Summer Showers

Sadly, the weather is already taking a turn and it's time to start preparing for some really English weather. Boo. We say, GONE are the days of fold away brollies that you are ashamed to bring out, even in a downpour. We say it's time for some glamorous, eye catching, sturdy umbrellas!

I've done the leg work for you and here we have some seriously pretty umbrellas for you to keep dry under though, as well as some fabulous vintage examples.

Match to your pill box hat for serious sophistication. 

Ruffles and flowers make for sunshine on a rainy day. 

Janet Leigh matches her hat, coat and umbrella. Do you?

MONOCHROME

Bombay Duck

John Lewis

LuLu Guinness

TRANSPARENT

LuLu Guinness
Light In The Box
Fulton

FUN-BRELLAS

Brollies Galore
Hello Brolly

LED Light up brolly Think Geek

PRETTY PATTERNS

Jolly Brolly

Rain Drops To
Cath Kidston

Amy, Amy, Amy...

Two years ago Amy Winehouse sadly passed away, leaving behind an incredible musical legacy. Not only was the singer famous for her effortless performances, she was immediately recogniseable both on record and in every magazine and picture. So we're here to take a look back at some of the awesome fashion moments that made Amy so iconic. 

In her element in music, we have to start with her stage style. Quoted as saying she "still dresses as though it's the 50s" Amy channeled a pin-up rockabilly girl with her tiny body hugging dresses in bold, colourful prints.  

A more sophisticated Amy, dressed up to the nines in a modern leather take on the 50s silhouette at the Elle Style Awards and rocking a metallic shift on the right. Both very vintage inspired. 

Here sees Amy chilled out on the street in strappy sandals and a classic Fred Perry polo shirt with the classic flash of pink.  One of the shortest pairs of shorts I've ever seen but she made it her own. Classic dressed down Amy in skinnys and her faithful satin ballet flats. 

In every single photo you can't escape the ever present beehive and thick winged black eyeliner. (She was snapped using a Rimmel Exaggerate liquid eyeliner to get the look. Cheap ' n' cheerful! We like!) They defined her as one of the most iconic pop stars of her time. Ever copied and continuously imitated, but never Amy. 

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She was approached by Fred Perry to create numerous collections and looking below at her last collection you can see she had a heavy involvement with the designing of each piece, all with that Winehouse pink stamp. You'll be hard pressed to find a lot of Amy's designs, but keep looking on eBay, I found the pink dress below here.

 To celebrate her life, between 3rd July and 15th September The Jewish Museum in London have an exhibition called Amy Winehouse: A Family Portrait:

The Jewish Museum is staging an original exhibition about Amy Winehouse, co-curated with her brother Alex and sister-in-law Riva. It is an intimate and moving exhibition about a much loved sister.

The family have given the Jewish Museum unprecedented access to Amy’s personal belongings that celebrate her passion for music, fashion, sudoku, Snoopy, London and her family.

Amy was close to her family and had a strong sense of her Jewish roots and heritage. Among the various objects on display, the exhibition will show many unseen photographs of Amy’s family life - Friday night dinners, Alex’s Barmitzvah and vintage photographs of their beloved grandmother Cynthia.

Located in Amy's Camden Town, the Jewish Museum is the perfect place to find out about the woman behind the music and beyond the hype. 

Let us know if you can make the exhibition and what you thought of it. We hope you can!

Lots of love

Gina

x

It's a Boy!

Well done K-mid and Wills, you made a baby boy! We've done a blog post on vintage style toys for children before, as soon as we heard to exciting news, so please go and have a nosey at that here. But we are going all gooey for tiny dresses and mini shoes now! Let's have a look at what's out there when it comes to vintage fashion for little ones.

Charles smooching Anne - aw. 

The Apple Bobber are one of the very best traders in children's clothing in the UK. As well as frequenting our vintage fairs in the south, their website is beautifully easy to use and their stock is varied, in terrific condition and wonderfully affordable. These are my top 3 picks.

Rokit are firmly established as one of the big shots in the vintage world in the UK. But who knew they had a well stocked section for tots too? Catering for the slightly older child, I've chosen the best for boys aged up to four years. This little leather jacket is absolutely adorable, for the wannabe mini James Deans out there!

Their Nibs are highly praised by the likes of Kate Moss as being one of the swishest shops to gather your little ones wardrobe. They take inspiration from the 50s, 60s and 70s and the fashions of the UK with "distinctive vintage inspired silhouettes and bespoke prints". Admittedly, the girls do particularly well here with silk dresses and super cute rompers in french floral prints. Coo!

