Strawberry Dress: Harrogate Vintage Fair

Straw Hat: Old

Strawberry Print Dress: Miss Maude Makes (formerly From Vintage to Vogue)

Bag: F&F

Flats: Primark (old)

The other weekend, Ben and I made the short trip over to Harrogate to go to the Vintage Fair that was taking place at the Old Swan Hotel where my work Christmas party had taken place, so we were less likely to get lost, yay! Since I was going to a vintage fair, I decided that of course I needed to wear something vintage. In general I love vintage styled clothes, but don’t own a lot of actual vintage clothes themselves – they’re fairly difficult to work with my body shape (aside from 50s dress which are practically designed for me, but are usually very expensive!). So I decided to go with the strawberry print dress that I’d actually bought at a vintage fair in York last summer (and wore here), and I’m glad I did! It was a much warmer day than we were expecting and I got endless compliments on the dress.

The stall I’d bought it from was at the time called From Vintage to Vogue because the lady who ran it makes dresses from vintage patterns but with modern materials. It’s now called Miss Maude Makes and seems to be just as popular as it was when I saw it last year. It actually had a lot of people fooled because they said they were sure it was vintage and couldn’t believe how well it fitted me – they thought I’d had a vintage dress altered to fit my proportions, but weirdly it’s not vintage or altered! I’m not so great with accessories, as I always forget to wear them aside from my usual necklace and rings, one plain silver one from Ben, one silver Disney one with the quote “And at last I see the light” from Disney’s Tangled from my friends. I’m not a big fan of over the top jewellery as you can probably tell, but I have been tempted to get something dainty but good quality like the Pandora silver rings that you can stack up, although I think that’s a birthday present I’ll have to wait for! Has anyone got any of these though? I know a lot of people have the Pandora bracelets, but I’ve never been big on those, but I’d love to know how the rings stack up (great pun there, I know!). But I did manage to remember to accessorize with a hat in this outfit, although that was more of a case of keeping the sun out of my eyes than anything else, and actually I ended up handing it to a begrudging Ben while I wandered the stalls – oops!

I did spot a lot of lovely things at the fair even though it wasn’t very big, including a couple of 50s swimsuits that weren’t made of that swimsuit material – they were more like playsuits, and I really wanted one, but none were in my size. I also picked up a couple of very cheap gypsy style tops but put them back down as well as some high waisted shorts and a gorgeous 50s full skirted dress that was way to expensive for me to afford.

I’d headed to the fair looking for a couple of things in particular: pin up style clothes, particularly repro ones (like this dress or by an actual repro brand), and some seamed stockings. I’d been following the fair’s Facebook page where they mentioned that they would have a retailer called Burlesque Nylons by YLJ selling seamed stockings made with proper nylon on a proper vintage machine, so they were as authentic as could be. I ended up buying a pair of the nylons with seams as well as a suspender belt with 4 thick straps (rather than the 2 flimsy ones you get on fashion ones nowadays). It took me forever to choose just one, and typically I didn’t have any cash so ended up having to put my items on hold, run up into town (with a McFlurry on the way – first time I’d been to McDonalds in literally 5 years!), and grab some cash to be able to buy them.

And back to now again, I’m still suffering with my sprained ankles at the moment and am not allowed to drive, which means I’ve had to work at home a lot recently – sounds fun but is actually really boring. Aside from when the cats decide to bring mice in which I have to hobble over and dispose of, thanks cats! We’re also looking after Charley’s tortoise too at the moment while she’s been on holiday, so during the day I’m resting with my feet up (and my new Mac for working eee!) while he scrabbles around in his tortoise table on the other side of the room – very strange working at home set up, but there you go.