

[madamceladon]

Can we have a chat thread for this?
Tips and ideas, blog and podcast recommendations and latest finds?

I'll start. I think 80% of my stuff is secondhand, from charity shops eBay and vinted. I've got more into this in last five years and never go in fast fashion shops. I feel a bit ill and overwhelmed if I do now.
If I do need to buy new I try to find a company that is ethical and made in Britain.

I've got really into maintenance and repair as well. I love watching a film while I debobble and darn knitwear.

Recent efforts, I had some nice black fine wool trousers but they were too loose and unflattering on thighs, I've improvised and put in my own pleats at the top and pleased with how they came out.

I wanted a black polo neck after I saw some women looking very stylish in a black and white 1960s film and found a perfect one the next day in the charity shop: lambswool, old m and s, made in Britain.

I love this website
vintagefashionguild.org/label-resource

And this podcast
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/dressed-the-history-of-fashion/id1350850605

That looks great @EducatingArti, I don't want to spend £££
I think I might have some leather cleaning spray somewhere

I've made some visible repairs to jeans but they weren't great. Did the job but not as cute as yours

Mine is only a pj sleeve so I was willing to experiment as I don't think anyone else is going to see it.

Leather cleaning: you can clean most leather with warm water and a sponge or microfibre cloth. you can buy saddle soap or use a proper leather cleaner but even a small amount of diluted dish soap will do for gentle cleaning.

Clean, let it dry then treat with a leather conditioner. there are loads, I like Avel.
www.afinepairofshoes.co.uk/products/avel-leather-renovator-cream-250ml

It depends on the finish as well if you want it really shiney or whatever. lots of people use shoe polish on leather bags.

i like the look of sashiko. its so interesting and I like the previous poster's first try.
I've done kintsugi - the gold repair thing - on cracked ceramics but I havent done sashiko yet.

www.japancrafts.co.uk/sashiko.html#/

I’ve been an avid charity shop buyer and used to go to jumble sales (don’t think they’re still a thing) since my teens. I love the thrill of finding something lovely and original.

I’m lucky that there are three charity shops within close proximity of each other close to where I live.

I do find though that some things are priced ridiculously high. I saw a nice little tea light holder just before Christmas and they wanted £8 for it! No way did it warrant such a high price tag - a more realistic price would have been £3.50 max. That being said, I have had some really lovely buys. My most recent find was a needle cord Laura Ashley maxi gored skirt. It probably dates from the 1980’s… I love it.

Yes please!
I can't remember the last time I bought clothing new. I only ever buy preloved as does my partner. Recent funds include:
Red lounge/track pants by ME+EM rrp £115 for £6! Perfect condition
Uniqlo cashmere roll neck for £4 perfect condition
La Coq Sportif vintage sweatshirt for partner for £7 again perfect condition
Beautiful Jones bookmaker leather loafers still in box -£10
Ralph Lauren jumper, like new - £4
Patagonia puffer jacket perfect - £16

I love watching trends then putting my own spin in them and hunting charity shops and eBay etc.
It's such a buzz to find something special in a charity shop, so much more fulfilling than facing endless rails in high street stores.
Obviously the benefits to the environment are a great reason to buy more sustainably too.
Happy shopping all!

I’m enjoying reading this thread. I struggle to pass a charity shop by. I don’t always buy, but have a list of things to look out for, both clothing and houseware.
A year or so ago, I bought a Longchamps Le Pilage bag for £5. It was in good condition apart from fraying on the bottom corners.
I researched how Longchamps repair them and did the same on my sewing machine.
The bag is perfect and gets at least one outing a week.

Those sound great @timestheyarechanging. Well done!

Oh I remember jumble sales run in the church hall and that feeling of being considered old enough and responsible enough at 9/10 to help on the bric a brac stall.... (preens)

I love a good root in a charity shop and found some amazing stuff over the years. My best find lately has been a Jaeger dress in the Sally Army warehouse in Blackpool on the £1 clearance rail. Same shop some unworn Dubarry boots for £8 - too big for me but my mum bravely stepped up and took them off my hands

@Cookie79

Oh I remember jumble sales run in the church hall and that feeling of being considered old enough and responsible enough at 9/10 to help on the bric a brac stall.... (preens)

I love a good root in a charity shop and found some amazing stuff over the years. My best find lately has been a Jaeger dress in the Sally Army warehouse in Blackpool on the £1 clearance rail. Same shop some unworn Dubarry boots for £8 - too big for me but my mum bravely stepped up and took them off my hands

Aw cute I like jumble sales, very old fashioned feeling to them now!

There are jumble trails Facebook groups, quite a few round my way. People just put a table out front their house and you walk around the area. They add the locations to an app so you can find.

I got some bloody lovely brown Russell and Bromley ankle boots for £10 on the jumble trail!

I bought a wrecked and very smelly leather bag just for the purposes of learning how to clean and recondition leather bags. I have a day off at the end of the week and that might be a good time to do it. DS has some saddle soap which he uses on his shoes so I'll borrow it.

