X Factor Live @ The Brighton Centre

This week I was lucky enough to live my X Factor dream, seeing the stars of the show live at the Brighton Centre with one of my best friends. It. Was. Brills...

Click on the image to share the joy. THE JOY!

Bidding for a bargain - Guardian piece

I recently wrote a piece for the Guardian.co.uk on the highest ticket vintage accessory items sold through eBay last year. Read the full article here.

Stay cool cat

I know that John Lennon circle glasses are the new big thing in eyewear - the perfect accessory for that Seventies revival look - but it's the cat eye craze that's still exciting me.

Image by Flickr user Uh ... Bob

1950s-style glasses hit the fashion headlines when Prada models strutted down the a/w '10/'11 catwalks in exaggerated winged eyewear, complimenting the beehives and full skirts that fuelled last season's Mad Men fever [check out Kris Atomic's brilliant illustrated interpretation below].

My Grandma rocked her spiky specs back in the post-war years. But as my face is a little too round to pull off the Prada and Tom Ford glasses favoured by the celebs, I opted for some subtler Miu Miu frames as my last eyewear upgrade. It's important to choose a style you're comfortable with if you need to wear your glasses every day like I do - damn you computer-based work...

Illustration by Kris Atomic

With sunglasses, however, you can have a little more fun creating different looks. And while tortoiseshell cat eye sunnies can set you back upto three figure sums, Accessorize have a lovely pair for just £14. The catwalk style has hit the high-street just in time to compliment summer's vintage-inspired looks. Purfect.

Accessorize sunglasses - £14

A beginner's beehive

My hair is fine - so fine that there were very nearly tears and tantrums when it came time to deciding what to do, or indeed what I could do, with it for my wedding. Curls just fell out, and the half-up do we eventually settled on required the formation of two small hair horns to create a bump that gave the illusion of volume - carefully combed over to cover.

So, my hopes of creating any form of beehive in the image of my glamorous 1960s style icons were slim. But after watching this video tutorial by Carrie at wishwishwish.net, I decided to give it a go.


Some 50 hair grips and half a can of hairspray later, I was very pleasantly surprised by my reflection. The 'do' only took ten minutes to style and withstood everything a windy and rainy Sunday in Brighton could throw at it. Of course my hair was taller, but it seemed to make me walk taller too - I definitely felt my Sunday best.

The Mad Men dress

I recently sold a whole load of clothes on eBay, meaning that I had £70 in my Paypal account to play with. As it costs to take money out of said Paypal account, of course it all went straight back into eBay - good set-up they've got there.

So the 'sorry you were out' cards, which now read 'something for you' - much more enticing - have been piling up over the last week and today I trekked up to the post depot to pick of my parcels of joy.

The item I was most excited about getting my hands on was an original 1960s gold threaded floral and paisley print dress. No one else had bid on it and I won for just £7.50 plus £3 P&P - a grand total of £10.50!

It looked gorgeous on the site, and I thought it'd be the perfect dress to wear to one of my good friend's weddings in the summer.

You can never be sure of the sizing when buying things through eBay, especially when they're vintage, so I was a little anxious that it wouldn't fit, but it does - perfectly!

The lining is silky, the material heavy, the gold thread catches the light beautifully and it hangs in a way that means it will swish and swoosh on the dance floor.

I really didn't want to take it off - June can't come soon enough.

Oh, and did I mention that it cost just £10.50? TEN POUNDS AND FIFTY PENCE! I have to win some kind of bargain-hunting award for this. Where do I pick it up?

Who said the free magazine was dead?

I recently wrote a column about the birth of vintage culture for Stylist.co.uk – the online home of one of my favourite magazines.

Stylist, along with the fabulous 'culture with conscience' Egg Mag, are breathing new life into the free title market with quality content and stylish design - I always look forward to thumbing through the current copies.

Read the full Stylist column here and look out for some more writings by Jo in Egg Mag later this year...

Swedish Hasbeens for H&M

Queen of collaboration, H&M is teaming up with Swedish Hasbeens to bring three affordable pairs of the cult 1970s-style clogs to the high-street this spring.


Founded in 2007 by childhood friends Cilla Wingård Neuman and Emy Blixt, Swedish Hasbeens was born when Emy came across 300 pairs of 1970s clogs in the basement of an old shoe factory, which she revived using traditional Swedish methods.

These methods are still at the heart of the company, which also states that it makes its '70s-inspired footwear from "ecologically prepared natural grain leather since it’s the most beautiful and the highest quality at the same time as it’s environmentally friendly".

This all helps to justify the clog's price tags, which start at around £100 and spiral upwards from there.

Indeed, the press release for the company's Spring/Summer 2011 (s/s11) states: "In the world of cheaper and faster, fashion consumption relies on mass production, cheap labor and conventional trends. Ideas like sustainability, creativity and quality are sacrificed for short-term profitability and fear of failure in the stock market.

"Swedish Hasbeens aims to counter this destructive industry trend with their focus on quality and sustainable production and materials, like they once were made."


An interesting statement to make at a time when they were, supposedly, negotiating to create a range for a global high-street retailer that deals in fast, mass-produced fashion.

Indeed, with prices for the H&M variety of Hasbeens ranging from £34.99 to £39.99, I had to ask how they were able to cut the price point so dramatically.

A spokesperson for H&M told me: "H&M can keep the prices low – even for shoes such as Swedish Hasbeens for H&M – because we have few middlemen, we buy in large volumes, for stores in 38 countries, we have an efficient distribution system and we are cost-conscious at every stage of our business."

Admittedly, the wooden-soled shoes do look gorgeous - I'm genuinely excited about being able to get my hands on a pair. And fortunately for (or perhaps partly because of) Swedish Hasbeens, clogs have been key to the current 1970s fashion revival, so these will no doubt be snapped up when they hit shops and the online store on 20 April.


There’s a gladiator-style strappy wedge with three buckle ankle straps, available in cream, tan or black, a peep-toe slip-on wedge with snake-effect laced leather and a more traditional heeled sandal, the style that I'm after, with a single ankle strap which comes in cream and red.

It will be interesting the compare the quality of the leather and construction, but lacking the necessary few hundred pounds myself, I'll have to ask Swedish Hasbeens super-fan Mademoiselle Robot how they stack up.

What I would really, really like though, if anyone would like to act on the hint, is a pair of light Mimmie Mouses or '60s Slingbacks from the s/s11 collection proper.