Vintage Links: A Thrifty Edinburgh Tour
A few weekends ago, like a ray of sunshine through cloudy skies, my good friend Megan came to visit me in Edinburgh. We had good reason to celebrate as, not only was she our first ever guest (although unfortunately not in our new house because we were still in the third holiday let), but it was her 23rd birthday too! Now, you might imagine that birthday celebrations for two twenny something females might include a smidge of fine dining, a flurry of fancy days out or even a deluge of dancing and you wouldn’t be wrong but, if the truth be told (which of course it must) we found ourselves constantly and gleefully distracted by the simply wondrous amount of amazing charity and vintage shops in my local vicinity. I thought it only proper to share our magical mystery tour so that other visitors or Edinburgh residents, who are as untiringly devoted to trawling the rails as we are, could share some of the joy!
If I were forced to choose one street in the world to shop on for the rest of time I would probably pick Reaburn Place in Stockbridge as it is so densely populated with good chazzers (my affectionate, if slightly ugly, name for charity shops!) that my seemingly unstoppable need to purchase clothes might have a chance of being satisfied there. Most excitingly for me (I prefer vintage-style, thoughtfully laid out charity shops whereas Megan likes the slightly smelly, back water ones with as little refinement as possible so that finding treasures is even more satisfying- her stamina is something of a marvel!) is that one of Mary Portas’s Living and Giving Shops is situated here. After her television programme ‘Mary Queen of Charity Shops’ it seems that not only have most charity shops in the country taken her advice on shop layout and pricing (apart from Megan’s favourites of course!) but that she has taken her own too! Another highlight of Stockbridge is Barnado’s vintage charity shop.
After glutinously gobbling up Stockbridge’s charity shop delights we continued on our thrifting way and happily came across Unicorn Antiques which is reminiscent of the small village antique shops in both Wales (where Megan’s family live) and my home county of Gloucestershire where one antiques business has grown and encased many other smaller shops. Lots of different sellers set up in sections of the warren-like shop and specialise in jewellery, clothes, toys, home ware and other bits and bobs. We decided that this would be the place to come to buy vintage mirrors (something we both hanker after) as there is a long hallway packed with them on all sides. There website especially invites ‘nimble browers’ which I am most certainly not. It is almost inevitable that Megan will find me in a dark back room having knocked over an old vase or two with my assortment of bag, coat and other shopping bags and be trying to cover my tracks, usually unsuccessfully!
Next stop was the Thrifty Chic Boutique was doesn’t really belong on this list because it is one of these places where the term ‘vintage’ is used for new items which have a antique look. I’m not really down with that but this shop does have lots of (expensive) goodies such as tattoo leggings, very lovely lingerie and statement jewellery (my favourites were the plastic creature toys, like penguins and meerkats, being used as pendants on long necklaces) as well as a bargain basket which we pounced on and found a few tasty morsels (I’m not sure why my shopping metaphors are all food related!)
We then ventured up the hill into Old Town where we were immediately stopped in our tracks by Oxfam on the Royal Mile. They have an AMAZING vintage section at the back of the shop where we spotted the most beautiful wedding dress which either of us would have happily purchased and worn for our wedding days. However, as neither of us have any impending plans to get hitched we decided it might be too weird to buy it for a later date. What a pity! But we did come away with some really perfect pieces. It is definitely worth a trip!
By now we were in the Grassmarket area and decided to try our luck and look around because I had heard that it was a hot spot for thrifty shops. We struck gold with Armstrongs Vintage Clothing Emporium. Although at times it can verge on the costume shop side of vintage (not cool) it is HA-UGE and has an almost overwhelming (even for us) amount of interesting stock.
Although we didn’t manage to get to Elaine’s Vintage in Stockbridge because it was closed (a lot of these smaller boutiques have very irregular opening hours which I can never get the hang of) I’ve been in before and loved the immaculate and well chosen selection of clothes she has.
Well, that’s the end of what was meant to be a rather short and sweet links post! I hope it has been somewhat inspiring or informative for those with the thrifting bug and persuasive for newcomers on the scene! I am excited about getting round to going to the weekly car boot at the Omni Centre and also to the ‘Lane Sale’ every Saturday on Jane Street off Leith walk that a very vintage-cool girl tipped me off about whilst we chatted over earl grey in my new café job (I can’t help it! I work hard the rest of the time!)
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