Dido and Bendigo are making sure that children across the country are, well, looking country cool in some irresistible tweed suits and pinafores. There's even a tweed baby grow. Snuggly. Make sure you have a look at the entire range for a "unique take on classic British style".

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So we very much hope that little what's-his-name is doing well as is mother Kate. Big congratulations from all at LouLou's Vintage Fair to the Royals, we can't wait to see the pictures! xxxxx

The Girl With Flowers in Her Hair

Festival season is upon us and if you were lucky enough to head to Glastonbury then I'm sure you had a ball! I'm currently looking forward to Tramlines, Secret Garden Party and V Festival (Beyonce baby!) and I'm freaking out about what to wear. But one thing I do know, I'll be rocking some serious head wear.

But the inspiration doesn't come from those cheap plastic things doing the rounds on the high street (though I'm guilty for owning a few myself). This year I'm thinking beautiful, romantic, magical floral pieces of art for the hair. I've had a lovely time researching these images and I hope you take great pleasure from them too.

“With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?”
Oscar Wilde

Floral hair garland by www.swallowsanddamsons.com

Kelly from www.haremofpeacocks.com

"Maybe there's someone waiting for me, with a smile and a flower in her hair."

Richard Hawley

You can learn how to make this particular summery crown here from Honestly, WTF. Get down to your local florist and talk to them about which blooms are going to work best! DIY project ahoy.

“She wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes. She spoke to no one. She spent hours on the riverbank. She smoked cigarettes and had midnight swims..." 

Arundhati Roy

"Someone told me there's a girl out there with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair"

Led Zeppelin

Harriet from www.brightyoungtwins.blogspot.com

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So of course, we have done some of the leg work for you and found you some of the fabulous floral creations out there that will put those Primark garlands to shame! (Yeah I have one too...)

Topshop

Topshop

Lady Of The Flowers

meggiebread on Etsy

Gypsy Rose Vintage

LouLou's Vintage Fair

You may have noticed a little change over at The Vintage Fair, and of course we love to keep you guys in the loop as you're such a wonderful bunch!

After some sound marketing advice we made the big decision to re-brand. After years of being The Vintage Fair, we started to feel that maybe we needed a new lease of life! People suggested that we should receive more national recognition for the hard work we do as well as all of our lovely traders, hair salons, acts and tea parties.

Having just won Best Vintage Fair in the UK (if you hadn't already heard!) it's all go at LouLou HQ as we want to be even bigger and better! We are really excited about the future of LouLou's and all the new events and new cities we'll be visiting. So heads up to all of you vintage fans in Derby, Exeter, Preston, Cheltenham and Chester as we will be visiting you for the first time in the Autumn! That's 40 stalls of vintage clothing, accessories and homeware from the best UK traders, fabulous retro hair salons and the scrummiest cakes from the kitschest of bakers all in your city's top venues! Phew!

So you'll gradually see the changes happening over our websites, social media pages and artwork but you heard it hear first! We aren't going anywhere, but now you know that when you see LouLou's you'll be coming to the Best Vintage Fair in the UK. In fact, here are our current Autumn listings!

Love from LouLou and Gina

xxx

GIRL STOLE

We talk to fashion blogger and vintage boutique owner Lereese Atkinson about her newest adventure, GIRL STOLE. We've been following Miss Atkinson for nearly two years now and have loved watching her blog evolve into a mini universe of London, tiny dogs and #wiwt posts. So I'm pretty excited to see this girl grow into her very, very big ideas.

What does vintage mean to you and your wardrobe?

Individuality and creativity.

Whose blogs do you browse for style inspiration?

Garry Pepper Girl, Cherry Blossom Girl, Miroslava Duma, Steffys Pros and Cons, Frassy.

I know you're a singer too, does your love of music influence your style? 

I like to sing classical music which I love,  but it doesn't inspire me fashion wise, I listen to a lot of rock and roll and 60s music which absolutely influences my style. 

Top three vintage shops: GO

BEYOND RETRO

FREE P STAR (PARIS)

PORTOBELLO MARKET

Top three style icons: GO

DAVID BOWIE

KATE MOSS

COCO CHANEL

Talk us through the GIRL STOLE journey Lereese. Firstly, for those who are GIRL STOLE virgins, what is it? And how have you got to where you are?

