All Saints Brighton - Sewing machine display

These magnificent window displays, consisting hundreds of antique sewing machines, appeared overnight as All Saints transformed a former homeware shop in Brighton's South Lanes this week. An enticing prospect for vintage-enthusiasts and clothes shoppers and a welcome change from the 'Gold 4 Cash' and Christmas shops that have recently taken advantage of the empty-unit recession fallout.

My favourite decade for style: The Noughties

Lana Clements explains how Noughties style looked backwards to cherry-pick the best of decades past.

After a rather tomboyish moment in the nineties, the Noughties did a complete 180 and made way for a welcome return to lady-like chic. The decade-long celebration of femininity has been earmarked by twenties Flappers, Forties demure and Jackie O Fifties – even Eighties glamour had its place – all to provide a fashion feast that is a girly-girl's delight.

The Noughties saw personal style really come into its own and this was really all thanks to one over-riding fashion movement: vintage.

Vintage allowed the freedom to engineer a style that was truly unique. Rather than relying on the high-street to churn-out reinventions of eras gone by, stead-fast stylistas began raiding Oxfam, Sue Ryder, flea-markets, car-boot sales and anywhere else they could find a piece of authenticity. Never before had raiding your grandma’s wardrobe been so rewarding!

The result has been an almost anything-goes approach, juxtaposing one-off designer finds with throwaway high-street fads. The style of the Noughties has been a fascinating amalgamation of clothes and trends from all eras.

There has only been one true Noughties style icon for me - Kate Moss, who returned to the forefront of fashion to prove her style status. So desperate to emulate her look, the masses have lapped up the Kate Moss collection for Topshop – one of the most successful ventures the chain has ever produced. The model has perfected a style which incorporates vintage chic, rock 'n roll glamour and designer all to an effect that is timeless and effortless.

My favourite item of clothing from the Noughties has, of course, been an amazing vintage find. Born in the Seventies, my faux-fur coat was discovered in a small charity shop in the backwaters of Wales and was just £4! I love the glamour it creates - classic yet edgey.

My favourite decade for style: The Nineties

Journalist Sarah Lewis-Hammond on why Nineties style rocked.

To say that the Nineties was a seminal decade - my seminal decade - is to understate the case. Starting when I was 12 and ending when I was 22, I was taught to dress by Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder (with whom I still share a hairstyle), Skin from Skunk Anansie and Shirley Manson from Garbage.

As my peers grew in height and I grew in attitude, so too did the reach of grunge and indie spread, capturing both the disaffection of a generation spewed from Thatcher's miserable Eighties and the growing sense of possibility created first by the freeing of Nelson Mandela and finally by the fall of the Berlin Wall.

How did we express these momentous happenings? In flares and hoodies, of course. Battered Doc Martins and chunky trainers smacked of ease and contentment, a far cry from the effort-filled tottering heels of the noughties.

A confluence of liberalism in society and politics meant teenagers had to go far underground to rebel. The ensuing rise of counter-culture and neo-tribalism meant your metal and ink was as important a statement as your clothes. The occasional glimpse of a thick black tattoo peaking from under a shirtsleeve still marks out the nineties kids, marks out we're all still part of that gang at heart.

The diverse and disparate music - from mainstream pop to underground electronica - meant that when it came to fashion, anything went. In comparison the clothes of the Noughties have been trite, uninspired, based on the whims of corporations rather than the decisions and creativity of the generation finding their feet in the world.

The highlight for me though, and my all time favourite bit of clothing, is a reflective silver quilted mini skirt and matching cropped jacket, found in a crusty Saturday market in what is now an upmarket arts venue, paired with massive para boots from the army surplus store. I'm wearing it in every photo from every muddy party of that time.

No other decade has been as permissive of such epic and ridiculous clothes, or allowed such a contrast to the high street mainstream. Ravers, Crasher kids, grungers, indie kids, modern hippies, skaters, eco warriors, retro dressers and alternative types. They all were all born here.

Sarah is an environmental journalist and occasional madcap schemer. You can find her at www.sarahlewis.co.uk

My favourite decade for style: The Eighties

Caroline O'Donoghue explains why the OTT Eighties were the decade for all things glamour.

