As the first images of the Sex and the City reboot are being released I find myself thinking about the original series (we won't talk about the movies) and how influenced I was by them. Still quoting S&TC today, although definitely not in the same circumstances, "I'm sorry, I can't, don't hate me" is a firm favourite. New York city went to the top of my must visit, sitting on the stoop of a brown stone while eating cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery, sipping cosmopolitans at a bar, trying to hail a taxi with just a hand raised in the air, all achieved while dressed in all my finery. Because yes, the biggest influence of S&TC was the fashion, the style,...
I’m happy that I have kept my clothes from my 20s as I can now re wear them again as they come back into fashion. I have this amazing wrangler jumpsuit that I purchased in Swamp in Limerick in the early 2000’s. It's a double denim dream and by some miracle still fits me. It was an expensive purchase for a poor student but I couldn’t part with it. I wear it now and get compliments all the time. That’s what I love doing. I buy fashion that I love, it doesn’t have to be in fashion, I just love it and can see myself wearing it for as long as it fits me. That’s how I feel about Vintage. I feel...
When we decided to set up Madgra we had a few pieces of stock each and we decided to collaborate together. We decided to go to a Flea Market and see how it went. Madgra was born. For a year we traveled around the country and enjoyed the banter we would have with fellow marketers and the customers who would call over to us. We had planned to keep our little shop going this way and put a few pieces on Instagram, Etsy and Depop. Then our world changed last March and the last market we booked into was gone. I don’t need to remind you what has happened over the last year. We started talking about going on-line. We...
One fine Spring day, I took myself off on a bus trip along the coast of Spain, deep in the Basque country to a little fishing village. With one solitary building as my destination, the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum. I had been aware of this museum for a few years, it was on my list of places I need to visit but never had the opportunity, so when I was only an hours drive away off I went. It did not disappoint. I had a bit of an adventure (read hardship and I nearly gave up) finding the bus to Getaria. Maybe I was expecting a big picture of haute couture dresses on the side of the bus with a big flashing arrow Pretty Dresses...
We do get asked where MadGrá came from and does it mean anything. Both being over thinkers, our vintage name needed to mean something and have a reasoning behind it. So when we were coming up with the name for our little vintage shop it had to be a metaphor, a simile, an answer, new, fun, old, serious, it had to be a lot of things but most of all it had to be us. If you didn't already know, we are Madeleine & Grace (Gránna to family), this is where we chose MAD & GRÁ from. But why? Being 2 very similar people with the same core values we have very different personalities, thoughts and tastes, which are what makes...
