Cow, where real treasures come from

I am not always in the mood for vintage shopping. I can't imagine shopping vintage when I'm tired or in a hurry. I need to have space for imagination and creativity in my head. Vintage shopping is more like fabric shopping. Vintage clothing, for me, is very often raw material for something completely different.
Yesterday was my vintage day. I went to Cow and bought some amazing clothes there. I hope to post them soon.
For now, just a taster:

Picture taken in Cow. I'm wearing an All Saints jacket, a Fabrykat dress (which is actually my prom dress, made many many years ago*, now shortened and successfully adapted for everyday purposes), an Urban Outfitters bag, and my new vintage shoes sought out in Cow yesterday.

* I remember that the night before my prom I was still in the middle of sewing. And actually, I may well have ended up going to my prom naked or wearing jeans. But I was too proud to admit failure, and decided not to go to bed at all, which was extremely stupid of me. But then my mom arrived from one of her endless trips, took the dress from me, pushed me to go to bed and finished the whole hemming with immaculate hand-stitching. I loved her so much that day.

Green Socks for St Patrick

Yeah, we had a St Patrick parade today, and I decided to show my green socks to the world. But the reason to post these pictures here is actually not socks but my trousers.
I made them about 15 years ago. I'm not kidding you. They are still alive, and I love wearing them. They are comfy and made from good quality wool. They are actually longer, but I like wearing them that way. It makes them look even more vintage.



At the end of shooting we had a funny situation. We went to take these pictures on the opposite side of our street. Our microscopic and usually very silent street was very crowded today, because of the parade. And to my big surprise, during one shot, I was joined by this man:

Speaking of shoes...

...here are my new Octavias:

Click on the photo to see the details of the packaging.

I purchased them on a sale at All Saints. They were lying in a corner, abandoned and unwanted, because it is not obvious how to wear them. All you see is two straps and you can do anything you want with them. Actually, that sounds great, but in the majority of the positions I came up with, they were very unstable, and that clearly made them unwearable. But finally, I found one position that worked perfectly well, and they got my respect for not being easy. Just in case you didn't know, 'not being easy' is a very important shoe feature. It's like riding a horse. The whole fun is with a difficult animal.



I love these shoes as much as I love All Saints as a whole. I would be ready to buy everything there, and I really have to stop myself every day from visiting their store.
Last week, I made a mistake and visited their website. I didn't buy everything only because I bought my sewing machine a week ago (it works on many levels now, I say), but look at these beauties.

My shoe is your shoe

A little bit more about the event:
Digbeth is getting more 'user friendly'. Still, when I say that I love jogging along the Digbeth canal, people tend to stare at me with a certain expression on their face. This is the dodgy part of Birmingham, or at least this is how it's perceived.
But I see an enormous potential there. Imagine, a very central part of a city literally packed with abandoned Victorian factories. Isn't it a perfect location for artists and other freaks like us? I was totally in awe when I got the invitation for the Arts Party of the Year organised in Digbeth.



Here are some pics from this event (apologies for the quality, these were taken with my phone):

(photo taken by Bohdan with a camera, for a change)

Two fashion shows (Harvey Nichols and Sulaimi Brookman), short films, photography exhibition, a concert (The Distroyers) and an intriguing shoe collection being recreated from Andy Warhol's famous shoe paintings by Rachel Simpson.


More from Rachel on her website: www.rachelsimpsonshoes.co.uk
And of course, more of her inspiration: