Charity-shop-challenge: Part 2

I will quite happily, given the odd half hour, undertake the charity shop crawl. After all, if one of my favourite pursuits is shopping (and yes, it is) I don’t have much choice up here. But unfortunately I have no real success story; I could probably count my charity shop purchases on one hand. This may well be my fault – I’m far too picky and too mainstream (the majority of my clothes come from regular High Street shops) to properly search. If it doesn’t jump off the rails to me, I’m not going to spend time thinking on how to make it work. Yet I hadn’t actually expected this task to be quite as challenging as it was.

After two or three (or more) laps around Shelter, I quickly decided that the fur coat (£50) would be the basis of my outfit – simply because it was the only thing that I actually really liked (not including the AMAZING old-school style Kellogg’s cereal bowls – I’m still mourning the fact I couldn’t wear them!). A simple blue bag (at £3, it was a bargain) seemed to go well, and luckily we found a pair of navy shoes that fit. Shoes were our limiting factor – this was the only pair in the shop that fit me… joined by a pearl necklace, I felt very vintage, very 1940’s; my Gran would have been proud. After sniggering at the underwear – who buys worn underwear?! – I decided that the black, faux silk bedroom-wear-come-slip (£3) would do perfectly, sexily (I hoped) peeping out under the coat. In total, the outfit came to £61, not what you might hope for, but obviously the coat was to blame.

The shop itself, Shelter, is tucked away next to Little Italy. The charity was founded in 1966, originally founded to provide housing for those made homeless in the slums. Their vision is to provide a home for everyone, and they won’t stop until this is achieved. In 2010/2011, they gave specialist advice to 19,000 people, and provided support for 276 infants who had suffered from a trauma.

I may not have worn this particular outfit, but this will not stop me from being on the lookout for others. After all, if I can feel good about buying clothes, then I will.

Photographs ©Kenna Bisset