Wowzers Festival and Vintage Fashion at #NwchFW

Whew, that was a long old week into a long weekend!

And I still have a few more days of work before my boss (that’d be me) has generously given me a day off to recharge my batteries. Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with all of my long week/weekend, because much of it is very dull, at least within the confines of this blog, so I’m just going to tell you about yesterday instead.

It all started at 8am with me leaving my house on a lovely spring Sunday to head off to the train station for a trip to London. I had been asked by Lori of Rarely Wears Lipstick to take part in a panel discussion at Wowzers Fest for International Womens Day. The panel discussion was on Clothes Sizing and Body Image, a topic I ramble on about a lot, so I was keen to take part. I’ll confess when I said yes I didn’t realise the journey was going to take twice as long as usual due to maintenance work on the line. Even so the journey down was quite nice and relaxed really, almost, dare I say it, fun. Trundling across the countryside in lovely sunshine. The trip was only slightly marred on the way down by the realisation that I had managed to drop my much loved and only a week old Fitbit Flex, sob, but that’s another story.

Also on the panel were costume maker Elly Frances and Fatshion blogger Arched Eyebrow. We spent a very enjoyable hour, with some other very knowledgeable people discussing how clothes sizing has changed, our awareness of our own body shapes, and how the fashion industry could make shopping for clothing easier for consumers.

The trip home, not quite as much fun. The tube was packed and deeply disgustingly sweaty, and the train from Cambridge to Norwich was so packed I spent the trip sat on the floor on those special extra prickly carpets that they put down to make sure you’re really miserable when there are no seats.

But I didn’t get to head straight off home and put my feet up, oh no, because tonight was the Vintage Show at Norwich Fashion Week. The Fabulous Miss K and Missy Vintage were behind this show and I had the pleasure of picking my best dressed Man and Woman of the evening, and after much umming and ahhing over a fabulously dressed crowd I chose this pair (not a pair as such, I don’t think they knew each other, but very dapper I’m sure you’ll agree!).

I failed to get any good photos of my own outfit, but I did get papped by Vintage Deli! I was wearing the fan print fleur dress from Heyday! which stood up admirably to a 14 hour day, sweaty tubes, having beetroot juice dripped on it and sitting on the floor of a stinky train. Soon I promise a proper outfit post with this one!

It was a great evening with cocktails and chocolates, and a rather lovely goodie bag containing fancy marshmallows, a cute pug necklace and somewhat randomly, a packet of protein noodles.

I actually found I got better photos with my iPhone last night as the models moved so fast that they were gone before my fancy DSLR had got the focus, so I shall leave you for today with a few photos I managed to get of the show!

Frocks from Retreat Vintage

Lingerie from a variety of designers from local store Proudlock & Harry

Mens nightwear from the awesome Wake Up Little Susie

Hats from Betsy Hatter and hair flowers from Rosie Alia

And a burlesque finale from the gorgeous Natalya Umanska