Vintage in The Blizzard: Lincoln and Sheffield's Affordable Vintage Fairs

Greetings loved ones! We hope you've got that heating cranked up as you peruse, possibly swaddled in some sort of blanket/jacket/couture cape as the country comes under lock-down for the Big Freeze '10. Never one for curfews [or common sense!] we here at Judy HQ threw caution to the wind this weekend, braving the elements to bring you both Lincoln and Sheffield's Affordable Vintage Fairs, filling your wardrobes and warming your cockles as we plod on through November.

Setting-up shop from midday, almost 700 of you trudged,waddled and shimmied your way down to Lincoln's Engine Shed for a butchers at our 40-odd stalls of vintage bits. With photographer and local lass Charlie Heather-Cray behind the lens, here are some of our favourtie snaps from a chilly albeit busy Affordable Vintage Fair...

Handcrafted gifts, hats, bags and scarves, row upon row of faux fur and even knitting patterns and haberdashery to fend of the cold all season long - well worth an abominable trek in the arctic outdoors for! As our be-caped and hatted customer above demonstrates, even though you may not be the biggest city on the Affordable Vintage Fair map Lincoln, you're always at the forefront, fashionably-speaking [geography be damned!]

As alarms went off and we bombed down the motorway to do it all again, all thoughts of Siberian temperatures and chattering teeth were left behind as Sheffield's Affordable Vintage Fair was given the warmest of welcomes! With every tea-ladened trader mucking in to help those stranded in the snow set-up, The Workstation came together as the clock struck 11 and the first 200 of you flew through the doors in the first sixty minutes! First warming your cockles and stuffing your chops at The Travelling Tea Shoppe, registers were ringing as you stocked-up on Winter staples, menswear, dresses, retro accessories and old-world best, ready for those festive dos which are just around the corner...

So there we have it folks. Our penultimate fairs of the season went off with a bang and it's a pleasure to know that several months on from those sunny September fairs at the beginning of the season, our traders are still pulling out all the stops and you are snapping them up. For that [and for all those that came out with runny noses or chattering teeth] we say thanks! Whether in mohair or miniskirts, deck shoes or doc martens, vintage is an all-weather affair. Cheers for coming down and hope to see you at our final event of the year, York's Affordable [festive] Vintage Fair for Christmas with a vintage twist. For anyone wishing to spot me and wish a vintage merry christmas, look for the boy spinning around in policeman's cape, spilling a circumference of mulled wine and probably sporting a jumper so festive it's arrestable the other eleven months of the year. Ahh, tis the season!

Over and out,

A soon-to-be-merry Vintage Vulture xVx