@mathanxiety

I bought a wrecked and very smelly leather bag just for the purposes of learning how to clean and recondition leather bags. I have a day off at the end of the week and that might be a good time to do it. DS has some saddle soap which he uses on his shoes so I'll borrow it.

Great fun, Cleaning and restoring leather is deeply satisfying

Alas, I didn't get to Edinburgh for my much looked forward to day out with myself, as I felt too uneasy getting on a train before getting my covid booster. TP Express were lovely and refunded the price of my ticket, so I've rebooked for April when the weather will (hopefully) be much nicer. 😊

Happily, managed to scoop some lovely pre-Christmas finds in my local charity shops, including a fabulous Joules Breton top for £2.50, a charcoal grey Jigsaw wool/modal long sleeve top for £2.99, a grey Hobbs jersey faux wrap dress for £12, an Avoca caramel & cream kid mohair/wool scarf (which is like wearing a cloud round your neck) for £3.50 and last but not least, a navy Celtic & Co slouchy fine knit merino wool jumper for £5, which is selling on their website for £98!!!

www.celticandco.com/shop-by-yarn/merino/slouchy-fine-knit-roll-neck?colourID=393

Very interested in your conversations about restoring leather bags. I have an huge, ancient leather Gladstone bag which accompanied my father in the merchant navy and subsequently saw action in East Africa during WW2. It sat in mum & dad's attic until 2011 when we had to clear and sell the house after mum went into a care home. It has been sitting in my garage since and is very much the worse for wear, but I have no clue where to start with it. I would dearly love to have it restored.

The bag looks very similar to this, but sadly is not in this condition. 😢

www.dejonginterieur.com/catalog/suitcases/ko-105-gladstone-leather-bag-1237720/en?searchTerm=98

@ilovecardigans

Oooh oooh ooh! Impressed with finding avoca and celtic in charity shops. This must be a posh neighbourhood!
Sorry you didn't get to Edinburgh, I've got lots of relatives there so go several times a year and always get such great charity hauls.

Really interested in the Gladstone bag. Post some pics or you can message me if you like?
Im an amateur leather restorer, I've been dabbling for about a year and have restored two items. If I lived near you I'd take a look.

It might be of interest for the bbc programme the repair shop but I expect they get 1000s of submissions.

Quite probably just a good clean and some conditioning will help but you should get a professional to do it if it is personally valuable. Don't risk damaging it.

Do you want it to be actually useable as a bag or just to preserve it in a more attractive state?

That jumper! Well spotted @ilovecardigans

@ilovecardigans

Gladstone / doctor bags are beautiful.

This is a leather guy whose videos I love, a restoration video on a 25 year old doctors bag.

Your piece is older though, really history to it... update us 😊

@ilovecardigans and watch some of the repair shop episodes where suzie the saddler works on old leather. It's a fascinating material and can be incredible to watch it come back to life in the right hands.

Leather rot - there it's going all red and dusty and flaking, and big cracks are the challenges.

Attached some before and after of a restoration job I did on a dusty old travel bag. I'm using it to store my hats and gloves.
Pics don't really do it justice.

And here are the after pictures

Oh, thank you @madamceladon and @ILoveShula. 😘

I think I just struck lucky, as it's not an especially posh town. Certainly not in comparison to the likes of Kelso & Morpeth!

Thanks so much for all your advice about the bag, @madamceladon. I'll get my husband to take some pics on his Smartphone (I don't own one - am total dinosaur!) and post them up. I would like to restore its dignity as it's clearly been a faithful servant and it deserves to be loved and displayed. Part of the reason I haven't done anything with it yet, is that it contains hundreds of letters that mum and dad wrote to each other during and after the war and I have no idea what to do with them. I feel that I shouldn't read them as they were never intended for my eyes and it also feels wrong to destroy them. So, I have employed an ostrich strategy and left them as they are, inside the bag.

Sorry for long ramble. I'll have a good think about what to do and keep you updated. I would like this to be the year I finally get my head out of the sand!

Wow! You are a leather magician, @madamceladon! That bag looks fabulous.

I absolutely love Repair Shop - I watch in wonder. I think it's not knowing where to start first that stymies me (that and lacking any tangible skills or equipment!)

Thanks for that video, @madamceladon. I can see many YouTube bag restoration suggestions in my sidebar - clearly a bag restoration rabbit hole is in my future.

The job you did on that travel bag is fantastic!

@ilovecardigans

even more interesting with the old letters. it does sound more and more like a segment on the Repair Shop :)

For the old letters I would suggest at least checking their condition and storing in some flat storage files in acid free paper (what conservators use), so that they don't get mouldy and start disintegrating.

i wonder if stash of private letters is of any interest to museums or historical societies, hard to say and dont know if you'd want that.

one final idea is that you could pick a couple of nice samples from the letter stash, even just a postcard or the addressed envelopes, not personal writing, and get them framed as a keepsake. so you are still remembering the parents but not prying through the whole lot.

I will butt out of your family history now but have fun looking into it.

@madamceladon just gorgeous. So relaxing to do, too, and so worthwhile.

Got a lovely midi floaty long dress for £1 today. It's even got pockets and sleeves