Folk blouses, a crochet tank top, handmade (by me!) jewelry

Hey there, buds. It’s been awhile!

I wasn’t doing a lot of shopping as the world fell apart this summer, but over the past couple months of living in England I’ve slowly but surely started up again.

For one thing, the postal system over here isn’t incredibly overburdened, underfunded, and on the verge of total collapse, so I don’t feel as guilty about placing orders for nonessential goods as I did back home with the USPS. My local mailman actually calls me his favorite customer (though maybe he says that to all the girls). And for another, my employer recently restored all of my colleagues and I to full pay after we all took pay cuts early on in the pandemic, so momma’s got a little more cash on hand.

My friend Katie, who lives in London, has an incredible eye for vintage and has given me the scoop on some of the best online stores in the UK. Plus size vintage in particular can be tough to find anywhere, but I’ve managed to pick up some really wonderful pieces.

One of my new favorite shops is Saluto London, which I was introduced to by way of their great collection of folk blouses. I got this ridiculously autumnal floral top with lace trim (and matching scrunchie!) It’s Midsommar fall, baby.

Sapphire and Sixpence also has a number of great vintage folk pieces in stock; I picked up a white blouse there with the requisite huge collar and some really sweet floral embroidering on the tips. They’ve got SO much good stuff in stock rn — this prairie culotte two piece! This Laura Ashley classic in purple! This 70s cape dress!!!!!!

When it comes to pieces that defy pretty much any practicality but just make me really happy: an Aquascutum hot pink blouse from Just Friends Vintage with futuristic royalty vibes, and just the dreamiest baby blue chiffon bed jacket from Mary’s Vintage. I’m planning to wear it tucked in as a blouse with jeans, open over dresses, and even just as a nightgown on nights I’m feeling fancy.

I also couldn’t help but get a new pair of jeans from Lucy & Yak, one of my all-time favorite sustainable and ethical indie British brands. (Free US shipping over $65, and they have phenomenal customer service, btw.) I’m already a huge fan of the Addisons, which have super roomy hips and tuck you in nicely at the waist, so I decided to try the new Delores wide legs, which might be the comfiest hard pants I’ve ever owned? I love them, and I’m eagerly awaiting the restock of the Dana mom jeans.

From one of my favorite shops in Manchester, Cow Vintage, I scored a reworked & upcycled crochet top that I’ve had a lot of fun rollerskating in. And from a British indie I kept seeing on Instagram, Saturday by Megan Ellaby, I’ve kept the 70s mood flowing with a couple mocknecks in groovy stripes and green and pink leopard print. This winter, when I’m catatonically depressed and trapped in my apartment, I’m at least looking forward to doing a lot of layering of mocknecks and flowly blouses under minidresses and jumpsuits. Seriously, though, the days when I get out of my sweatshorts and actually get dressed to WFH make me feel SO much better. All this time spend in isolation has made me realize how much I really do dress just for me. Or at least for me… to post about ;)

Lastly, I got a long-coveted layered cotton maxi dress in mint green from Kemi Telford, a really wonderful Black woman-owned independent shop based in London. (It’s on sale right now!!)

I’ve gotten so much comfort and pleasure out of clothes these past few months. I’m trying not to punish myself for that so much anymore. I’m shopping all secondhand or independent, and I’m donating to various places just as often as I’m buying things. Style isn’t all consumerism and vanity; it’s fun and good and enlivening and life-affirming. And after years of being hesitant to claim femme identity — in part, I’m sure, because of my own internalized femmephobia — I’m finally starting to feel comfortable really embracing it & my working class lesbian heritage. I wrote about this evolution of mine a bit last year for the cruise story, but it’s still a process. Everything’s still a process.

When I first started this newsletter early this year, I wanted to use it to encourage myself to limit my spending to fewer and longer-lasting pieces. And I do still think that slow fashion is important, both for the world and for my wallet/sanity, so I’ll continue to try living up to its ideals. But I also want to give myself more room here & elsewhere to simply embrace and share more of the pleasure there is to be had in finding and adorning yourself with strange and beautiful things.

I liked what Hannah Black, the visual artist and writer, tweeted the other day: “what is the supposed contradiction between liking beautiful or luxurious things and being a communist/on the left?? firstly capitalism produces piles of crap way more than nice things & also it’s not like you don’t have to pay for necessities too, those are also commodities.” She quotes Marx, noting “it’s capitalist not to enjoy yourself/spend money: ‘The hoarder of money scorns the worldly, temporal and ephemeral enjoyments in order to chase after the eternal treasure which can be touched neither by moths nor by rust, and which is wholly celestial and wholly mundane.’”

On that note, my buried lede here is that I have some personal news: I’ve opened up my own shop! I’m making jewelry, as well as, eventually/hopefully, home goods and other stuff too. Before the pandemic having the gall to sell stuff I’ve made with my own hands would have seemed laughably inconceivable to me. But at a time when my relationship to careerism and ambition is in weird flux (Maris Kreizman wrote a great piece about this), there’s something that makes weirdly perfect sense about pouring my heart and soul into this tiny small business right now.

I feel like a whole new part of my brain has been opened up. I loved arts and crafts as a kid and a teen, but writing was always my number one thing. Once you’re a grownup it becomes so much harder to justify hobbies at which you’re not the absolute best, or at very good. I think I’m decently good at this new venture, and getting better every day. And that’s okay — it’s a blessing, even, to have so much to learn and so much room to grow.

For readers of this letter I’d like to offer 20% off everything on shannonbeth.com right now, including brand new gold-filled necklaces, with the code substack. It expires on Friday at midnight.

Love you,

S