Fair Play

It's that time of year again, the vintage fair season! Back to the 4am get-ups, the endless car journeys and the lugging of sacks of stock half your body weight up & down the staircases of the UK's grandest municipal buildings. A return to the nagging doubts...will people turn up, will they notice us, will they like our stuff and will the stuff they like fit them? Physically and mentally exhausting? Absolutely! And we absolutely love 'em.

Photo courtesy of  Judy's

Sunday took us to London with Judy's Affordable Vintage Fair, to the achingly hip Bethnal Green. Geeky as it may sound, a trial run of our stall set-up at home works for us, we're unpacked and ready to roll in next to no time and hopefully it looks inviting, too. Judy's photographed our pitch to advertise Sunday's fair on social media, talk about a huge compliment.

Courtesy of Eliza Hill - more photos HERE

Ages ago some broad-footed oaf crammed their trotters into these gold 1960s evening shoes (Fireflies for Clarks') for a selfie, snapped off the original diamonte trim and made off without a word of apology. As they're my proper size (a hard to find UK 6.5) I decided that might as well keep them, gluing on some metallic Indian medallions I bought from a car boot sale back in the Summer. Along with my silk Dollyrockers maxi (found on eBay for an insane £12.95 Buy-It-Now a couple of weeks ago) they got lots of love from the punters, even getting papped by Eliza, the official fair photographer. 

Whilst working our pitch, out of the corner of my eye I spotted an incredible sleeve on the rail of a neighbouring stall. I rushed over and pulled out this printed cotton blouse, loving it even more after clocking the label - one of my favourite late 1960s/early 1970s designers, Jeff Banks at London W1. 

I've got a couple of W1 blouses in my collection and even had the pleasure of meeting the ex- Mr Sandy Shaw back in the 1980s (he told me I had fabulous hair). Jeff Banks' early stuff usually commands huge sums (HERE); which I totally understand, his designs and the quality are absolutely gorgeous; but even for me and my infamous Scrooge-like tendencies, this was great value.....Judy's fairs certainly live up to their Affordable moniker.

Not so much a blouse as an art form. When I got home on Sunday night (some seventeen hours after leaving the house) it went straight onto a coat hanger and displayed in the bedroom so I could admire it when I woke.

Mixed prints, a lace trim, pockets, mustard buttons... I love it.

 People with wardrobe wishlists fascinate me, reducing their sartorial choices with almost clinical precision. Me, I never have an effin' clue about what I'm going to come home with. I see something, fall in love and buy it without the foggiest idea of where I'm going to wear it to or even if I need it. When I left the house at 5am on Sunday morning I never thought that by bedtime I'd own a ridiculously over-the-top floral blouse with the biggest bastard sleeves you ever did see.

I did wonder (for about a millisecond) what I was going to wear with it. Those wardrobe nazis professional stylists would no doubt advocate keeping it simple (arghhhhhh) with a plain skirt or a "classic pair of jeans." To me the crushingly dull phrase less is more is the death knoll to any wardrobe creativity. I reckon that if you've bought all your clothes because you love them it's pretty obvious that unless you've got some kind of personality disorder (or you've been brainwashed by fashion magazines) your taste is always the same so it's glaringly obvious everything you own is going to go together.

This vintage rose print cotton maxi skirt (a 99p bargain from eBay), a pair of 10 rupee hoop earrings from a market stall in India and the wooden beaded choker my Mum wore when she was expecting me in 1966 seemed the perfect accompaniments. The ideal transitional outfit while October continues to teeter between late Summer and the next season (of which I won't tempt fate by mentioning it by name.)

See you soon!

(Linking to Natalia's Mid-life Fun.)