When you hear South Carolina, you might invision nice country folk that wear camo, drink beer and moonshine, and hunt whenever they get a chance.
When you hear Charleston, you might invision Lilly Pilitzer/Vineyard Vines/Polo/Jack Rogers/Sperry-wearing people with a dash of southern charm. I'm not hating I promise!
But the beautiful thing, or at least one of the beautiful things, is the ever growing number of local designers; designers you'd never guess came out of Charleston.
I'm starting a local designer series, starting with JLINSNIDER.
Designed and created by Jamie Lin Snider, JLINSNIDER features one of a kind modernized vintage clothing, shoes, and accessories. And when I say one of a kind, take it literally. If you buy a something from her, it IS the ONLY one. It's all wearable vintage and very, very unique. A little hidden gem in the Charleston scene.
Jamie Lin Snider grew up in Anderson, South Carolina and went to school in Las Vegas. She moved back to Charleston in 2011 and founded her store on upper King Street. Upper King used to be a area you wouldn't really want to visit, it could be dangerous and sketchy. Now it's a must visit if you're into the fashion scene, or even if you're not. Upper King now is "up and coming", I guess would be the correct term for it. Mostly college kids and all the cool kids. Just kidding, kind of. But really, she started out with her Etsy store and it blew up and now she has all of this!
That's our girl right there! She is such a sweetheart, I've talked to her twice and both times she was so kind and cheerful and very passionate about what she does.
Here are some images from Charleston Fashion Week runway from years 2011 through 2014
all images from JLS runway portfolio
There are some dresses in there that I cannot for the life of me figure out what kind of fabric she used. You can probably guess which ones, let me know if you figure it out. I'm so curious.
As far as I know, the only places you can buy her clothes right now is at Holy City Consignment, King Dusko, or her Etsy page.
Her clothes are pretty expensive, as expected. Somehow, the stars aligned for me perfectly and I was able to get my hands on three shirts I wanted. I was walking down King Street on a Tuesday or some random day like that, full paycheck, and decided to walk in because I had never been in before. This was a year or two ago when she had her own retail store. She happened to be having a huge sale on everything in the store if I remember correctly. I was surprised that there weren't more people in the store, but one of the girls working there said that Jamie Lin would randomly decided to have unannounced sales.
Outfit posts with said shirts will come later this week.
Here are some cool photos from her portfolio:
And last but not least, some awards she's won:
Best of Charleston 2011- Best Risk Taking Designer
Charleston's 50 Most Progressive People, 2012
Best of Charleston 2012- Best Designer Boutique
Best of Charleston 2014- Best Place For Leopard Print Suspenders (really random and specific award?)
Best of Charleston 2014- Best Local Designer
I wish there had been some mens clothing on the runway for fashion week. I don't really remember seeing any mens clothing when I went in the store, but that might just be because I was too excited about the sale to look.
Like I said, I'll do outfit posts later this weekend/week with the shirts that I got.
Also don't forget- I'm doing a giveaway soon!
What do you think? Do you like vintage clothing or do you prefer more modern clothes? Would you wear any of these risk taking designs? Let me know what you think!
Have a good weekend loves!