I love the attitude of Eighties style. You could dress for success in the work place with structured suits and shoulder pads then slob out at home with leggings and massive t-shirts and jumpers. There's nothing like eighties glam either – in no other decade could you get away with such over-the-top cocktail dresses – and that hair; more is more! There was a real sense of fun with the use of colour and shapes.

There isn’t one particular person I would hold up as my style icon of the decade, but I remember loving the outfits in films like Working Girl (with Melanie Griffith) - where she cuts off her mullet to show that she wants to be taken more seriously - and The Breakfast Club, in which each of the girls symbolised a different style: Sloane, boho and party girl! Also Kim Cattrall was amazing in Mannequin. The film was all about running around a mall dressing up in whatever you wanted - such fun!

This cocktail dress is the funnest thing I have in my wardrobe and is very Eighties. It pulls you in under the bust then sprawls out with a huge ruffle which makes it very, very flattering. I usually wear it with thick tights and silver accessories but if I were to do real justice to the Eighties, I'd have to go with plastic dangly earrings, big boufant hair and bangles!

My favourite decade for style: The Seventies

Stylist Lou Taylor on the swinging Seventies.

The Seventies are my favourite decade for style for the main reason that they were an incredibly empowering and fashionable time for women. We were ditching our bras, listening to Ziggy Stardust, Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd and aspiring to be just like Charlie’s Angels. We were fighting for our rights, but in glittery hot pants, rollerboots and satin tights, just like our heroine and Seventies style icon, Wonder Woman.

Much like now, the Seventies saw a deep recession but fashion and music rebelled against depressing times with glitz, originality and glamour, with films like Saturday Night Fever and Annie Hall creating looks that are still copied and popular today. I hope that the next decade we can react in the same way. The Noughties have been dull, it’s time we claimed our creative individuality, using the Seventies as inspiration.

The Seventies are epitomised by the creations of my favourite fashion designer, the iconic Yves Saint Laurent, founder of modern fashion for women. He created the beatnik look, shift dresses, safari jackets and the most beautiful tuxedo jacket for women, ‘le smoking’. I would give anything to go back in time to visit him in his Marrakech villa to hang out with the Rolling Stones and his muse Loulou de la Falaise or party with him and Bianca Jagger (maybe without the infamous white horse) at Studio 54 in New York.

My Seventies style icon is Barbara Hulaniki, founder of Biba. Not as much for what she wore but for her store. Fashion was, at long last, instantly accessible to all. Biba was a real experience, where fabulous clothes hung on coat stands, bands played and, for the first time ever, girls could try on make-up in the store. Saturday afternoons for Hulaniki’s ‘fresh little foals with long legs, bright faces and round dolly eyes’ meant hanging out at Biba’s dancing, drinking and buying outfits for Saturday night.

I have an original Seventies Biba jacket bought for £5 in a charity shop in my wardrobe, it doesn’t fit but it looks beautiful hanging there. However, the item of clothing I’ve chosen to be pictured in is this amazing jacket by Belleville Sassoon (also bought in a charity shop). As soon as I put it on, I’m transported straight back to the Seventies, it feels decadent, stylish and daring – just like the decade itself.


Lou is one half of the Frock n Roll stylists.

My favourite decade for style: The Sixties

Why I think you can’t beat the Sixties for fabulous fashion.

Thanks to the birth of rock and roll in the Fifties, young adults felt for the first time that they owned a slice of life distinct to that of their parents; and the Sixties saw popular youth culture blossom, with a feeling that anything was possible and everything was there to be experienced. With the arrival of Mary Quant’s mini-skirt, female haircuts as short as boys’ – see Twiggy’s iconic Beatle-cut - and patterns and colours as bold and as bright as they could be; fashion challenged social boundaries, and it was exciting!

