Cream Soda

by Rachel Phipps, founder and Editor In Chief of Lipstick Royalty Magazine, founder and writer of 'Cause I'd Rather Waste My Life Pretending

I love vintage. Fact. I have never brought a vintage piece from an online vintage store, vintage boutique or vintage fair. Another fact. Have you seen how much those places cost!?! Sometimes vintage stores charge more than if you had gotten the same piece from say, Topshop or Forever 21 just because its old. I know they get away with it for antique furniture but seriously? In these difficult, belt tightening times of the recession who can actually afford sometimes $200 for an old dress? Even if it is vintage? However you can still get vintage for less. Much less.

The first place you can look is, and don’t groan, charity shops. Charity shops tend to vary depending on where you live; if your area has a high disposable income people will have better clothes and they are more likely to give them away. If you don’t you’ll just have to look at the rails closely! When people shop in charity shops, looking for statement or core wardrobe pieces they look for the wrong things. The key is not to look for a whole piece, but for features on a piece. Found the most incredible bones corset dress but think the skirt is hideous? Hack it off and go to a fabric store to by some you’d like to be the skirt, or choose a fabric on another equally as bad piece in the charity store that you like the fabric of and make the two pieces into one. You don’t even have to be able to sew... fabric glue and safety pins will work just as well in a lot of cases. Just use a belt to cover the join! The same really applies as with charity shops to thrift stores, car boots sales... etc.

Another place to look is friends and family. Parents are good, the ’80’s are back so why not try asking people who actually around at the time for hand me downs? These pieces are more likely to be in a whole higher league than what you find in charity stores (unless you’ve been very lucky!) and they won’t cost you a thing. The same rules can apply to things you find in charity stores about the chopping and changing as well. Just yesterday I delved into my Mom’s ‘80’s wardrobe and pulled out an amazingly cut dress, and a floral patterned skirt but they were both practically ankle skimming even though I’m taller than her! But if I take them both up to make them knee length or just above the knee... the possibilities are endless!

by Faridah Folawiyo, founder and writer of Lunch On The Steps

I was reading an article in the Times two weeks ago by Janice Turner entitled When Feminism Went Nuts. The writer was complaining about the lack of feminism in this day and age how today’s woman cares too much for her outward appearance, spends too much money on hair products and stupidly obsesses over eradicating hair from her body parts and morphing into a testosterone stimulant rather than working to eradicate the more and more prevalent use of the woman as a sexual object..

Trying to create a woman who does not really care about her appearance, is almost suppressing us back to the origins of feminism, the rebellion we were stirred to by being squashed into one inferior box, without our consent. All women are different, and the attempt to create one type of feminist woman is hypocritical and insulting. Civil rights in America for example: Malcolm X was a Muslim man who believed in violence and/or any other methods necessary in order for blacks to gain equal rights, Martin Luther King Jr was a Baptist minister who campaigned peacefully, and was opposed to all violence, yet they both go down as people who championed for equal rights.

I believe in female rights, I believe in campaigning for them, but I see nothing wrong with doing so in my Chanel tweed suit, Hermes Kelly and sky-high Alaia shoes. I believe in respecting myself and so I will go and get a facial, and I will use L’oreal shampoo because I’m worth it.

There is a desperate absence of feminism in our generation, yet the way to revive it is not to tell a woman how to act and not to shave her legs. It is about re-establishing the principals. It is about making women aware of their power and allowing them to use it appropriately. For me, it is about seeing the most amazing, fierce Henry Beguelin bag and feeling that I have the strength to overcome its power and make it look tame on my arm. For others, it may be about not shaving their legs, not washing their hair, wearing rags, yet finding strength that burns within them and demanding respect from anyone and everyone.

What feminism certainly is not, is telling other women how to act or dress. In order to gain respect from everybody else, we must first respect ourselves. And I will not apologise for valuing myself much higher when I am hairless, fearless and in my Duro dress.

by Amy Claire Thompson, Fashion Editor at Lipstick Royalty Magazine and founder and writer of Confessions of a Fashion Editor.

“It's sad but it's true how society says
Her life is already over
There's nothing to do and there's nothing to say
Til the man of her dreams comes along picks her up and puts her over his shoulder
It seems so unlikely in this day and age”

by Faridah Folawiyo, founder and writer of Lunch On The Steps

I just realised I’m not a celebrity. After having looked at enough paparazzi pictures, watched enough E!, read enough blogs, I began to feel perhaps that I was a celebrity, albeit a G-lister, but still a celebrity. You know when you live vicariously through someone with a supposed better life, you begin to lose your identity? This has become my life.

I have dreams and goals of course. Not a day goes past without me envisaging myself on Oprah. I’m still perfecting my composed and cool, yet happy to be there (take note Kristen Stewart) laugh. The only problem is when I crack my million dollar joke, the audience doesn’t laugh, Oprah doesn’t laugh, even my mother doesn’t laugh. Of course, there is still time to perfect this joke.

As I get dressed every morning, I do so with the paparazzi in mind. I wouldn’t dare leave the house in tracksuits or anything that would be unsympathetic to my physique on camera. But, of course, the paps can’t know that I give them any thought whatsoever. They can’t be aware that they are the dictators of my supposed self-governed outfits. The A-listers don’t care for paparazzi, and neither does Faridah.

I have already seen myself at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party. The absolute top. The epitome of A-list. I got the red carpet over and done with as quickly as possible (didn’t want to seem too fame-whorish) and swiftly swept inside. It was heaven. I wore a Raf Simons for Jil Sander original and John Galliano shoes. I looked incredible.

You see? I have experienced the celebrity life, I have breathed the celebrity air. Yet, I recently came to terms with the fact that these mean nothing because in fact, I am not even a Z-lister. I am a nobody.

The only difference between me and any celebrity is a telling one, the most important thing. I only have 80 followers on Twitter. Kim Kardashian, a C-lister, has over 2 million followers Perez Hilton, a Y-lister has 1.4 million and even Jayde Nicole (I mean, who is she?) has almost 65000 followers. These figures have torn me apart, subdued all my aspirations, shattered all my dreams. Like you can’t be a doctor without Med school, you can’t be a celebrity without Twitter followers. If no-one follows you, no-one cares about you. If no-one cares about you, you are a nobody. So there is my epiphany, I have just found out that I am, in fact, nobody.

by Christine Garvin, founder and editor of Living Holistically... With a Sense of Humor and co-editor of Brave New Traveler