Not from the Dirty Thirties

This seventies frock echoes a much earlier fashion era, with its elegant floor-skimming length, adorable ruffle sleeves and shoulder button trim detailing, I'm thinking the thirties.

These pictures are from a Swedish dress making magazine dated 1934.

Here are two thirties dress pattern pics, found on pinterest.

I know that reproduction vintage fashion can sometimes be an apple of discord for real vintage aficionados but the only thing I have a problem with is when sellers (on-line in particular) are not straight up about how old a garment actually is and even remove labels in an attempt to disguise the fact that what they are selling is a dress from a High Street store bought last year, that sucks!

I've had this frock for years but I only recently rediscovered it hiding in a storage bag up in the loft. There aren't that many mystery bags left up there now, I'm slowly getting on top of  the hoard.

 Yay & there was much rejoicing! 

Vintage 70s does 30s maxi frock, Handmade Sami art necklace, 80s Pierre Cardin sandals, soapstone earrings & umbrella.

I did get a couple of bemused looks as I was feeding the birds by the boating lake earlier but personally I think this frock is just fine to wear for a stroll around the park, teamed with my cropped denim jacket it looks almost casual ;)

Yesterday Mark and I went to check out Muswell Hill Market as our lovely friends Sue and Mark were trading there.

Mark , Sue, Mark & loadsa gorgeous jewellery :)

Sue makes her own funky jewellery and Mark has a very  keen eye for beautiful vintage costume jewellery with a particular penchant for fabulous vintage brooches.

At the last Can't Buy Me Love market Jet mentioned that I may want to consider doing a stall at the Muswell Hill Market at some point and after seeing it yesterday I think Frocktasia will hopefully be there next month with a rail full of fabulous frocks and other gorgeous goodies, so watch this space peeps.

This venue scores high on one very important point,  it is virtually door to door on the W7 bus route, so even if Mark is working on the day I can very easily make it there on my tod.

Ideally I'd love to do at least one market a week.

I hope you've all had a fabulous & funderful weekend folks!

Loads of love,

Jennie

xXx

Mooching around with my mouche

The weather has been glorious these past few days and there has been a veritable explosion of greenery in the park. To think that just a few short weeks ago, we were holed up in our little central heated burrow fearing that the spring would never come. This year spring is like a fashionably late & much anticipated party guest, when she arrived she did so with more flamboyancy than you can shake a stick at. 

No jacket and peep-toe sandals, it really is spring folks...HUZZAH!

Today I'm wearing one of my self made genie jumpsuits and a mouche.

I was inspired to fashion an 18th century style mouche from a bindi patch after reading an interesting history of beauty marks.

I do have a very faint mole there anyway that I usually fill in with liquid eyeliner to make it more prominent but this one is huge and had the cashier at Lidl do a double take.

The jumpsuit is made from vintage fabric that I bought from a car boot sale some years ago. Whilst on the subject of vintage fabric jumpsuits, have you seen Vix's latest curtain couture offering? Totally amazing-zing, that woman knows what she's doing!

Frocktasia vintage fabric genie jumpsuit, Principles crochet waistcoat bought from car boot sale, 80s Pierre Cardin peep-toe sandals from charity shop, still going strong after at least five summers and several holidays abroad, Indiskan scarf which was a present from my mum, sunnies & necklace from car boot sales.

In other news :)

I "made" a summer chair for our balcony. Mark salvaged this armchair from the streets of London a few years ago. I never liked it cause it had those horrendous foam pads on top of an ugly lattice of plastic strapping but for ages I just threw a blanket over it and used it as my offload chair in the bedroom. The other day I stubbed my toe on it whilst hoovering and in a fit of rage I exiled it to the balcony intent on getting rid of the darn thing but before I contacted the council to come and collect it, a creative wave washed over me.

I cut off the lattice of plastic strapping, binned the foam pads and made a "chair sock" from a  heavy-duty canvas fabric. I threaded the sock over the metal frame, hand-sewed the bottom bit shut and screwed the metal frame back onto the wooden bit.

Hey presto, our new balcony chair...

 One more sleep and then it's Dandy Time, yay!

I'll be up early tomorrow morning running around like a blue-arsed fly no doubt. Thankfully Mark will be on hand to help me as he is not working this weekend, so getting there shouldn't present too much of a problem this time around. It will be a grand ol' day I can feel it in me waters, so many fabulous sellers this month, I can't wait to have a wee nosey around their stalls :)

To finish off a might fine tune by Annie Lennox with some heart-shaped mouche action going on, enjoy :)

Have a cracking weekend peeps.
Loads of love,
Jennie
xXx

Rail full of the joys of spring

I'm very excited about this Saturday's Dandy and I've been working away on my rail all week. While we were up in Scotland I decided that I would theme my rail from now on to make it more cohesive rather than just offering up a random motley mix of vintage & retro threads. I've been very much inspired by the spell of gorgeous weather and the veritable explosion of greenery in the park. I'm bringing a plethora of flirty cotton dresses made for springtime strolls in the sun, chic retro frocks that are perfect for garden parties and BBQs and a whole bunch of festival worthy frocks & separates for those who want to sort out their festival wardrobe early.

Here are all the garments (bar the gents) that will be featured on Frocktasia's full of the joys of spring rail at The Dandy Lion Market on Saturday :)

 Close-ups of details, prints and labels...

If you're in the Kentish Town area on Saturday please pop in and have a wee natter and a rummage. There's a fabulous line-up of traders this month, most of which have a feature folder on The Dandy Lion FB page, so  you can check them out there if you so wish. There's even going to be a stall selling wigs, how cool is that?!

Happy days!

Here are a few pics that Leslie snapped at last months Dandy featuring me, my little stall  and some of my fabulous fellow traders :)

I'll leave you with a fabulous tune by SOUL II SOUL, enjoy :)

May the sun shine on your path and happiness fill your heart!

Loads of love,

Jennie

xXx

On the Buses

I am most definitely a cloud spotter, one of my favourite things to do in the summer is to wander up to the park, sprawl out on the grass and just lay there for hours watching the clouds drift by.

Today we went along to Selfridges to listen to Gavin Pretor-Pinney who is the founder of The Cloud Appreciation Society. 

The hour long talk was both entertaining and enlightening but I would have loved for it to have lasted longer. I think Mr Pretor-Pinney would be the perfect dinner party guest cause he is funny and engaging in equal measures.

The talk was free and if you could guess the different cloud types featured in the presentation, you were given a little badge.

After the talk we browsed the book section of Selfridges but perhaps needless to say we didn't buy anything.

Years of car boot sale buying has made it quite impossible for me to pay more than a fiver for a book, unless I'm buying it straight from the authors website or amazon.

Selfridges' prices are simply not compatible with my thrifty nature but it's nice to have a wee look.

As we were making our way back home we came across two old buses and a whole heap of bus enthusiasts taking pictures of them.

Such a retrotastic backdrop seemed too good to miss out on, so we joined the throng of "bus spotters" and quickly snapped a few pics ourselves :)

H&M tiger stripe coat, vintage 60s Chinese sign print dress, vintage 50s booties, layered tights, self-made necklace, velvet gloves and my Stockholm syndrom wiggy-woo.

I do have a black and white setting on my camera but these pics had the effect added on PicMonkey.

I think B&W is the perfect tool for enhancing the whole retro vibe.

We had to be super quick when taking these photos cause the "bus spotters" weren't really that interested in having a dolly bird in their pics ;)

Hope you have all had a wonderful weekend.

Lot's of love,

Jennie

xXx