The style icon of the decade has to be the woman who has been both Mrs Harrison and Mrs Clapton: model Pattie Boyd. One of the most successful and prolific cover-girls of her time, Pattie defined a look which is still emulated to this day with her heavily-lined doe eyes, sleek hair and shifts as cute as the gap between her front teeth. Not only was Pattie absolutely gorgeous, she managed to pull off both girlish charm and stylish sophistication, all with a quiet dignity so distinct from today’s age of D-list WAG wannabes. It’s little wonder that she inspired the composition of both ‘Something’ and ‘Wonderful Tonight’.

I take it as the greatest compliment when people say that I “look like something out of the Sixties” and my favourite pieces inspired by the decade have to be my black lace shift and purple and white patent Mary-Janes from Camden Market. The outfit is so cute and easy to wear and I feel like a doll every time I slip into the shoes. In terms of accessories; black eyeliner is the only thing I need - slicking on some Rimmel is the quickest way to create glamour and it adds a touch of drama to any outfit.

My favourite decade for style: The Fifties

In the first of a new series in which guest writers tell us about their favourite decade for style, journalist and lindyhopper Katie Allen champions the Fifties rockabilly look.

I first got into Fifties style through my love of rockabilly clubs and music. A pair of ballet pumps to dance in one week, a full skirt the next, and suddenly I was tracking down frocks at vintage fairs and rifling through shop rails for pencil skirts and lace blouses. Here, at last, was a fashion that suited my figure too - I'm five-foot-nothing and euphemistically an hourglass-shape; Kate Moss I'm not and skinny jeans make my legs look like parsnips. But give me a high-waisted skirt and I feel a hundred times more, well, feminine.

It's the rock'n'roll side of Fifties fashion I am drawn to most. The New Look, which in 1947 turned a world of women from boxy jackets and 40s deprivation onto yards of tulle and white gloves, is a little too staid and impractical for 21st-century girls who need to work and catch buses. Plus I am far too clumsy to cope with fragile Lucite handbags and delicate pin-tucks every day, and I save the hair-rolling for special occasions.

I prefer the sassier style of the rocking gals who tied their shirts round their waists, wore rolled-up jeans and Winehouse-style eyeliner.

I'd have to say my style icon of the era would be, perhaps predictably, pin-up queen Bettie Page. I love her flat, black "bangs", fitted wiggle dresses and leopard print obsession.

My favourite item of clothing, a vintage blue-flowered frock, is far more traditional though. The gathered skirt and scoop back feel so much more flattering than anything modern and stretchy, and unlike a cheap Primark number, some far-flung factory worker hasn't suffered to get it to me for £6. The passion and care of whoever made it is evident in every tiny stitch and carefully placed pleat and gather. Plus I was able to wear it to my dad's wedding two summers ago in the knowledge that no-one would have the same dress on.

Katie is the editor of www.fat-quarter.co.uk

Oxfam Vintage Day & Loved, Worn and Reborn

With two flyers for vintage and second-hand clothes events having taken pride of place on my fridge door for the past couple of weeks, this weekend was one eagerly awaited, and it didn’t disappoint.

Saturday saw Hove’s Oxfam shop transformed into a snoopers’ paradise for vintage-enthusiasts, with the usual stock stored away and only the best retro gems allowed to reside on the racks. The place was packed as word spread and every corner offered up equally enticing items; from clothes, shoes and accessories through to kitsch home-wares.

Sunday provided an equally alluring prospect, playing host to a ‘Loved, Worn and Reborn boot-ique sale’ – a better-class of car-boot or jumble-sale – in a little-known Brighton church hall. With clothes-rails interspersed with tables flaunting home-made gifts, cupcakes and mulled wine, a warm Christmas atmosphere radiated and, once again, there were some fantastic finds to be snapped up.

The best of my haul

All items £5 or under (includes above Brigitte Bardot poster in frame)

Defining the OXO factor

On many counts, OXO’s X Factor tie-in advertising drive gets brand engagement spot on – themed around the zeitgeist cultural phenomenon, check, using ‘real people’ to speak for the brand, check, low-fi credentials, check again. But the sum of the TV ad-campaign's parts only seem to equal a whole lot of mild bewilderment. I doubt very much that ‘have you got the OXO factor’ will become the new ‘whassup’ and as for sprinkling OXO over your friends and family to try and make them more exciting – if anything was going to see a stock-cube- infused meal called off…

Perhaps it’s the families chosen for the final, who leave me feeling slightly unnerved, or the fact that the shorts are so on-brief – could we not at least have had a Whatamess-type-dog turning into smug pedigree cat - but for me, the sub text of the whole campaign reads “we spent our entire budget buying up X Factor ad slots”.

