I also love shopping locally, and I have recently used a local tailor to copy one of my favourite high street dress designs. I know this style of dress (drawstring waist, three quarter sleeves, calf length) suits me so am replacing my usual high street trawl with this failsafe method. It might cost a little more, but it also gives me something that no one else has. I tend to rely on Retold Vintage and the occasional trip to vintage fairs for coats and jackets and also pop to Gigi’s Dressing Room on Wood Street and Ella Pop up Vintage on Francis Road, Leyton, when I fancy a spontaneous browse, without the expectation of a guaranteed purchase.
I have also rounded up local stylists and vintage sellers in the area I live (Walthamstow, North London) to create the E17 Pre-loved Club where we hold shopping events. We sell a mix of vintage and pre-loved fashion locally, and the beauty of it is that there are 20 stylists in the room to give styling advice to anyone new to pre-loved. In sourcing clothes for this I often find things for myself, and my recent gem find was a Hardy Amies camel blazer in Oxfam in Bournemouth for a pound, which is tailored to perfection.