It’s always nice to get out of Dublin and recently I headed out to Bray to visit my friend and fellow blogger Kathryn.
The visit was postponed several times due to both our busy lives until I had a Monday off and decided to hop on a train out.
After lunch in Kathryn’s beautiful period house, we set out on a charity shop excursion and I was pleasantly surprised by the number of charity shops in the town.
First stop was the Vincent’s shop where I immediately found €2 Marks and Spencers jeans in a bargain bin and a grey and pink pinafore dress for €5.
I was absolutely thrilled with the jeans as I’d been looking for embellished jeans for ages but didn’t want to fork out loads.
It’s pretty rare to find decent jeans in a charity shop as most of them are either cheap ones or worn and stretched out and if you do find a decent pair, it’s likely they’re not your size!
So I got really lucky with these as they are a really nice snug fit in the waist and good quality denim.
They don’t stretch which is a big plus for me. The only downside is that they are a tad too long for me but I just rolled up the ends.
I never buy clothes in Marks and Spencers but I’ve heard that they are good quality.
If you are looking for something similar, they are a ‘girlfriend’ fit from M&S. I will put a full-length photo of them soon.
I also found a grey and pink pinafore dress for €5 in the St Vincent’s store.
It is from Dunnes and I’ve been layering it over a grey poloneck for work.
It is a size 10 and could do with a belt but I haven’t found one that suits it yet. I will put up a pic of me wearing it soon.
It’s a light material with no lining so one for summer rather than autumn/winter and has two pockets in the front with decorative silver buttons.
I actually haven’t been to many St Vincent’s charity shops as the nearest one to me is in Drumcondra and George’s Street and Sean McDermott Street in the city centre.
Kathryn introduced me to the one on Sean McDermott Street and it is enormous -well worth a look around!
I bought this adorable faux leather yellow skirt for about €7 there.
Another shop we visited was Purple House Cancer Support which has the cutest storefront and I couldn’t resist a picture.
Although I’ve been to Bray several times, I never knew there were so many charity shops and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the stock also.
Many of the shops had homeware and cute knick-knacks and ornaments, a cheap way to spruce up an apartment.
We hit up the National Council for the Blind of Ireland, an Irish Cancer Society shop and an Oxfam along the way.
I tried on several items in these shops, but as my wardrobe is overflowing, I decided not to buy anything else.
There were so many good charity shops that it actually took ages to get around to them all!
For my shopping trip, I opted for a comfy and casual outfit, a baggy Topshop jumper, River Island jeans and thrifted black loafers.
Usually, I’m alone when I’m charity shopping but it’s always good to have a friend along to give you their opinion.
Kathryn was a voice of reason and stopped me from buying another ornament I didn’t really need (just a dust-collector) and a very nice but slightly too small sparkly blue t-shirt.
Check out her vintage and thrifty fashion blog here.
I hope you all enjoyed this post and if you’ve any charity shop recommendations or questions, leave me a comment below by clicking the grey speech bubble icon on the bottom right.
I’m off to Amsterdam later this month so hopefully, I’ll have a travel post on that soon.
Thanks for reading and don’t forget to check out my Instagram, Twitter and Facebook page.
Edel
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