Thrift Inspiration....Doing it Isabel Marant style!

 The Tale of my Isabel Marant Manifestation True Story Find, Plus my Marks and Spencer Coat Finds!

Hi everyone! So this is an awesome account of how my weekend went on the coat and thrifting front and how I came upon my latest purchases!

So I'm constantly evaluating, culling and adding to my coat collection- it's certainly an ongoing work in progress as many of you stylish ladies can attest to! 

My eldest son had kindly said he would pay for a coat that I had ordered from H&M for Christmas. It's a camel teddy coat and it was £39.99 in the sale but although it's a gorgeous coat I was constantly in two minds as to whether it actually suited me and eventually decided it didn't. So Friday evening, I packaged it up ready to be returned and then decided I wanted to hunt for a tweed coat or jacket and was busy happily browsing (hunting) eBay for a good few hours until past midnight! 

I remembered that a few years ago I had thrifted- and sadly gave or sold on again- a fabulous tweed coat which was very similar to the Isabel Marant Bator coat- see my post from 2013 here I actually screenshot this picture on Friday night from my blogpost (manifestation starting!) and as it was a Debenhams Classic coat I was stalking eBay for the exact coat- but no joy!

This is the jacket that sadly got away, pictured from my 2013 blogpost:

Well I ended up finding a coat on eBay before I went to bed, although its not in the same kind of style as above it's grey wool herringbone tweed, single breasted and looks great so I went to bed quite happy! I also bought another scarf- so am eagerly awaiting both of these to now arrive!

So Saturday morning I decided to go thrifting in two towns I hadn't been to in a while. So I arrived in the first town and parked up right outside a charity shop. I immediately spotted a beautiful lilac coat in the window and once I was in the shop the lady kindly let me try it on and did a sterling job of selling it to me!

It's by Marks and Spencer from their Autograph range and is a beautiful colour and weight too- as soon as I saw it and tried it on I knew I wanted it!!

My pictures don't do the coat justice, its really so lovely and was a fabulous bargain at £25, so worth the price!

Although £25 might seem fairly high to spend in a charity shop I figured that high street coats are generally £40 upwards anyway and the quality and niceness of this one meant it was well worth paying for, plus it's a decent amount for charity too!

 So I carried on my browsing in the charity shops and ended up visiting the next town, where I found a lovely leather handbag- blogpost to come on that one!

I was queueing to go into one shop but decided to leave it till last and visit two more before returning to queue to get in! So the last rail was the coats and right in front of me was this beautiful brown wool Isabel Marant coat!! Again my photos do not do the coat justice- it's a beautiful find and definitely a forever coat for my winter wardrobe for years to come.

As soon as I saw the label, the size and that it was in immaculate condition I queued to pay and the best part was that is was actually cheaper than my previous coat buy- just £15!!

A true manifestation of an Isabel Marant coat purchase going on- I was utterly amazed at my fabulous find and not only had I bagged two wonderful bargains, they actually came to the same price as what the H&M coat was! It just goes to show what awesome bargains you still can get from thrifting and at a lesser price than the High Street too.

I'm always amazed at what you can find and there are so many lovely bargains post lockdown that have been donated- I definitely recommend you go thrifting for your winter coats if you haven't done so already!

I headed home and both coats fit like a glove- perfectly just slightly oversized so I can get jumpers underneath and both colour coats I don't already have too. So I'm now definitely taking the H&M coat back and also donating a black faux fur coat I bought in September- sadly it's too big- in my excitement of buying it I didn't really notice how big it was but I'm sure it will go to a good home once I've donated it!

If you haven't already checked out my Instagram feed, you will see another recent lovely coat find that I thought I would share on here too. It's a beautiful alabaster colour and is a Marks and Spencer wool Autograph coat which I found for just £4.50 and it's come up a treat after being dry cleaned too.

The Autograph range at Marks and Spencer are really premium coats and if you can source them preloved these are forever coats that will last forever- I now truly understand why my mum has loved Marks and Spencer for years for her clothes and food!

So I think I'm nicely up to date with my coat purchases for the moment and I have to say the Isabel Marant one has to be up there with one of my best charity shop finds ever!

What coats are on your winter wishlist? I hope you've enjoyed my coat finds and they inspire you to seek your own fabulous finds for this winter season!

MaxMara Camel Coat.....My Best Thrift Find for the Winter!

Hi everyone!! I hope you had a really great weekend, I had a positively relaxing one and took great pleasure in pitching up on the sofa for most of Sunday afternoon watching films and only getting up to prepare dinner!!

You may remember from a couple of posts back that I went to London last weekend and I thought I'd show you my best thrift find of the summer- a MaxMara wool camel coat which was an amazing £5 from a local boot sale. It sat in a carrier bag for a while awaiting to be dry cleaned and now it has been done, it is officially being worn! It's a really warm coat and I was deliciously toasty whilst I was doing the rounds around London-too warm in fact as I had to come out of some shops and get some cool air to stop me from overheating!!

My outfit of the day was the MaxMara coat, my Aquascutum scarf, River Island faux leather panel leggings and my thrifted Marks and Spencer merino wool black roll neck which I got a couple of months ago for £2.99:

Going back to when I got the coat, it was in July when the weather was scorching and I nearly didn't get it as I wasn't really into winter coat thinking mode and I didn't really want to lug it around the boot sale. I took it off the ladies car and tried it on and it's in great condition-the interior is immaculate and the exterior has the odd tiny patches of wear but overall it definitely has a good few years of life yet to go. Another lady who was buying something else was eyeing it up, so I quickly paid my £5 and bought it!

 To think that camel wool coats are so popular this season and to be honest, I wouldn't have bought a brand new one so thrifting the best name in winter coats was beyond a bonus for me- up with my Chanel jacket find, they are both my best finds this year!!

I'm linking up to the lovely Claire Justine for Creative Mondays, I hope you get a chance to take a look at her lovely blog and maybe link up yourself!!

Wishing you all a really fabulous week ahead, whatever you get up to!!