Charity shop tip #2

Hey! Hope you're all having a good weekend. I've spent half of mine lying very still in bed cos I very painfully pulled a muscle in my back. But hey, it's given me a chance to get round to writing the second charity shop tips post! I've also had time to do a revamp on the blog, set up my bloglovin and also set up a twitter. Feel free to add me on either!


Collars, collars, collars (pt.1)

Collars are EVERYWHERE at the moment - on tops, on dresses, under jumpers and lots of shops sell collars on their own that you can put together with outfits, such as these two:

top - miss selfridge, bottom - missguided

However, if you look through the charity rails, you can get one at a fraction of the cost. I always spot interesting looking collars on shirts in charity shops -  brightly coloured, patterned, beaded etc. And they can be so much more versatile than just wearing the shirt itself. If I buy a shirt just for its collar, I usually either cut the sleeves off, or cut it into a bib shape. This makes for easier layering. I don't cut them right down to the collar (as shown in those from the shops above) as I think this stops you from wearing them with all different necklines without the collar riding up or looking out of place.

The collar I'm going to show you is a shirt that I found on a charity shop pound rail. It has embroidered detail, plus a silky edging. It was a size 18 and had long sleeves, which meant it didn't look good oversized. All I did was chop the sleeves off it, and I can now layer it under lots of different styles, for example:

Under a contrasting colour top

 Under a complementary colour top

top - charity shop, skirt - miss selfridge, shoes - asos

 Under t-shirts

t-shirt - johnny foreigner, skirt - h&m, shoes - charity shop

 Under jumpers

jumper - charity shop

 Or even over an existing collar!

dress - primark

As you can see, all of these outfits involved different necklines, and I really don't think they would have worked with the standard collar bought from a shop. So next time you're in a charity shop, scout out any interesting collars you can find as they're so versatile and bring something a bit different to an outfit!

Laila x