Old dress, new tricks

OK so I am beginning to realise what a joke my late blogs are becoming, so I'm going to try and pitch it to as being like a long awaited fashion show that just wouldn't be the same if it didn't kick off a little later than expected. (A little self praising I know but I thought I'd give it a try.)


And besides all that my blog this week is all about vintage so I can afford for Martha Thursday to be a little past her best, out of style and old.


Well it all started the other week when a very broke miss Thursday was wandering down Gloucester road for a perfectly innocent piece of chocolate tart (if a piece of chocolate tart can ever be innocent), when all of a sudden a jamboree of mickey mouse sweat shirts, itchy granny cardigans and beaten up doc martens came to her attention. A little after half an hour and a trip to the cash point later (this vintage lark has a vintage way of paying, nothing plastic) She emerged with her very own beaten up pair of black doc marten lace ups.

(these aren't mine, I wish they were.)

(Going to stop talking in second person now it was getting confusing.) 


I was thrilled, I had been DESPERATE for a pair of docs for months and had paid a minuscule £30 for these bad boys. I hadn't wanted new ones though, I always find there's something rather charming about other peoples clothes, its like you reincarnate a dead trend.


I was literally walking a mile in someone else's shoes and I found it a hopelessly painful experience resulting in some of the biggest blisters I have ever seen, prompting  a sleepy friend of mine to wake up another sleeping flat mate to show her this shocking display. I felt as though my marvelous martens weren't faithful to me yet, like I'd adopted a slightly older child that was set in his ways.


My week continued along the blast from the past theme when a long blond friend of mine took me vintage shopping on park street, and I went on a mad spree in oxfam boutique (you know the one that tries to kid you into thinking its not actually a charity shop) I figured that if my splurge went to those in need it justified me buying a giant purple blazer barney would be proud of, mittens with pom poms and 101 dalmatian scarf?

(see don't look like a charity shop does it?)

This got me to thinking though, what is the fuss about vintage? Would we look twice at it if it was in a charity shop (not one describing itself as a boutique) and we thought some old lady had died in it? We fork out hefty amounts of cash for things that are quite often frankly outdated, ill fitting and with the most unpleasant odour. What is our obsession with vintage?

(however this does.)

It's reproduced all over the place in the forms of rustic restaurants or kitsch kitchen kitchen wear (THAT'S YOU KIDSTON) which kind of defies the point of 'vintage.' We even want our photographs to have a vintage feel in sepia tone (we've all youtubed the dickhead song right?) 


So to try and solve this conundrum I went vintage bowling at the lanes. Putting on the most beaten up pair of bowling shoes that were positively humming and carting a seriously smudged bowling ball down the 'side free' isle, I couldn't help but feel it was all slightly mad. But after a very questionable cider or two it came to me like a vintage epiphany.


I had consumed so much vintage that week that it was like I was living someone else's fashionable life. Is vintage just a way of escaping a world we'd rather not be in? It's a bit like playing pretend or dress up when you're a kid, you don't want to live in the real world so why not head back into an era you might actually want to live in.

(aaahh to feel like this again)

 I seem to remember that I had felt quite depressed that week (can't really remember why because it has taken me SO LONG TO BLOG, probably something to do with money.) So instead of running away to Chelsea to play with Francis, which was the original plan, I had effectively adorned myself in someone else's life. Staying on theme all the way down to me revisiting a vintage friendship, when an old acquaintance came down and we re-used our friendship once more, (hoping that will stay on trend.)


So the deal is, vintage is what you make it, it's not so much a trend or about how you look but how it makes you feel, apart from the few prats who wear those slutty granny jumper things, you know the ones that look like a cats been sick on them? They're not in it for the culture just for the granny slut perks. If you wanna save money try a dress agency, they do pretty much the same job but they clean the clothes and the shops don't smell like incense (not that I would know.)


Someone yell at me in a week to do another blog.