Long Hot Summer of Festivals

There's a chill in the air in the mornings now and it's definitely dusk by dinner time, which means one thing: autumn is coming. Something which I am pretty happy about. While I love the summer, I'm also looking forward to crisp mornings, digging out those chunky cardigans and cosy tights, kicking up leaves in the park, cooking big hearty meals and snuggling up on the sofa. Not to mention Halloween, Guy Fawkes and the run up to... no, it's too early for the 'C' word. But you get the idea. Autumn is a busy time for us at Minimum Mouse too, it's probably my favourite season for vintage clothes, beautiful wool coats, jazzy knitwear and tweeds are things that really were better in the past and we've been saving up lots of gems for you all. We'll also be hitting the road going to lots and lots of vintage fairs all over the country, and we love getting out and about and meeting lots of people, as well as seeing all the vintage trading friends we have made over the years. There is quite a gang of us mobile vintage salespeople, and they are the nicest people you could hope to meet.

But before summer slips away and is just a happy memory forever more, I wanted to take a moment to look at a few pictures of our adventures over the last few months. We traded at four festivals this year, Mostly Jazz, Secret Garden Party, The Retro Festival and Moseley Folk. We were blessed with amazing weather at every one, something we never expect and are so grateful for. Festivals are so much more fun when you don't have to fret about your stock getting soaked in the rain! In the UK we normally end up moaning about how disappointing the summer has been, but this year we really can't. We have had so many warm and sunny days, it has been such a treat.

We teamed up with the fabulous Second Hand Rose to trade at the festivals and had so much fun. Highlights of the summer included seeing Public Service Broadcasting's fascinating live show, spying on the filming of Midsomer Murders at the Retro Festival, pampering ourselves in the spa at Secret Garden Party, also the amazing fireworks over the lake at SGP, seeing Chic's crazy onstage party finale and finally Ocean Colour Scene playing their album Moseley Shoals in their Moseley homeland! We are 50% brummie after all.

We're off to Croatia in a couple of days to soak up a last few drops of summer sun before we have to get the knitwear out, so I'll speak to you on the other side!

Surely the most beautiful little festival in the UK. Lovely.

Our busy marquee at Retro Festival

Graffiti artists at Mostly Jazz

 

Festival season fuel

Our stall at Secret Garden Party

Cars and cases at Retro Festival

Best dressed couple ever?

The captain makes a friend, Public Service Broadcasting

Chic's onstage party

Clowning around

Lovely customers at Secret Garden Party

Shopping at Retro Festival

The ever stylish Clare Bridge

The captain of our ship

Adventures at Secret Garden Party

Our stall, fancy dress, the beautiful lake, the fairground rides and the beautiful countryside.

We had a whale of a time at the Secret Garden Party festival in the beautiful wilds of Cambridgeshire last weekend. It was our first time at this festival but we had heard a lot about it from friends. It didn't disappoint!

We were trading alongside our friends from Second Hand Rose, which is an amazing vintage shop in Worcester that I really can't recommend highly enough - Clare always has such amazing stock at really reasonable prices. For this festival Clare brought along a vast selection of costumes, from ball gowns to tailcoats via Worzel Gummidge and clown outfits, there really was something for everyone. Secret Garden Party is known as THE fancy dress festival, and we saw so many fabulous costumes over the course of the weekend (our faves were the Button Moon family, giant salt and pepper pots and the lucky rainbow folk you can see above).

Second Hand Rose's amazing selection and a happy customer in his new party dress

Also we were joined by Loll, from Wool, Wombling and General... who was holding weaving workshops. She was available all weekend to teach people how to make festival headbands or friendship bracelets in an array of pretty colours. Loll has also kindly let me use a lot of her photographs for this blog post as I kept forgetting to bring my camera out, so thanks Loll! I'd definitely recommend checking out her blog if you are into crafty things and vintage collecting.

It was a busy and very fun weekend, and we met lots of lovely customers as always! This lovely lady was proposed to by her boyfriend with one of our Scrabble rings. She said YES!

My favourite sale of the weekend had to be this Carmen Miranda inspired two piece which I had been saving for festival season. With its ruffles and tropical fruit print it's a real showstopper of an outfit, it was just waiting for the right new owner, and here she is! She looks utterly gorgeous in it so I'm glad it has gone to a great new home!

