A Hipster's Paradise: Pea Pod

Welcome...

The time has come for the last shop in my 'Hipster's Paradise' feature, where I look at Pea Pod (144 Rosemount Place AB25 2YU), owned by Angie and Claire. Pea Pod is a fairly small shop but has a lot to offer, providing a wide variation of unique individual  items. I had a chat with Angie and, again, got a bit excited taking pictures of everything shiny, furry and simply beautiful!

Angie and Claire are two lovely ladies who once worked together in Topshop and have been friends since. A few years ago, in Torry, Aberdeen, Claire entered and won a competition where she was provided with start-up funding for her vintage furniture store business plan. As their family's grew Claire and Angie got together and decided to buy what used to be a butcher shop on Rosemount Place and turn it into a vintage boutique, allowing them to both work around family whilst still doing what they love."Something interesting crazy happens every day!"

The lovely Angie- an owner of Pea Pod

The pair sell a range of items from clothing to furniture to animal horns.. yes, animal horns! 

Most fur that Pea Pod trade in is real and they are all genuine vintage.

Angie tells me she's always been into fashion and used to spend her student days rummaging through all the vintage store that were once all over Aberdeen.

A couple of my favourites

I have to say that the best thing about small, independent retailers like Pea Pod, Retrospect and The Closet is the personal vibe of the store. The owner usually works in store and all staff are friendly and passionate about what they do. You don't just grow fond of the products but the people there and the retailer as a whole. 

Hope you've enjoyed these posts over the past few weeks. I'll be putting up a tiny post about my work at the Cancer Research store later on this week, but that's enough from me for today. Don't forget to follow my blog with Google+, Bloglovin or Facebook.

Stay Beautiful

A Hipster's Paradise: The Closet

Evening!

It's been a week since my post on Retrospect, which received a pretty positive response. Now it's time for the 2nd part in this feature on vintage stores in Aberdeen. This week I thought we'd take a look at The Closet (31 Joop's Lane AB25 1BX) a stunning vintage store, not too far from Retrospect, that trades in unique and individual pieces, available for purchase and hire. The shop was rich and overflowing with stunning vintage pieces causing me go mad taking pictures of everything. Enjoy!

Elane is the lovely owner of The Closet, the woman who makes it what it is now. In secondary school, she bought her first ever vintage item from the store, a snakeskin clutch. When her husband found out it was for sale in 2005, they had to snap it up.

 Fur, glorious fur.

Although Elane doesn't believe in new fur, she does sell an array of real vintage fur. She told me that, when she was younger, she visited her brother during summers, travelling through Queens Cross, London. In the 80's Queens Cross was, let's say, not so pleasant, with homeless children around the streets. People were protesting against fur products and encouraging people to bring their products to burn and all she could think was "Give it to the children. The damage is already done."

 I completely agree with Elane in the sense that vintage fur should be reused and resold as it's already been produced. Use it for something or else it was all for nothing. But the continuous manufacturing of real fur products are not necessary. 

"It's all about heritage." All the pieces are sourced from individuals in and around Aberdeen and each item tells a story. No bulk buys here! 

The Russian Princess

This mustard dress with feather and sheer detail belonged to a young girl who fled Russia, along with her family, to Paris.

  

That's is for "A Hipster's Paradise" this week, but come back next week for store number 3. I also though you might like to know that I've just agreed to help out Cancer Research revamp their small, in-store vintage section. It's volunteer work but I think it'll be a fun bit of experience where I can put all the new skills I've learned so far into practice. I'll keep you posted on my progress!

Stay beautiful.

A Hipster's Paradis: Retrospect

Hey hey!

If you're a bit of an indie-vintage-oh-so-cool-hipster, the next few weeks should interest you more than my posts about current trends and Made in Chelsea (I know that might be way too mainstream for you). This week will be the first of my retro month where I'll be putting up a little info about a few stores around Aberdeen that trade in vintage fashion.

In all honesty, I don't particularly like that some may consider me to be a hipster, my older sister being the main culprit, but if I was to admit it, I'd consider myself to be the most mild form that could possibly exist. Although I do blog, love second hand clothing and have started carrying a DSLR camera around with me (often hidden in my bag and not around my neck) I can't help but express that my adoration for One Direction, Nicki Minaj and Primark is too much to ever commit to the image. For all you true hipsters in Aberdeen, I'm sure you may heard of these places years ago but I've only just discovered them so hey-ho.

Retrospect

9 St Andrew Street, AB25 1BQ

I was on the bus back from uni one day to find that I only live a couple of minutes walk away from a gorgeous and affordable vintage store owned by Psychedelic Jim and his partner, Ananda. The pair took over the store in November 2008 from their friend Claire who originally started trading in menswear but branched into women's as demand for it grew.

Vintage Levi Jackets- around £25 each

I can see myself getting pretty addicted to this place, mostly, the shirts! With prints from Hawaiian to plaid to 70's patterns, these are my favourite feature, as well as the comfortable and friendly atmosphere.

Vintage Men's Shirts- Varying around £10 each

Psychedelic Jim (the shop owner with a very memorable moustache) tells me that he's never really been very 'up with the times'. Since a young age he's always had more of an interest in the old than the new. 

"I've always had a fascination with the past"

As well as clothing, accessories and homewares, you can buy a variation of badges. Images are scanned from record sleeves and original vintage badges, then made in store by Jim himself.

A little peek at an oversized check shirt that I bought when I last went in. Just couldn't help myself! 

Come back next week for A Hipster's Paradise part 2.



Stay Beautiful,

Time to Shoot!

Hello all!

In case you didn't already know, I had my photo shoot yesterday for the end of year, Fashion Management magazine and all went well. I chose clothes from Blush Boutique in Aberdeen, a gorgeous store that was kind enough to let me borrow some pieces. Check them out on Facebook and Instagram to keep up to date with new stock. Their dresses are perfect for a show-stopping outfit this Christmas AND they have a blow dry bar too, so you can go all out with a full Blush look.

It was a pretty early start because I, ambitiously, decided that I would do the hair and make-up of both models, resulting in me being bare faced with the same hair I fell asleep in... it's a hard life. We arrived to the studio at around 10am after a glamorous ride on the bus, got the lighting sorted and the models dressed, then it was time for action. 

Models

Aine Donnelly

Dawn Ryan

Photographer

David Mitchell

Stylist and all that jazz...

Me!

We took about 700 shots and I've not even had time to go through them all but here's a few for you.

Make up.

Appreciate that these were taken after the shoot, 3 hours post application.

Me behind the camera behind the person behind the camera.

Doing ma thang.

 

That girl who reaches for the last size in the sale at the same time as you.

Okay seriously now...

Love this outfit!

Aine looking like a Special K model.

 

Twirl girl

No fan. Not even a light breeze. Skills.

 My lovely girls looking cute as always

 The gang

Stay beautiful :)