ATTN:Magazine | Not from concentrate.

I love to shop. I fully realise how ridiculous that sounds, everyone loves to shop. But I have a fixation, a fanatical obsession. I make my way through a day while constantly in my mind I am preoccupied. Constructing an outfit, pondering where I can find a tuxedo jacket to cover the fuchsia pink body stocking I’ve yet to brave in public, what shoes to put with that full length studded jump suit. Superficial I know, but no less compulsive. I yearn for the intoxicating surge that comes with buying things. Anything. A dress, a lipstick, a cake.

You mean all I have to do is hand over these bits of paper and this beautiful thing becomes mine?

I love to touch everything. All of the pieces in a clothes shop. Its easy to get mesmerised by a the weight of a thick wool cardigan or the tinkling piano sounds of a sequined jacket.

Ebay has ruined my life.

I was skeptical when I was first recruited to the band of Ebay enthusiasts. ‘Just type “eighties” into the search bar and look at what comes up’ I was ordered. I envisaged a plethora of billowing sacklike band tees and checked shirts. I was completely unprepared for the superfluity of treasures that unfurled in reems, becoming absorbed in every hyperbolically worded description, every tiny thumb-nailed image utterly bewitching.

Now whenever I skim through the hangers in Urban Outfitters I cannot concentrate. I can no longer be exhilarated by the dusty rose tulip skirt I’ve pulled from the rail that holds another six dusty rose tulip skirts. There’s something I’m bidding on that’s closing in four hours, and I know that nothing I will find on the high-street will top it. Ebay has set an incontestable benchmark, and it’s left me hooked.

I will swim absent mindedly through Topshop knowing that the chances that I’ll find something that can para-

Gunmetal pouffe shouldered tulle mini dress, IndieCultVintage

llel something I could find in an Ebay shop are pretty slim.

I’ve never seen a batwing harlequin jumper dress made of leather in the window of H and M, but I’m madly bidding for one now from IndieCultVintage. IndieCult has some truly fantastical pieces, the stuff that dreams are made of, dreams that no one else will ever have because you will be the only person who owns the beautiful thing you just won in auction. It mainly stocks pieces from the sixties and eighties, an abundance of sequins, scallop cuts and origami structures, the best of which include a gunmetal pouffe shouldered tulle mini dress, and neon pink asymmetric high waisted romper.

Such exclusive pieces, though, demand pretty exclusive bidding, and often go for hundreds. There is plenty of affordable shops with pieces just as original and implausibly obscure.

Noir Ohio boasts a startling collection of inked beauties, sporting scarlet lipstick, wicker boating hats and more grunge, kitsch and chintz than you can shake a pair of wayfarers at. Androgynous jumpers and the stuff our mums used to wear when we were kids made cool, you can bag most things for under a tenner. Favourites are an avante garde oversized metallic jacket with Cubism face and an eighties white laced bib.

Avante garde oversized metallic jacket with Cubism face, Noir Ohio

The most troubling thing about bidding is the seemingly constant efforts of others to betray you and swipe precious discoveries from under your nose, which is why I seem to waste life sat at my computer frantically outbidding till the closing second. This problem is hugely magnified when you consider that the most brilliant Ebay shops are on the other side of the world, and the time difference means items close at stupid o’clock when you’re staggering home from town. There have been countless hours spent sat on a soggy bench, cheesey chips in one hand, phone on the internet linked to an auction in the other, maniacally raising bids against some idiot who won’t give it up and realise that those silver lame hareem trousers are GOING to be mine. Though frequently resulting in a package of delight a week later, drunken bidding is definitely not advised. A geometric polka dot jumpsuit may bring joy, but is of little comfort when you only have a jar of peanut butter to live on till the end of term because Ebay has robbed you of your overdraft.

Buying can get expensive, too, when you add the £15 of postage onto that watch you foraged out for a fiver from a store in San Fransisco.

SpanishMossVintage posts things from California, and though it’ll cost an arm and a leg, at least you’ll have a well dressed ar-

Calf skimming cream lace dress with drop waist, SpanishMossVintage

m and leg. Dedicated to the beatnik, SpanishMoss is brimming with intricate lace, rippling fabrics and ironic blazers from the sixties and seventies. The calf skimming cream lace dress with drop waist is a heart breaker.

For boys there is Cotton-Love, a whole crowd of polos, checked shirts, tweed jackets and tracksuits, each one some way between the dapper and the disastrous. The chunky-knit snowflake sweater is adorable, and I defy you not to love the blue polyester bomber jacket with neon fish, and hate the model who’s wearing it.

There are still some Ebay shops that I refuse to mention, in case someone reads this and decides they fancy the same electric yellow swimsuit that I do. I worry that I’ll initiate some bidding war my PayPal account will never win. Seriously, gerroff. I’m having it.