Clare, our pal from Second Hand Rose, bought this purple cape with feathered collar from us (and the sunglasses!) Again, this item couldn't have gone to a better home! She looks amazing, teaming it with her elephant bum bag and patterned swimsuit.

We really enjoyed the festival, on our down time we enjoyed swimming in the lake, singing karaoke, watching Public Service Broadcasting, ceilidh dancing, exploring the labrynth, watching the fireworks display on the Saturday night, dancing in the Number 13 club (it was an actual garden shed that played Stevie Wonder's Superstition on repeat) indulging in a bit of pampering at the Bathing Under The Sky spa and eating lots and lots of amazing food. It was exhausting and gruelling at times - waking up at 5.30am and finding the party still going strong can be a bit disconcerting when you are working long days, but it was well worth it, and we really hope we can bring Minimum Mouse back for more adventures in the garden next year. Here are some more snaps from the weekend.

New Season Looks from Minimum Mouse

Forget the snow and gloomy weather and get ready for summer 2013!
The festival season is just around the corner! Go floral with a pastel cropped blouse and a pretty headband made at Minimum Mouse head quarters. Pair with some acid wash Levi shorts and a must have vintage satchel and the look is complete. If it gets a bit chilly complete the look with a cute knitted cardigan or denim jacket.

 Still looking forward to the summer! Focusing on the retro comic trend that has appeared on the high street. We have picked out this Minnie Mouse  vintage Disney vest and created two looks. Firstly teaming the vest with a pair of  on trend blue polka dot peg trousers and accessorizing the outfit with a bright statement bowler hat gives the look a smart edgy feel. When the temperature rises and the sun starts to shine style the top with a pair of Levi shorts and some white sneakers keeping the look casual.

A Summer of Adventures

Giant bucket and spade at Beach Break Live

With the nights drawing in and our thoughts turning to freshers fairs and cosy autumnal clothing, I thought I would take a few minutes to reflect on all the fun we've had this summer. We've certainly got about a bit! We kicked off our summer at Beach Break Festival in the beautiful Pembrey Country Park in South Wales. Unfortunately the weather didn't seem to get the message that summer had arrived and it was wet, windy and chilly! But the crowd of post exam happy students didn't let that bother them and it was a really fun weekend. Plus, as someone who has a fascination with big versions of small things (or maxitures, as I like to call them), I loved this giant bucket and spade!

Meeting a new friend on our summer photoshoot

We also had a fun summer photoshoot with our lovely model Alex, we pulled out all the stops to create a cute and girly, pastel themed collection and we made a furry friend along the way. A lovely day out!

Wilderness Festival was a real gem of a festival, a relaxing and exciting weekend, it's become one of my new favourite festivals. You could go swimming in the lake, use a wood fired hot tub, learn how to do all kinds of crafts and take part in a huge Bugsy Malone splurge fight - what more could you want from a weekend?! Plus, the scenery was a delight.

A Wilderness sunset

Our stall

The Bugsy Malone gang out for a splurge

V Festival in Chelmsford was a scorcher of a weekend, we spent it with our pals from The Vintage Fair, and being conveniently located opposite the main stage we managed to take in all the music, including highlights from the Stone Roses, The Killers, Tom Jones and Madness.

The sunnies went down a treat at the hottest event we've ever attended, literally!

Our last festival outing of the summer was at The Big Feastival, a new festival taking place at Alex James' cotswolds farm. With the emphasis firmly on good food, we were in our element. We even went to a cheese and beer tasting event and met the cheesemaker himself! It was a fun weekend, with loads of kids having hay fights and making giant bubbles, and lots of celebrities milling about. We saw Jamie Oliver ambling about and Jules Oliver had a good browse around the vintage area, as did Pearl Lowe, Gaz Coombes and Graham Coxon. Which was nice for the britpop loving teenager within me!

Another great maxiture!

Alex James telling us all about his cheese!

So now it's time for us to leave the summer behind us, it's been a blast, but we're looking forward to getting out all the autumn stock and hitting the road again for a new season of vintage events. We're kicking things off later this week at Student Live, in Kensington Olympia. Would love to see you on our travels, you can always see where we're headed next by checking our event page. See you soon!