Cheltenham Vintage Fair, 27th Oct 2013

Last weekend we found ourselves in Cheltenham for the first LouLou's Cheltenham Vintage Fair. We were pretty excited to visit Cheltenham as it's a lovely place, but also it's only an hour from home for us. It had been an age since I took the camera along to a vintage fair and since our stock and stall is always changing I thought it would be a good chance to snap a few shots of the stall to use on the website. We recently got a new lens and I have been loving playing around with it. So here they are...

The fair was very busy, in fact too busy at times, there is clearly an appetite for vintage in Cheltenham! Tweed jackets, novelty knits and print shirts were our best sellers of the day for vintage, and our bargain £3 rings pretty much sold out! I also took the chance to have a bit of a look about the fair once it got a bit quieter later on, and I grabbed a few snaps then too. As always at these fairs, there was a great variety of styles and eras, something to suit all tastes! I was a bit naughty and bought a lovely 1960's Welsh tapestry shoulder bag and a really lovely new brooch which will look great on my new winter coat. I might have been there to work but it was such a fun day.

Street Style - Shoppers at The Bristol Vintage Fair

This weekend we were back on the road, and our first stop was The Bristol Vintage Fair. Held at The Passenger Shed, which is a mahoosive big room next to Temple Meads Station (and I mean BIG, the biggest vintage fair we've done, and we've done a whole lot of vintage fairs over the last few years!) If you are based in Bristol or the South West I would absolutely recommend checking it out when it's on next, as the sheer size of the room allows for a great selection of stalls. At this fair there was everything from original Art Deco lamps to on trend cropped tees via taxidermy animals in sunglasses!

Of course, the fair also attracted lots of stylish shoppers. I snapped a few who came to look at our stall. Check out all these lovely ladies!

These girls looked superb in their perfect, summery outfits. We love the cute sixties style dress on the left, and the AMAZING watermelon themed outfit on the right. I love when people aren't afraid to have fun with their fashion choices, and this pair certainly aren't shy of a bit of fun and colour.

We love this simple and chic monochrome look of a cute stripy dress and white pumps. Perfect for a day out shopping! This girl told us she had bought the adorable watering can handbag at the fair.

The weather was lovely on Saturday, and it was the perfect excuse for this shopper to bring out this beautiful floral sun dress. I just love the zingy yellow roses.

 

This mother and daughter pair are pretty much giving a masterclass in how to wear retro florals - go full on fifties with a full skirted dress and chic white court shoes, or bring it bang up to date with some statement sandals and a simple top. Well done ladies!

Of course, it's not all about the girly florals and ladylike dresses. This girl has perfected the nineties trend with her DMs, baggy shirt and backpack. We love the way she has mixed up a kitsch kitten t shirt with a bullet necklace.

Here are a few snaps of the fair. We had a really fun day in Bristol, and we're looking forward to visiting again soon!

Vintage Weekend By The Seaside

We might be sitting in (still) snowy Birmingham right now, but our minds are still on the south coast, where we have just spent a lovely weekend trading at two super events organised by The Vintage Fair. First up was Southampton Vintage Fair at the Guildhall on Saturday. The hall was bustling with shoppers pretty much all day, it seemed the perfect escape from the cold, drizzly day, and the hair salon and dance workshops really pulled in the crowds. The range of stalls was excellent, we spied all kinds of goodies, including a splendid range of hats...

 

Best Dressed - Southampton

We see so many well dressed people at the vintage fairs we trade at, so this weekend we decided to try and pick our favourite outfits of each fair.  It wasn't easy! But here is our pick for Southampton-

This is the lovely Amy Baker, who treated us to a superb performance of nostalgic tunes on Saturday afternoon. We just loved her 1950's peach dress and embroidered cardigan combo. She completed the look with classic court shoes and sparkly earrings. So pretty!

Art Deco Splendour at The Cumberland Hotel, Bournemouth

 

We usually find ourselves in the more basic end of the hotel spectrum when we're away working, but this weekend we treated ourselves to something a little bit special. We're suckers for a bit of Art Deco and love nothing more than watching an episode of Poirot of an evening, so when we spied this Deco gem we just had to stay there. The Cumberland didn't disappoint, with classic Art Deco styling inside and out, the lobby and lounge were beautiful and there is even an outdoor swimming pool (which we didn't try out, unsurprisingly given the Siberian winds currently battering the UK!) and stylish deck area. We had a meal in the Red Door restaurant which was lovely, as was breakfast the following morning. The only slight disappointment was that our room wasn't decorated in quite the same style as the rest of the hotel, though it was very nice. Here are a few snaps of the place...

Sunday-The Bournemouth Vintage Fair, at the Pavilion

On Sunday we found ourselves in the stylish Bournemouth Pavilion for the Bournemouth Vintage Fair, with a view from our stall of the sea and a funfair. How lovely! We might have fancied abandoning our stall for the day and frolicking on the sand and eating ice cream, but we managed to hold off and get set up for the day ahead. The fair was just as busy as Southampton, and there was another great range of stalls. Our friends from Mooch Vintage, Little Old Me, Goldrush Vintage, The Vintage Revolver and Used had come along for both days, but there were lots of local traders who were fresh for the Sunday, so there was plenty of scope for us to have another good browse of the the stalls. We spoke to lots of people who were very excited that the fair had come to Bournemouth, and we're glad it did, by the end of the day we were utterly exhausted!

Best Dressed - Bournemouth

Best dressed in Bournemouth on Sunday had to go to this smart couple, in beautiful authentic vintage outfits. We particularly loved the zingy lemon yellow swing coat and matching shoes. Superb!

So, all in all, it was a fantastic weekend, we met so many enthusiastic and friendly shoppers, and they cleared us out of an awful lot of vintage. We can't wait to return to the south coast, hopefully it will be a few degrees warmer next time!

January Sales at Sheffield Vintage Fair

It was the first vintage fair of the year, for us anyway, and while we were raring to get back into it for 2013, we weren't too impressed by the many tonnes of snow that was dumped over the north of England the night before. We were greeted by a very snowy view on the morning of the fair and we were worried that we would have trouble getting there, and that even if we did, no one would turn up. Fortunately, the hardy folks of Sheffield don't let a few inches of snow keep them from their vintage bargains, and the fair was lovely and busy.

There were January bargains aplenty too, with most stalls having discount rails, bargain bins or some kind of offer. We had a £10 jumper rail, and were offering two for £15, and this went down really well. Other top sellers were floppy hats, collar chains and print dresses. If you missed this one, the next one is on March 2nd, and if you're not Sheffield based, see our events page to find out when we'll be coming to a town near you.

There were lots of stylish shoppers, which is usually the case at vintage fairs, and it got us thinking. We're at vintage fairs all over the country every weekend, and we see so many well dressed people and lovely things, we really should cover them more on the blog. I used to write about vintage fairs regularly on the blog but it got a bit repetitive after a while, it was always something along the lines of "We went to *insert city name* vintage fair this weekend, we had a lovely time, here are some pictures of cupcakes, clothes rails and stacks of suitcases". So from now on, we're going to try and cover the fairs more regularly on the blog, but we're going to try and have a more interesting angle for each post. We're not exactly sure what form this will take yet, but hopefully it will be worth a read. So watch this space!

The ever fabulous Jeny and Amber