Living it up in Uppingham

One of my bestest friends got married in her old boarding school in Uppingham, an affluent market town in Rutland, this weekend. It was a perfect day, full of happiness, love and chatter.

Being a summer wedding in a grand location, it was the ideal excuse for everyone to dress up, and I chose to debut my £10 eBay bargain buy - the Mad Men dress - matching it with the handbag I wore to my own wedding, picked up for £5 at Vintage @ Goodwood, and my much loved Swedish Hasbeen x H&M sandals.


As we had some time to spare before the big event on Saturday morning, we pottered around the shops and came across a rather splendid, albeit somewhat overpriced, vintage boutique called Legacy.

I tried on another Joan Harris-esque pencil dress, complete with this season's 'on-trend' scalloped collar detail, and as it fit so perfectly, and I was on a bit of a pre-wedding high, ended up walking out £50 down - expensive, but special.

The Mad Men dress

I recently sold a whole load of clothes on eBay, meaning that I had £70 in my Paypal account to play with. As it costs to take money out of said Paypal account, of course it all went straight back into eBay - good set-up they've got there.

So the 'sorry you were out' cards, which now read 'something for you' - much more enticing - have been piling up over the last week and today I trekked up to the post depot to pick of my parcels of joy.

The item I was most excited about getting my hands on was an original 1960s gold threaded floral and paisley print dress. No one else had bid on it and I won for just £7.50 plus £3 P&P - a grand total of £10.50!

It looked gorgeous on the site, and I thought it'd be the perfect dress to wear to one of my good friend's weddings in the summer.

You can never be sure of the sizing when buying things through eBay, especially when they're vintage, so I was a little anxious that it wouldn't fit, but it does - perfectly!

The lining is silky, the material heavy, the gold thread catches the light beautifully and it hangs in a way that means it will swish and swoosh on the dance floor.

I really didn't want to take it off - June can't come soon enough.

Oh, and did I mention that it cost just £10.50? TEN POUNDS AND FIFTY PENCE! I have to win some kind of bargain-hunting award for this. Where do I pick it up?

M&S S/S 2011

Packed full of gorgeous vintage-style looks, it seems that M&S has raided the archives to inspire its s/s11 womenswear collection.

Chic and playful pieces recreate the styles of the roaring Twenties, swinging Sixties and bohemian Seventies, for directional looks that could help re-define your style for summer.

1920s

While the colours and embellishments may have been a bit fussy for Coco Chanel, I can imagine the famous guests at her chateau parties and Riveria trips wearing pieces not too dissimilar to these below.

Cute straw boaters, delicate beading and embellishment, sea-side stripes and pyjama-style satin trousers make for Art Deco elegance.






1960s

No doubt inspired by the Mad Men fever which has the fashion industry firmly in its grips, another of M&S's strongest threads looks to have taken Jackie O, Bridget Bardot and Audrey Hepburn as its fashion muses.

Choose from sophisticated swing jackets and shift dresses, gorgeous gingham, chic LBDs and monochrome and patent pieces.

Boxy lady-like bags, capri pants and canary yellow dresses also look set to be huge next season.










1970s

Boho is still beautiful for s/s11, with floaty chiffon shirts, bell sleeves, maxi dresses, jumpsuits and wide floppy hats proving that the 70s revival wasn't just a flash-in-the-pan trend last summer.

Stella McCartney-style denim skirts and dresses make for classic casual looks and layering slouchy jumpers over maxis brings this trend into 2011.

Travelling through time

I found it: my ideal suitcase. Merci's Liberty print vanity case re-ignited my vintage suitcase obsession earlier this month, so when I came across this old-school travelling companion in Brighton's Snooper's Paradise, I was delighted to find that it was in full working order. It closes snugly, has pleasingly chunky buckles and is generally in top-notch condition. I suspect that this is because it's actually quite new - just designed in a retro-style - but this matters not to me, and £15 was a bargain price for such an essential piece.

It'll do me for my annual Cornish holiday and my Canadian honeymoon, and I've become quite defensive when it comes to questions of its practicality. "I'd never buy a suitcase like that; it doesn't have wheels", the girlfriend of a male colleague shared in the queue. No one's asking you to buy it, random rude girl...."That's going to accomodate nearly two week's worth of clothes?" Irish asked sceptically. "No, it's going to hold my flowery dresses. The heavy stuff will be going in your wheeley suitcase, darling".

It looks damn cool, alright, and I'm not planning on taking it trekking up Kilamanjaro. I just can't say no to Mad Men bags...

Mad Men: Betty's maxi dress

Mad Men is by far the most beautiful thing on television. Expertly crafted, cleverly written and seductively stylish, it's an aspirational show.

Each time I watch an episode, I wish I could be transported back to that time, to wear those clothes and to exude that elegance. But in actuality I wouldn't want to swap places with any the three main female characters. Trapped by the societal constraints of the Sixties, they aren't able to reach the potential that they could if living in 2010, when they could all embody the best bits of each other.

I, as I'm sure many women do, aspire to be as beautiful as Betty, as sexy as Joan, as ambitious as Peggy and as strong as them all.




This week's BBC4 show (series three, episode eight) featured Betty at her best - glammed up in Rome, flirting in fluent Italian and, for once, enjoying herself. But it was the Biba-style bright geometric maxi dress that she wore once back at home that really grabbed my attention.

The maxi-dress is one of the defining styles of the Sixties: Long not because it had to cover up skin - this was the decade of the mini after all - but because it was comfortable and, being informal enough for daywear, a departure from the floor-sweeping evening gowns of the Fifties.

The loose and floaty design was a staple of the Sixties and Seventies bohemian look, yet as Betty's dress proved, if the cut was right it could be also be the height of elegance.

Now, where do I get myself one of those?

The Mad Men bag

I had to go up to our London office in Pimlico for a meeting yesterday and on the walk back to the station came across a messy little vintage shop selling items in aid of Romanian children. After a short nose around I clapped eyes on this amazing leather Harrods bag and knew that it had to be mine. At £16, it didn't even take much justifying. Straight from the late Fifties/early Sixties, it wouldn't look out of place in the office of Mad Men's Stirling Cooper. Perhaps it used to belong to a real-life Joan or Peggy...