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

The Leeds Vintage Fair: What's in store?

Oh we are TOO excited for The Leeds Vintage Fair this Sunday! So we thought we'd get in the vintage fair mood early by bringing you a taste of what's to come this Sunday at Leeds Town Hall...

(Pick your jaw from off the the floor!)

Entertaining all of you lovely vintage hungry fans will be one of our favourite DJs in the North with his frightfully fab orange mini DJ booth! Expect swinging retro tunes to accompany your shopping trip!

The first TEN people in the queue for our vintage fair will receive their very own Vintage Fair tote bag for free FREE I SAY! So you gotta get down early if you want in :)

Tilly's North Wing will be bringing you an exceptional collection of vintage dresses from the 50s through to the 80s. The £10 rail went down a treat last weekend in Newcastle (I picked up a couple of frocks myself) and I expect it will be doing the exact same thing this Sunday!

USED Vintage will be bringing you a top notch selection of sunglasses ready for the bank holiday sunshine! My favourites are these round, white mod style sunnies. 

 The Marvellous Tea Dance Company are going to completely ruin your bikini diet with their scrumptious cake selection. But if you're exceptionally self controlled then I'm sure you'll need a cuppa anyway!

We will have a troupe of Leeds Swing Soc swing dancers performing for you throughout the day both in and outside the venue! So if you're queuing outside (with your possible free tote bag) you'll be thoroughly entertained doing so as they'll be ready at 11:45 to perform on the courtyard!

One of our traders Little Old Me have just set up online selling their enviably large collection of 40s,50s,60s and 70s dresses to the masses! If you're after something really very special then you absolutely must pay us a visit this Sunday. 

Le Keux Cosmetics and Hair Salon will be at our vintage fair. Not only offering pin curls, beehives and half moon manicures but Le Keux also have their own range of retro cosmetics! We love this vintage style advert they've done for their hot red lip paint. 

Bang Bang have out done themselves with these incredible 3 pieces. They are seriously limited edition and they've been flying off the rails, so you'd best get down to our fair early before they all go!

                                   

So! If you weren't already buzzing to come down to our event on Sunday I really hope you are now!

Make sure you follow us @leedsfair and check out our Facebook page!

Gina x