Delays and Thoughts.

Yesterday, instead of going through my usual Sunday routine of getting up slowly, grazing all day and generally doing not a lot, I got myself out of bed early and getting myself into London. After all, yesterday was the day of the Affordable Vintage Fair. I got into London and navigated my way through the tubes (only made difficult by the engineering works), and found myself outside Old Street tube station trying to figure out which direction I needed to go. Having gotten myself lost once I returned to the tube and had the crazy idea to actually look at the map which pointed me in the right direction. A few minutes' walk later and I was at the building where the AVF was being held. Paid the very reasonable £2 and had this adorable bird stamped onto my hand to grant me access for the entire show (12-5).

It was quiet when I first got there but things soon started to get busy. Overall it was an enjoyable experience, however I feel it would have been good if there had been more space between the rails and such like because as soon as you got more than a couple of people hunting through the rails for their bargains, there wasn't a lot of space to move.

Sadly I didn't actually purchase anything this trip; but not for want of trying. In total I found 3 things that I utterly adored: a beautiful wool/cotton mix dress with cute heart buttons, however it was in a pale mint green which when held up to me made me look like I was extremely so discounted that. I am now regretting that though as it wouldn't have taken much to dye it another colour and replace the buttons with a matching colour; ahh well, hindsight is wonderful. After this find I found a skirt and a shirt that I fell in love with. Both of them, to me, screamed American 50's diner; however; neither fitted quite right, and also the skirt did nothing for my figure making my hips look huge. The shirt fitted fabulously until you got up to the bust where it was far too loose. Both were black with white and grey added into the mix in various different ways.

After spending a good hour and half to two hours browsing around, trying a few things on and generally people watching, I left the AVF and made my way around to Oxford Street where I went into a few different Uniqlo stores to try and find some of the J+ range (designed by Jil Sander) that I had fallen in love with on the website. In particular there was a sweat skirt and a pair of sweat pants that I wanted to give a try. After getting to the second store I found my size in both and tried them on. I'm glad I did in all honesty, rather than just ordering off the website as neither fitted in the way I had expected. The sweatpants were far to tight on my legs - I had wanted reasonably baggy to casually lounge around in at home as it got colder and the skirt just didn't sit right on my hips and over my curves. In the first Uniqlo store though, I had also tried on a pair of their skinny jeans as I'm always on the look out for new skinny's to try and get the perfect fit for me. I love their destructed tapered skinny jeans in light blue, however once again the fit wasn't quite right on my butt. I am going to have to find more time to have a play with the fit of their jeans though, as their size 10 is a 27" waist - something I've been hunting for for a while as Criminal Damage skinny jeans (the brand I usually wear) only come in a 26" and 28" with one being far too small and the other being far too big. Frustration!

Whilst up around Oxford Circus I also managed to find Beyond Retro which I had great fun looking around. In there I found a beautiful piece priced at an extremely reasonable £16 that was black with zips etc. It was something that I loved; but it stupidly took me until I tried it on to realise that it wasn't a dress as I originally thought, but instead a playsuit. Damn. It didn't look quite so good when I got it on, and although I knew I'd be able to carefully deconstruct the middle to make it a dress, I wasn't confident that I would look as good as I hoped.
So overall, in terms of shopping, yesterday was fruitless. I did, however, have a fantastic time and got lots of creative ideas to push me further with my own designs.

Oh, and whilst we're here. Just along from the AVF, I saw this mini. I had to stop and take photos because it is my favourite car and I fully intend to own one myself one day.