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.

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)

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.