This is not to say that the new product (yes, there is one) is bad, however – it’s actually bloody amazing. The new X-shaped cubes – genius! They no longer explode when crushed, meaning that I can say goodbye to the days of combing vegetable-flavoured salt grains from my hair. It’s simple physics. There, if this was the 1950s, an RP voice would simply state “The new OXO cube – it crumbles better” - I’m sold.

My so called second-hand life

Second-hand shopping has claimed more column inches since we fell into recession, but while the impetus for the growth in popularity of charity shops, boot-ique sales, and vintage fairs may have come from necessity, such outlets have flourished thanks to the increasing number of people searching for the unique in a consumer market saturated by fast-fashion and mass-produced style statements.

Not only is second-hand shopping often cheaper than the high-street, the experience can be constructed as a sport. Where it may be easy to find stylish home accessories in Habitat, for example, it takes a more tuned eye to spot the gems in a car boot sale, or down the local Oxfam store.

Our increased inclination to peer fondly backwards rather than strain forwards – this season’s top fashion trends; body-con dresses, statement shoulders and leggings all made their catwalk debut in the 1980s; and Cath Kidston’s 1950’s-housewife-inspired prints have found appeal well beyond the yummy mummy market – has also helped propel second-hand shopping into the mainstream.

Fashion seems to have become self-referential to the point where we have come full-circle – when wondering which defining trends from the noughties will make it onto the moodboards of future designers; you have to ask which trends from the noughties didn’t borrow from eras past. Thus it’s only natural for full-skirted 1950s dresses and kitsch homewares to have become more fashion-forward than fuddy-duddy.

To me, second-hand shopping is a discipline, in which to excel I have to put in the hours, but from which the reward - the buzz of finding that unique item to help create my individual style - becomes slightly addictive. And if said item originates from my favourite decades in style – the 1960s and 70s – all the better.

A few of my favourite vintage finds from around my home:


Bought for £3.50 from a Brighton flea market.


Dressing table, bought for £40 from Gumtree. Vintage bags £3 and £4 from a charity shop.


Coffee cups and saucers, bought from a flea market in Amsterdam - 10 Euros for the set. Flask £1.50 chairty shop. Clock £5 Ebay.


Metal tea pot bought from a charity shop for £2.50. Cup and saucers part of the above set.


JH Lynch print, bought from an street market in Amsterdam for 7 Euros.


Old knitting magazine cover, bought from a Brighton flea market for £1.50 and framed.


Bought from a charity shop for £1.


Bought from a charity shop for £1.

Ian Brown - a retrospective

At 25 years, Ian Brown has been in the music business for as long as I’ve been on the earth, and with his sixth solo album ‘My Way’ recently released to good reviews, shows no sign of bowing out anytime soon. But the swaggering Northerner’s success can not be taken for granted; after all, the smart money was on lead guitarist John Squire to become the big solo sensation when The Stone Roses split, and seemed likely to do so with the successful release of The Seahorses’ ‘Do It Yourself’ in 1997. Yet the band’s sound quickly dated and after The Independent referred to his 2002 solo debut, ‘Time Changes Everything’, as “one of the most pointless releases of the year”, Squire decided to concentrate on his art.

Instead it was front man Brown who emerged the lone star, proving able to stun and satisfy his loyal following nearly 15 years on from the dissolution of Madchester’s biggest baggy band. Being without a traditionally great voice or any obvious technical command over music, there remains an unwritten rule that the singer must continue to justify his top dog – or should that be monkey – status; and with each new release he rises to the challenge, exceeding expectations by remaining current, changeable and ambitious. Take his former band out of the equation and Brown’s solo work validates him as one of pop’s most innovative musical talents on its own merit.



