A Vintage Day Out

Vintage has been building as an interest of mine for quite a while now, but it’s one of those subjects that’s so vast it was hard to know where to start. So, after a frankly overwhelming shopping trip in which I managed to buy not a single thing and come away even more confused than when I started, a friend and I marshalled our pennies (my budget is fairly tight, but there *is* room for treats and a bit of saving makes the subsequent layout all the sweeter if you ask me!) and decided to appeal to an expert.

Enter Naomi, of Vintage Secret. Last Monday, we put ourselves in her capable hands for a tour of the vintage shopping hot spots of Brick Lane. The afternoon started with tea, gin cocktails and cake at her glorious boudoir, where Naomi and her friend and assistant-for-the day, Mara, immediately put us at our ease, explained a little bit about her philosophy, gave us a few things to look out for when buying vintage, and encouraged us to chat about what we were looking for. And then, Brick Lane!

We established early on that Naomi was right in her original assessment of the 50s and 70s being great eras for me, when the first thing I tried on was the most gorgeous full-skirted 50s number which looked amazing but was about half an inch too small for me. I will now be on a perpetual quest for perfectly fitting 50s dresses, having had more than one moment of regret for that dress since Monday (seriously, if I could buy it now I would!)! Perhaps I would have actually bought it if it had been the last thing I tried on, rather than the first – I would have been more in the shopping groove (it always takes me a while to open my purse when I’m shopping, for some reason – once I have, it more or less stays open until it’s empty, though – this is why I set myself budgets!) and slightly more used to trying on things which are both cleverly fitted and totally lacking in stretch, and so felt less nervous about ripping it as I wriggled into it. Still, lesson learned – if you spot something that’s damn near perfect, buy it before someone else can!

My friend Becky demonstrated an ability to look completely amazing in fitted jackets (a revelation in which her husband seemed remarkably interested when we told him later…) and 40s styles and soon found Naomi and Mara helping her tick both of her ‘what I’m after’ boxes with a stunning long black coat and couple of outfit options for a January wedding. She also found she looked fantastic in shades of green and has resolved to expand her purple and dusty pink colour palette to include more variety. It makes such a difference having someone else pick out items for you – it really forces you out of habits that don’t have any logical reason for existing.

As well as being utterly charming and possessing an enviable knack for whizzing through the rails and magicking out from them the loveliest clothes in the right sorts of sizes (how she does this I have no idea – I know my measurements and even I have enough trouble eyeballing a garment and working out whether it will fit!), Naomi was endlessly patient with my meep-not-quite-used-to-this reaction to a glorious navy 40s dress (I *still* can’t put my finger on why I wasn’t quite comfortable in it – it fitted brilliantly and looked fabulous. I suspect I’m just not yet quite used to the silhouette and the buttoned-to-the-neck-and-wrist nature of it and that it was quite a bit smarter than I normally wear. I’ll have to either get a new job or get my shorts-wearing colleagues used to me appearing in increasingly smart outfits!) and when I found myself refraining from buying a beautiful cream satin and crepe 40s dress on the grounds that I couldn’t for the life of me think where I’d wear it. Apparently, a little bit of my mother has taken up residence in my brain and decided to pop up at the most inconvenient moments to urge practicality. Pfft. Naomi’s right – I need more glamour in my life!

Having tried on a few *nearly there* things (poor Naomi – I’m fairly busty and have quite a high waist so she had to work quite hard to find things to fit me as at one point I seemed to turn into Goldilocks and have a bit of a ‘this one’s too tight, this one’s too loose, this one’s ok but neither of us are breaking into song at its perfection so perhaps it’s not the one’  hour!), though, I did make a few purchases. Here they are:

Yes, I need to do something with my hair, don’t I? And no, I don’t know how she managed to get me into – and buying! – a playsuit not half an hour after a conversation in which I commented on the impracticality of jumpsuits. Part vintage screen siren, part Jedi, that woman!

So, all in all, Becky and I had an absolutely amazing day and can’t possibly thank Naomi and Mara (I hope that’s how her name is spelt?) enough for being such wonderful hostesses and brilliant shopping sherpas. It’s not just that we’ve acquired a few new outfits, but also that they made the whole day such a pleasure and helped us acquire a little more knowledge of what suits us and of things to consider and look out for when buying vintage. We already have plans to do it all again sometime next year (when our work holiday years have been reset so we can arrange it for another Monday – such bliss to be able to shop without being elbowed by other people and having to wait for changing rooms to be free!), and I’d urge anyone to do the same. Fabulous company, wonderful clothes, and gin cocktails – what’s not to enjoy?