Imagine Another Lovelier World - Towersey Festival 2019

The Frumptarn Guggenband

Forgive me, I'm doing that annoying thing of publishing a blog post before I've caught up with commenting but we're only home for a few hours as we're heading off to our next festival at the crack of dawn tomorrow so I thought I'd better write about our Towersey experience before it becomes ancient history. 

Our trader pal, Mandy

We arrived in the Oxfordshire village where the festival has been held for the last 54 years (yes, it's even older than we are) at noon on Wednesday. We set up in our usual seven-and-a-half hours and then spent the evening with Mandy and Orr, our lovely festival friends who we met at Cornbury all those years ago. Find her HERE.

WEARING: Dollyrockers (me), Vintage Paul Smith (Jon)

The festival opened to the public at midday on Thursday but from previous experience we knew trade would be slow although by the time we shut at 11.15 pm (as usual we were the last stall standing) we hadn't done half bad.

The BBC's forecast was for sunshine and sizzling heat and I can't tell you what a relief it was when it turned out to be spot on for once. It's the first time I've been able to wear this 1960s Hawaiian maxi dress to work all year.

I was delighted to see shoppers we'd met at our first Towersey - and even happier to pick out a fabulous 1950s cotton day dress that fitted perfectly!

The Towersey organisers were running a competition to find the greenest trader. I'm not sure who won but you can't get greener than a vintage clothes stall - everything we sell has had at least one previous owner, everything is washed in eco-friendly soda crystals & line-dried, our price tags (attached with pins as opposed to plastic tags) and our carrier bags are made from recycled paper and even our cable ties are reusable.

We got the thumbs up from Towersey's resident bee.

More lovely people we met back in 2017.

Gorgeous Janis kindly offered to model for us - doesn't she look wonderful in everything?

You can't see the print very clearly but this 1990s Gabicci shirt featured a disco ball print - perfect for this guy's late night DJ set.

Talking of disco, Saturday was time to dig out my festival favourite, my 1970s Bernshaw lurex maxi.

The return of the giant disco ball

Great to see this pair who'd also paid us a visit at Glastonbury way back in June.

The weather was scorching. Jon abandoned his shirt. Topless service, anyone?

It makes us so happy to see clothes bought from us still being loved a couple of years later. This 1960s cotton dress is just one of them - lovely to see it again, along with the wearer, still looking amazing!

How fabulous is Fiona's vintage rainbow dress? Like me, she's an eBay bargain hunter.

This beautiful family bought from us in 2017 and again this year.

Steph's another gorgeous regular. That 1970s Alexander Clare maxi dress used to be mine - it's definitely gone to the right home!

We met lovely Anglo-American couple Penny and Jim at our first Towersey. They were celebrating their 29th wedding anniversary on Saturday. Having lived there for several years, Penny's a bit of an expert on Naples, find out more HERE.

Until Sunday most of our evenings had been spent sitting, chatting & boozing with our trader friends but with The Selecter headlining we had a proper night out and danced the night away to some incredibly upbeat ska tunes and Pauline Black is an absolute goddess. We didn't film the performance (you know my thoughts on that!) but HERE's a link to their official website.

Like Glasto, Towersey is a five day festival. After six days in a field in 33°C we were definitely looking a bit grubby around the edges but that's all part of the fun. If you're a clean freak, festivals probably aren't for you.

John looked so cool in the white fedora he bought from us the previous day, apparently he was inundated with compliments - hardly surprising!

This lovely couple are regular Kinky shoppers, too!

The 1970s California psych maxi Steph bought from us last year needed a bit of a tweak and luckily I had my sewing kit with me - on the spot alterations and repairs are all part of the Kinky service!

Like Glasto, Towersey is a five day festival. After six days in a field in 33°C we were probably looking a bit grubby around the edges but that's all part of the fun. If you're a clean freak festivals probably aren't for you.

It's lovely to meet so many like-minded people at Towersey, to bitch about politics, rave about bands we've seen, places we've been to and generally put the world to rights. We were delighted to be sticker bombed by the Bollocks to Brexit campaign and were quite happy to keep the stickers in situ. The only other places we meet proper hippies is India or Glastonbury and by hippies I don't mean weekend hippies with proper jobs who dress up at festivals. Hippy is a way of life, not a wardrobe choice.

Remember these two from Cornbury? 

Neighbours Lily and her partner Peter are festival newbies and we got on like a house on fire especially when we discovered that they spend four months of the year in Goa - we're planning to meet up with them on the beach in a few months time! Find them HERE.

The illuminated procession brings Towersey to a close. We shut the shop, packed up the stock and spent our last night drinking and chatting into the night, shoe-less and coat-less - bliss!

It was a bit of a struggle getting up at 6am this morning but we were rewarded with a glorious sunrise for our troubles. We took down the stall and squeezed everything back in the van and were ready to leave by 10am. Why is it that despite having sold loads of stock over the weekend it never seems to fit back in?

No trace left and ready for the journey back home!

 Since getting back at midday we've repacked the van, done three loads of washing & the supermarket run and had our first bath for over a week. After we've packed our clothes, watered the garden and ordered a pizza it'll be time for bed - the alarm's set for 6am....next stop End of The Road!!

See you on the other side!


PS I've set up a Kinky Melon Instagram page, I'd love it if you followed us!! HERE