Page 29 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop
There was nothing left to do but to sit next to Bea while she explained about the SEO thingy again. It made Phoebe’s head swim. Thankfully, she soon persuaded Bea that they should go on Instagram to look up this so-called influencer.
Birdy lived in London, she had just over twenty three thousand followers and according to her profile she was ‘a vintage girly, a hopeless romantic, a teller of stories and the slave of Peggy Gug, a spoilt little pug’.
It was so twee and saccharine sweet that it made Phoebe’s back molars ache like she’d eaten too much sugar.
A quick look at Birdy’s grid showed that she’d done a brand campaign for Phoebe’s favourite underwear company, who specialised in retro designs including the right kind of pointy bra to look good under vintage clothing. She’d also worked with a small independent parfumier, a bakery in Covent Garden and a very well-known chain of DIY shops who’d helped Birdy transform her bedroom into ‘the boudoir of my dark floral romantic dreams’.
Birdy’s photos, whether they were interior or exterior shots, all had the same aesthetic, a dreamy, nostalgic feel with pops of saturated colour.
‘It’s giving goth Cath Kidston,’ Bea said because by now she’d abandoned any pretence at teaching Phoebe about the intricacies of SEOs.
There was no ‘Felt cute, might delete later’ or ‘hashtag bliss’. Birdy preferred to write mini essays or little stories or quote from books and poems that Phoebe had never read or, in a lot of cases, ever heard of.
But even Phoebe had heard of William Shakespeare andA Midsummer Night’s Dream. Accompanying a series of pictures of Birdy running through wildflower meadows in a floaty white dress were the words:
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moon’s sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green:
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dew-drops here
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits: I’ll be gone;
Our queen and all her elves come here anon.
What did it all mean? Who even knew?
Phoebe had more pressing concerns. That particular post was back in the summer when Birdy had long dark hair that fell in ringlets. However, in her most recent photos, she was sporting a very sharp, very precision-cut black bob. She was also featuring more and more little black dresses, which she accompanied with flicky liquid eyeliner and a bright red lip.
‘Oh my God, she’s stolen your look!’ Bea exclaimed. ‘Though, to be fair, you kind of stole your look from Coco Chanel.’
‘My look is nothing like Coco Chanel’s,’ Phoebe corrected sharply. ‘My look isinspiredby the iconic style of the silent film actress Louise Brooks. Really, Bea, it couldn’t be more obvious!’
‘Coco Chanel and Louise Brooks are, literally, the same woman. I bet no one ever saw them in the same room at the same time,’ Bea said and Phoebe didn’t have the energy to point out the flaws in Bea’s argument, especially when there were other far more concerning matters to be addressed.
‘Talking of Coco Chanel, look!’ Phoebe pointed at the screen where a black pug, no doubt Peggy Gug (which was a ridiculous name) bore a startling resemblance to Coco Chanel, the canine version. Right down to the pink tweed Chanel-inspired jacket it was sporting.
