Smart Spending and Smart Saving Tips
with Jane Furnival
Jane's Tips
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Smart Spending and Smart Saving Tips Jane's Tips
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Apple juice
Carboot sales CDs Computers ebay Electricity Fashion Finance Food Free events Free hols Gardening Home care House hunting Medical Mobile phones Petrol Pets Phone calls Selling your home Supermarkets Wedding costs Wedding dresses
Apple juice
Carboot sales CDs Computers ebay Electricity Fashion Finance Food Free events Free hols Gardening Home care House hunting Medical Mobile phones Petrol Pets Phone calls Selling your home Supermarkets Wedding costs Wedding dresses
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Fashion News: check out the advice on " secret gold in your wardrobe" from top auctioneer Kerry Taylor at the bottom of this page and discover if any of your old clothes are valuable! Before buying anything, check your wardrobe at home. You normally have something very similar already. Buy the best quality you can afford - it will last longer and pay for itself. Jane's tip. London Fashion Week sounds a bit swanky and expensive but during the last weekend, for an entry price, anyone can go and buy the designer 'end of lines" from a souk-like set-up normally opposite Peter Jones in Sloane Square. As well as clothes for women and men, the stalls include handbags, scarves, even cushions as well as beautiful coats, nighties, woolly hats and jewellery. I have bought things for as little as five pounds at the very end of the day on Sunday. Always make them an offer less than the price tag…the worst that can happen is they will refuse! More details from http://www.londonfashioweek.co.uk info/ticket line is 0870 429 4318. Establish a 'pecking order' for clothes in your home. In mine, my husband, who works in an office, wears the smartest shirts. When they are past decent mending, I wear them at home or my teenage son Dylon paints on them and wears them. Finally the buttons and trimmings are removed and saved and they are used for rags, washed and used again. Volunteering to help at local jumble sales or for a few hours each week in your favourite charity shop will give you a chance to get the pick of the crop. Charity shops in well-heeled districts frequently offer the most amazing designer finds. Oxfam Originals - there were originally four shops in London and Manchester, but may be more now - specialise in second-hand designer garb. www.oxfam.org.uk Paper patterns and fabric are cheap, especially from market stalls. You are guaranteed to be the only one wearing it and you'll find your clothes are great conversation openers at social gatherings. Plus sewing machine prices have dropped in recent years and with so many local councils offering evening classes you'll soon pick-up the habit and be saving a fortune on curtains and soft furnishings as well. If you get really good at it you could even supplment your income by making clothes or curtains for others. Dry-cleaners are often wonderful money-saving places. They will repair expensive clothes - linings, zips, hems - at a fraction of their replacement cost. For around £7 you can get the zip in those jeans stuffed in the bottom of a drawer replaced and enjoy wearing them again. Dry-cleaners often know the local seamstress - a wonderful contact telephone number to have - who's usually much cheaper than glamorous dressmakers. Find out when traditional hire shops are holding their sales - they often sell off shirts, cravats, suits at silly prices. I've heard of dress shirts being sold for as little as a pound. Not bad for a shirt that's probably only been worn for four hours twice a month. For celebrity glamour without the price tags check out the web. http://www.designer-shopping.co.uk/ For more fashion tips check out my book Mr Thrifty, How to Save Money on Absolutely Everything and watch this space. Secret gold in your wardrobe? Have you got secret gold in your wardrobe?? When I worked in advertising, I wore some very strange clothes - it goes with the territory, darling - which I donated, bustles included, to Brighton Museum. I could have sold them but the museum requested them and I was happy for it to have them. I don't mean Chanel and haute-couture designers, though I am sure they are very valuable, but home-grown clothes from Mary Quant, English Eccentrics, Katherine Hamnett. Kerry Taylor is an auctioneer who is happy to provide impartial advice and free quotes to help people selling vintage clothes - by which I mean good gear from the 17th century to the present. She advises not selling to dealers who will offer the lowest price they can. It is far better to take the goods to an auction where they can receive the best possible bid and the seller is much better off as a result. For a free valuation send her a picture (jpeg) plus detailed description of the item including its condition to
The website lists the venue/times etc of her auctions - usually twice a year - which are always well-attended by museums, props buyers, celeb models, serious collectors – and people like us, just looking for something unique. An Ossie Clark `Guitar' dress, early 1970s, sold on December 15th for £4,560! So get looking out those glam rags now. Kerry's auctions have included such items as the 1980s-90s wardrobe of Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis - otherwise fondly known as the 'Punk Princess', court robes and original designs by the Queen's former dress-maker - the inimitable Norman Hartnell, and robes worn to the Coronation of King George IV in 1821.
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