This weekend my friend Lexie and I attended a small local 1940s event at Action Stations in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. Unfortunately as I was at work on the Saturday we only attended on the Sunday, and as such I think we missed several exhibits which were there for only the Saturday. However, we still had a good time looking around for a couple of hours before we got cold and headed home. We started off our afternoon by browsing round the different vendors selling clothing and accessories, cakes, jewellery, and memorabilia, and then stopped in to watch a bit of swing dancing (I still wish I knew how to dance so I could join in), before trying our hand at guessing the purpose of various objects from the 19th and 20th century (codswallop*, anyone?!). We then headed off to take some photos before calling it a day.

I of course dressed in some of my 1940s clothing for the event, and we even managed to put together a WASP costume for Lexie who doesn't normally dress vintage. We're tentatively planning to go to some other 40s events later in the year, for which we might work on Lexie's costume a bit further or create a different costume entirely.

















Most of my outfit is vintage (details further down) apart from the jacket, which is that favourite jacket of mine that I keep going on about but we pinched the fur from the collar to go on Lexie's costume. Although I've had jackets with removable fur collars before and have typically stuck to wearing them without the fur, I've discovered I actually prefer this one with the fur not least because I'm not a fan of how the little clear buttons are visible around the collar when the fur's not attached. However, I'm pretty pleased with the outfit overall. It's not very often these days that I end up dressing in head-to-toe 1940s but every time I do it reminds me how much I enjoy it. I always find it one of the most stylish and flattering decades for fashion which is very impressive when you take things like rationing into account. One of the things that puts me off wearing 40s stuff more often is the price - I understand that for a lot of people pricier items are an investment but that doesn't help if you don't have the money to pay for them in the first place! That being said, this has prompted me to start having another look around for 40s items that are in my size and budget; I'd really like to have something different to wear if I do end up going to one of the other events as I'm pretty sure I've worn all (certainly most) of my 40s things to events in the past.

Anyway, don't mind my shoes being a bit dirty - we got caught in the rain on our way in to the event! Here's hoping for a nice summer as these things are always better in good weather.

Lastly, we also both entered a competition to win a gift voucher from Rock'n'Romance vintage shop - if you like our outfits and are interested in voting for us, you can do so by just liking our posts on their Facebook page: mine is here and Lexie's is here.

*Codd bottles were a type of bottle patented in 1872 for the storage of carbonated drinks. The bottles were sealed by way of a glass marble which was pushed up into the neck of the bottle by the gas pressure of the drink. In order to open these bottles, a wooden device was placed at the opening of the bottle and given a a push (wallop) to dislodge the marble, hence codswallop. We were also told that the wooden devices would become useless having been broken or through the bottles being replaces with newer designs and would be thrown away, giving rise to the phrase 'a load of old codswallop' - however some Googling suggests that no one is entirely sure how the phrase actually originated, and in fact and connection to Codd bottles may be false etymology.