Unfinished Monkey Business (1997)


The resounding feel of Brown’s first lone venture was just as it said on the tin – unfinished. Many songs seem based on half ideas, thrown together and hurriedly executed. And while the dirge of single ‘My Star’ earned Brown the joint highest chart position of his solo career (‘Dolphins Were Monkeys’ also charted at #5), this was more likely due to a hangover effect from the heady days of the Roses’ than its own musical merit. However, the album offered up a few hints of the greatest that was to come from Brown. The potent, brooding guitar riff and soulful harmonica solo in ‘Corpses in Their Mouths’ proved hypnotic, while the lyrics, slamming music industry hangers-on, indicated that there was more to Brown than the swagger we knew from the Roses.

Highlights: Corpses in Their Mouths, Nah Nah

Golden Greats (1999)


Partly written while Brown was serving a spell in Strangeways for an alleged air-rage outburst, Golden Greats layers feelings of claustrophobia and frustration over industrial electronic beats and sophisticated psychedelic textures. While marking a departure from the classicalist song structures of the Roses and clearly cutting ties with his former-fellow-songwriter, the album is packed with powerful riffs and hooks and remains Brown’s most vehement work to date. 'Golden Greats' established Brown as a man with great musical ambitions, the capabilities to proficiently execute his ideas and above all, as a force to be reckoned with.

Highlights: Gettin’ High, Free My Way, Set my Baby Free, Golden Gaze

Music of the Spheres (2001)


His most consistent solo album, ‘Music of the Spheres’ saw Brown in pensive mood, teaming spectral vocals with soaring astral arrangements to create an astoundingly rich ride. The sharp word-play, shattering strings, lush acoustic guitars and spacey beats on Brown’s most well-loved hit F.E.A.R. sum-up the album in one perfect four-and-a-half-minute trip; cementing the King Monkey’s lucrative love affair with loaded orchestral arrangements and mechanical beats. It also saw Brown’s sole straight-up ballad, ‘El Mundo Pequeno’ - sung entirely in Spanish -, reveal the growing influence of his Mexican wife.

Highlights: F.E.A.R, The Gravy Train, Northern Lights, Whispers

Solarized (2004)


The two singles from Brown’s fourth solo album, ‘Keep What Ya’ Got’ – featuring Noel Gallagher – and ‘Time is my Everything’, represented a return to more traditional pop structures. However, this being Brown, something new had to be brought to the table – in this case, mariachi trumpets reminiscent of Love’s ‘Alone Again Or’. The album proved accessible and up-beat, with catchy melodies and mystical textures; be it lacking the impressive arrangements of MOTS. ‘Solarized’ also saw Brown dip his toe in the dubious waters of political comment with ‘Kiss Ya Lips (no I.D.)’, in training to take the plunge on ‘The World is Yours’.

Highlights: Time is my Everything, Solarized, The Sweet Fantastic, Keep What Ya Got

The World is Yours (2007)


Arguably one of his best works, ‘The World is Yours’ hailed the return of MOTS’s rich orchestral arrangements to the point that, stripped back from the lyrics, it could have served as a James Bond sound-track. Full of suspense, conviction and menace, the tapestry woven by soaring strings, triumphant trumpet outbursts and screaming electric guitars rendered Brown’s cliches and laboured assertions of inarguable truths about the state of the world – “Save us from warmongers who'd bring on Armageddon; Save us from all of those whose eyes are closed to the plight of the African child” - forgivable.

Highlights: The World is Yours, Sister Rose, Save Us, Some Folks are Hollow, Eternal Flame

My Way (2009)


While the cliches remain in Brown’s latest offering, hear ‘The Crowning of the Poor’, for example, the dirty dance beats of ‘Marathon Man’ and ‘Own Brain’ – an anagram of Brown’s “own name”, as he helpfully points out – and bouncy keyboard riff of single ‘Stellify’ make it most comparable to the swagger of ‘Golden Greats’. The album’s hidden gem is arguably the understated ‘For the Glory’, which sees a retrospective Brown deliver a shimmering chorus and glittering middle-eight over ricocheting beats, with the help of prolific hit-writer, and new president of Epic, Amanda Ghost.

Highlights: For the Glory, Marathon Man, Own Brain