A pure love of vintage, buying, making, sewing, photography, reading, writing, modeling, selling vintage. I never get bored of finding things for my customers, I started out on eBay and then moved to ASOS and have now partnered up with my friend Lauren, otherwise known as The Girl Who Stole London to create GIRL STOLE which is a trend led site, allowing you to incorporate vintage with new and modern styles.

One of my favourite dresses is from your ASOS Boutique. Does GIRL STOLE mean this is the end of GIRL STOLE VINTAGE? 

Absolutely not, I've recently relaunched my own vintage boutique on ASOS Marketplace called "Peggy's Dresses"' A one stop shop for the perfect vintage dress'  Dresses only from any era in any shape and size. Peggy's dresses will be my own little vintage baby that can one day partner up with the big boss that is GIRLSTOLE.COM 

What's the big plan?  Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Splitting my time between L.A and London. running both businesses, living in a beautiful house filled with vintage, TAKING OVER THE WORLD ONE DRESS AT A TIME.  

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We hope that you'll click on all the linkage in this post to find out more about Lereese and her projects, girl gives good dress. 

Twitter: @GRLSTOLEVINTAGE 

Instagram: @GRLSTOLEVINTAGE

Facebook: LINKAGE

xxx

The National Vintage Awards

We had a vintage ball of at The National Vintage Awards in Birmingham last night. Thanks to all of you, we were finalists for the UKs' Best Vintage Fair! And....we won! Hurrah! The event was awash with gorgeous dresses and fabulous hair dos, it really was "where the vintage elite meet"!

Due to a shoe related nightmare, we sadly missed the champagne reception but we still had plenty of time to browse the offerings at Fazeley Studios. As soon as we heard "free cake" we launched ourselves on them as well as lots of handsomely displayed sweets. A few select stalls were at the event, including Vintage Paradise who regularly trade with us. I bought an awesome 70s gold and black maxi that will definitely be making an outing this weekend! We were all treated to a goody bag with discount flyers, keyrings and nail files which made for a nice surprise.

LeKeux's Vintage Hair Salon were on hand to provide their usual high standard of pinup hair styles (and hairspray top ups!) and various talented vintage style performers were entertaining the room throughout the evening. One of my favourite additions to the evening was the superb Vintage Photobooth. Simon, a handsome well dressed chap, was unimpressed with our first attempt (black and white pouty try hard fail - oops) so insisted we had another go with various props and bits of costume. The results were brilliant and I'll definitely be treasuring them especially as it's been a while since I've held a real photo, I can see this being a massive hit at weddings so definitely go check them out!

Now as you can imagine, I was stressing for a while as to what to wear as the dress code was #VintageGlitz. So in the end we just chucked on these old things...! Sadly LouLou couldn't join us as she is celebrating her wedding anniversary at Glastonbury (congrats LouLou!) so I took my good friend Lucy who, despite not being quite as "into" vintage as myself looks beautiful all dolled up in her 50s style evening dress. Proving that anyone can wear vintage.

Bang Bang Vintage 60s mini dress
ASOS art deco style clutch
Beehive courtesy of Rock n Rollers hair.

Bang Bang Vintage sparkly Paisley dress
60s box bag

Lola Lamour was our host for the evening, providing quick wit as well as few 40s and 50s tunes to keep us sweet, dressed up to the nines might I add. The winners from each category are listed below. Do be sure to do some exploring and check out all of them!

Best Vintage Style Performer: Bexi Owen
Best Online Fashion Shop: Lovely's Vintage Emporium
Best Online Homeware Shop: Your Vintage Life
Best Regional Fashion Shops: Miss Dixiebelle, Urban Village, Oh So Vintage!
Best Repro Fashion Brand: HeyDay!
Best Vintage Wedding Fair: Discover Vintage
Best Vintage Life Pinup 2013: Kristelle O Chocolat

Like I said earlier, there were some seriously stunning outfits sashaying around the venue last night, sadly I didn't manage to capture as many of them as I would have liked, but I did put together a very quick video for you on Instagram to give you an idea of what was on offer.

To finish, have a load of photos. You'll have dress and hair envy (and husband envy - scroll to the bottom to see what I mean!)

Diablo Rose from Lekeux Events

Sweeties for my Sweet

Hurrah!

A very special 1920s flapper dress

My Favourite Things trio

Fabulous outfits

Bexi Owen, Best Vintage Performer!

Urban Village providing some much needed 60s and 70s vibes! Best dressed gent of the evening without a doubt.

ONE MORE MASSIVE THANK YOU!

LOULOU AND GINA

XXX