Real women looking awesome at Hammersmith vintage fair

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The first Hammersmith Vintage Fair of September always marks the beginning of autumn for me, there’s a real ‘back to school’ feel amongst both stall holders and customers. We haven’t had a fair since June so there’s lots of new clothes to see and everyone seems to make just a bit more effort to look interesting and there were lots of great look to be inspired by.

My absolute favourite hair of the day belonged to Sauda above, her gorgeous grey locks went beautifully with her metallic coat dress and on-trend pink layered chiffon top and skirt. Awesome

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I’d love hair like this, I am SO wanting to wake up one morning and be completely grey….or better still white.

Next up was this lovely stall holder below, who will be cross with me because she wanted her head chopped off, but look at her, she’s gorgeous! What is it with us grown up girls not wanting our photos taken? We need to follow the example of our Facebook-ready kids and just appreciate how great we look now.

The kimono shape and prints are influential both for autumn and next spring, and I love how she’s thrown one over her silk dress, layered silk is great transitional dressing. Also, don’t you love the clear bangles? On her other arm you can just see her beautiful vintage magnifying glass converted into a bracelet, but she has to watch where she puts her arm as it burns her if it catches too much light.

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There was a lot of scarf action, particularly giant Victorian ‘season scarves’ which are huge and are designed to fold up thicker according to how cold it is.
Below right is Su from Blue Linen (did you see her in the latest Selvedge magazine? We covered her here first you may remember….) rocked hers (bought that morning, all the stall holders spend any profit they make on buying clothes from other stall holders) with white men’s cricket flannels and a navy T shirt.

Stall holder Joanna Marsh was wearing one she was selling, pale cream super-fine wool with plum coloured roses and paisley swirls- for £75. Try buying that sort of quality at that price on the high street.
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The lass below was actually not a 35plus-er, but since she was a visiting Chinese vintage buyer and was wearing fabulous clothes -mostly bought in China – under our rules that’s ok. She was wearing contemporary Chinese designers apart from her amazing bag, which she said was vintage Chinese. I’m so excited to see interestingly dressed Chinese women appearing on the blog (remember those fatigue florals from Hampton Court?), its a whole new source of inspiration.

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Caroline Turner always looks great and I loved how she’d extended the wear-time of her summer weight silk 20s dress by wearing a long sleeved T shirt (from Muji) underneath to keep her warm, even adding interest at the cuff by turning up her sleeve hems, clever! Also, note those ankle socks.

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And finally a pair of dungarees on a 50plus-er, who was having a really great time in them. She got them from Primark this season, and wore them with a boyfriend-cut shirt, a chiffon tie waistband and a lot of smiley attitude. We both agreed it helped that she was tall to carry them off, you need space to let them slouch well. All this creative dressing has made me quite excited for the new season now, what will you be wearing this autumn?

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