Theretrosphere.com offers the best of vintage in the western hemisphere

Like a good vintage wine a good vintage dress can be rare but a wonder to behold. Wearing it singles you out from all the other girls during festival fever in the latest high street offering. For Florence Welch worthy style status at Glastonbury this year have a look at the range at the Net – A - Porter for vintage, theretrosphere.com.

Just like most of our favourite style icons no two of our looks are the same. Sometimes we can feel in the mood for Rhianna’s edgy mod look in We Found Love and at other times we want to be an upper East girl in a twinset and pearls aka Olivia Palermo. At theretrosphere.com they have carefully selected the best second hand pieces ranging from 1940’s cocktail glamour right through to early 90’s grunge. It will readily indulge your style mood. You will be able to track down an original pleated midi skirt without burning a hole in your purse. Most of the dresses range from £20 - £40. The website also suggests ways of achieving the key trend in top to toe vintage under their ‘Get the Look’ feature. It is not only a store but invites you into a kitsch vintage world where the cartoon character, Lottie, laments her latest fashion dilemma in her ‘Retro Diaries’. 

The key to retro style dressing is about selecting an item that enhances your own personal style. It is an investment. It fits you well. A second hand dress should not look out of place teamed with a studded leather bomber and biker boots. Everyone loves the thrill of searching for that diamond at a flea market, now you do not even need to leave the house to find the chicest vintage treasures at theretrosphere.com.

My Carrie shaped hole will soon be filled

Courtesy of MSN images

Every time I watch an old episode of Sex and the City (my favourite is season 3, Carrie's affair with Big)) I feel inspired by the beautiful outfits worn by Carrie Bradshaw. The vintage summer dresses are timeless classics, perfectly complimented with dainty gold necklaces or oversized hoops.

Watching the show is a visual spectacle, a treat for the fashion eye and that is why I am feeling excited about the new Carrie Diaries show which revolves around the antics of the teenage Carrie Bradshaw. This preview image of AnnaSophia Robb could been taken at a shoot for TeenVogue. It gladdens the cockles of my heart to see that fashion is a focus of the new series. There are not many shows like Sex and the City that put so much effort into the meticulous styling of each character proven by the several different outfit changes per episode. The show became famous for the designers just as much as the relationship dramas of the four singletons on screen.

For awhile I have found much solace in Gossip Girl however nothing really compares to the ultimate fashionable New York girl, Carrie Bradshaw. Who else can rock a $5 pair of shorts with a $500 pair of Louboutins?

Kiely, she is just in time for a Spring

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I know everyone is still mad over Marni (or maybe I am still behind and the trend hunters have moved onto another collaboration, fashion can be so fickle) but I am quite enamoured with the Orla Kiely range for Uniqlo. I find too much of a buzz can dampen the spark of excitement over a new collection. I don't want to have to wrestle another grown woman for a size 6 dayglo print silk top that I will wear twice and decide it is too tight.  I am ready for a Spring overhaul not a shopping spree maul.

Uniqlo are a high street chain that have been savvy in their marketing ploys, most recently by enlisting uber cool teen blogger, Tevi Levinson. They know that a more subtle advertising strategy will have people feeling they are buying into something a bit more exclusive. The combination of Kiely's kitsch sixties pop art prints fit perfectly onto the platform of a quirky Japanese label.

Kiely taps into our nostalgia. She creates designs which trigger those long summer lazy days in the park with a picnic. She makes you want to actually be one of those women, a la perfume adverts who glide their hand along long blades of luscious green grass barefoot in a babydoll. A photograph sepia snapshot of a time when you were most happiest. I think that at around £20 for a vest that is a very reasonable slice of contentment.

Show and Tell

Victor and Rolf, now those guys know how to put on a good show. The catwalk Spring/Summer collection at Paris Fashion Week was no exception. Despite the peachy cream pastels and Disney princess satins sashaying down the catwalk there is a sinister side to the designers' collections. They can tap into the gothic and macabre with black lace trimmed gowns just as easily as they conjure up pretty teen idol pink bandau. This only makes them the more fascinating as fashion designers. They know there is always a dark side to the most beautiful and ornamental.

I remember visiting their exhibition at the Barbican a few years ago and being both absolutely riveted but at the same time slightly repulsed by the huge china dolls dressed in their designs. I thought it was the best fashion exhibition I had ever attended due to my sheer reaction. Many exhibitions can be enjoyable but slightly forgettable, this one however stuck in the memory. They elicit such a strong feeling of a childhood in a epoch of grand opulence set in the face of austerity. They throw in hints to the French revolution and severe Victorian age.

The models were like mini Marie Antionette's attending their prom in 1985. The duo have clearly been influenced by a mixture of the cocktail dress and fifties sweetheart glamour. I liked that the design house have chosen to champion the choker. The 90's necklace is having 'a moment'. A stand out piece from this year's show was a peach trench with frilly a - line detail at the knee. Beautiful tailoring and a sense of the ostentatious make it all the more appealing. And if you are anything like me you enjoy fashion which is sweet but likes to dance in the dark.