Elephants and Vintage Shopping
This weekend I popped over to Nottingham for another visit to Lou Lou's Vintage Fair. I went last week to the one in Derby as well, but didn't take any photos.
This time though, I was very glad to have taken my camera as the first thing I came upon when I arrived at the Victoria Centre was an exhibition of these beautiful painted elephants. The sculptures have been touring the UK as part of the "Elephant Parade" exhibition which tours a variety of locations worldwide to raise awareness for Asian elephant conservation. I didn't manage to get round and see all the elephants, but I was pleased to have seen them. You can find out more on the Elephant Parade website.
I especially wanted to share this next elephant with you:
This elephant is named "Razzle Dazzle". I had to take a picture of the beautiful art deco ladies painted on the top half.
My favourite that I managed to find was "Birds and Blossom" - the blue one at the top left of the collage above. The flowers are apple blossoms. I would love to have the design on a dress!
The vintage fair itself was good but I didn't manage to find very much that I was interested in. Normally what happens is that I find loads of things I like on days when I have no money. Today I did have a bit of money to spend, so of course it follows that I didn't find anything. I met with my friend Bryony and we had a lovely time looking at all the things, even if we didn't find much that we wanted. There were lots of beautiful clothes but of course you also need to find ones that fit!
Love the patterns, hate the colours!
I tried on a dress which I didn't end up buying. It was nice but a little big on the bodice, which put me off. I'm trying hard to be more discerning about how I spend my money, so hopefully I can start to build up a wardrobe of things I really love.
I didn't notice until I came to editing the photos that you can see the toilet behind me! I would have closed the door if I'd realised but I suppose that's just the way of things when using the toilets as a changing room.
Blouse - Heyday bow blouse | Skirt - Tara Starlet Mad Men skirt (no longer available, I think!)
Shoes - New Look via Asos
Thanks to Bryony for taking my outfit photo for me. This is the skirt that a few people asked about the last time I wore it. It's such a beautiful shape and I love the pattern. The amount of different colours in it makes it easy to pair with a lot of different things. Here I am wearing it with my new Heyday blouse which I mentioned on my Facebook this week. It arrived very quickly (2 days I think) and fits well. It's possibly a little too big in the bust (which I'm surprised about because I expected it to be, if anything, a little small) but I think this is largely down to the style as it looks and feels fine when worn. I love the pattern mixing effect of the polka dots on the blouse with the floral skirt. I don't normally do any kind of pattern mixing but this makes me feel a bit more brave about it!
Here is my post from last time I went to Lou Lou's in Nottingham.
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![Vintage Queen Number 134](http://i43.tinypic.com/2ywej5l.png")
9 comments
OMG I have that skirt too - and in all of the other prints it comes in! Tara Starlet is one of my favorite UK reproduction brands :D I'm actually having a tricky time finding a top that goes nicely with this particular skirt, I love the Heyday blouse you are wearing with yours, it suits the skirt very well.
ReplyDeleteI love the look of it with some of the Tara Starlet blouses as well, it looks lovely how they've styled it here: http://www.tarastarlet.com/shop/peter-pan-blouse
DeleteOh my goddess, the tartan dress is very beautiful ! And I think you are so cute with you little green blouse
ReplyDeletei know it's the first time I comment, but my english is not very good and now I try ...
Thank you!
DeleteOh, that velvet dress with the lace embellishment... It's so pretty! I love velvet in theory, but hate wearing it, because every little bit of dust clings to it for dear life. Maybe I'll get more velvet garments once I perfect my cleaning technique and make my apartment entirely dust-free :D
ReplyDeleteIt was such a lovely dress but I didn't try it on - I've bought quite a bit of velvet over the past few months but it's hard to wear as an everyday thing! And you're right, it picks up bits like nobody's business.
DeleteThanks for the picture of the skirt, it has a really lovely print and is a great shape.
ReplyDeleteNo problem :)
DeleteThat skirt is making me go weak in the knees! It's so, so fabulously pretty!
ReplyDeleteMy mom would enjoy this post a lot too. Not so much for the skirt (which I'm sure she'd find lovely, but not being a vintage wearer herself probably wouldn't fawn over), but for the painted elephants, as real pachyderms have always been amongst her favourite animals.
♥ Jessica