Our stylish guest, Lauren Bravo, is known for writing on fashion, food, pop culture, travel, and feminism for outlets including Sunday Times Style, Grazia, Cosmopolitan, Stylist, and The Guardian. Lauren's first book, 'What Would The Spice Girls Do?', is a pop-culture look at girl power and 90s nostalgia. She says they weren't given much credit back in the day, but were so influential for a generation of girls like her growing up. She's always been obsessed with a second hand aesthetic, which she says she inherited from her parents and iconic grandmothers. She's always rocked a flamboyant style and says she was that kid going to sixth form with a vintage pillbox hat with a veil, so it was a natural progression for her to write a book called 'How To Break Up With Fast Fashion' — after taking on a year-long shopping ban in 2019, the book was published in 2020. She shares plenty of her tips for shopping on Vinted and successful charity shop bargain hunting, including looking for natural fibres and seeking out older brands. Learning how to layer is the key, and not being afraid to wear things out of season - a little summer dress with a roll neck underneath, for example. She says she finds that the men's section can often yield better quality jeans and shirts. Her novel 'Preloved' draws on her experience volunteering in a charity shop in London, where she encountered people from all walks of life. She is fascinated with the stories behind objects and the new life they get after they are bought in a charity shop, so this was fertile turf for her characters. She says her glamorous granny and nanny lived opposite each other and were great friends, and it was why her parents met in the first place. She says both of them were style icons and bought great quality pieces from charity shops. Lauren has inherited their coats and jewellery and brought her granny's cocktail ring to show us. It's a knuckle duster of a ring, given to her by her parents and made out of her great-grandfather's tie pin. Lauren wore it on her wedding day and any time she wants to feel fancy. A small round compact mirror from the Dubarry perfume company has a local link. Her parents gifted it to her as a graduation present. Coming from Worthing to Brighton on the train to sixth form, Lauren used to pass the art deco perfumery in Hove, and used to fantasise about living there with her friends, so this thoughtful gift from her Dad, tracked down on Ebay, means a lot to her. A match-box sized little green box revealed a suffragette brooch shaped as a letter 'C'. Her daughter loves to look at it, as her name begins with a 'C' too. It's made with peridot and an amethyst on a white stone background - the colours of the Suffragettes. People used to wear them to signal to other women they were fighting on the same side. Her last piece is from her thoughtful husband, Matt. He made her a book of all of her Worthing Herald columns, which she wrote weekly from the age of fourteen to twenty-six. She says most people commit their embarrassing teenage stories to their private diaries, but hers were all out in public. Still writing as a freelance journalist, Lauren's latest novel is 'Probably Nothing', about a woman named Bryony who gets drawn into her late boyfriend's family drama while dealing with worsening physical symptoms she keeps dismissing, exploring modern wellness culture and people-pleasing. When it comes to life hacks, Lauren says she's a born people pleaser and tries to remember her friend's mantra: \"Don't put your name on stupid lists.\" She says the best piece of advice she ever got was from her granny, which she's passed onto many friends starting their first day at a new job: \"Don't be scared. All you need to know is where the toilets are and how to get out.\" Follow her on social media @laurenbravo and subscribe to her Substack newsletter for her chatty pieces: Nobody Wanted This.
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