Spendthrift or Thrifter?

Credit is crunching everybody apart from the super rich. I’ve heard that even the queen is suffering as shes worn the same outfit twice in the past two years(!!!), so even the rich are having to tighten their belts on their budgets and say no to a second holiday home in Malibu. Retailers are feeling the crunch, profits everywhere seem to be falling and whole companies are collapsing. Its all so depressing and I just want to curl up in bed until its all over.  I read this article in the guardian last week and it has got me thinking about how the crunch affects fashion. Not high street fashion which has always been price conscious, but designer fashion and the portrayal of fashion by high gloss magazines such as Vogue and W. The piece makes a valid point about high fashion magazines being escapist tools not shopping guides(to the average person anyway), but I know my conscience would be forever niggling if it was my job to promote £3000 coats in these times.  In the past a  similar argument has been raised to justify the reason you don’t see models who look like the majority of women, that fashion is fantasy and magazines exist to perpetuate the fantasy image of the ultra tall slender woman with perfect skin. Apparently no-one wants to see representations of themselves in all their short, love handled glory. Apparently.

Anyhow, I’m going off on a bit of a tangent here and will resist the temptation to get on my soapbox (although I already had one foot on it). The whole point of todays post was to show you two cheaper pocket friendly alternatives to gorgeous designer items that I’ve found online. We still need to look good, non?

I love every single piece from this oriental bird themed range by Anna Scholz especially this jacket, but alas (turning out pockets) I am too poor. So I will just have to look at it every weekend and sigh. Sigh.