Think Vintage

Product Information

Our first fair was in September 2010, and we recently celebrated our third birthday with a gorgeous cake, which Stuart Thornley Cake Design sprang on us as a lovely surprise. Stuart started with us in our early days as a part-timer with a job, and has now gone full time as a professional baker and is doing pretty well. We couldn’t possibly take credit for such a talented chap pursuing his dream vocation, but it’s a good story. Apart from the poor quality of many of the videos, out of sync audio and poor colour saturation, they also seem to forget to set the Aspect Ratio flag to tell the TV whether the image is 4:3 or 16:9. Most times, they end up being stretched horizontally making them look even worse. It’s also a bit of a fashion parade, something we positively encourage. We consider it the biggest compliment to our event that some people dress up to the nines to attend. Especially if they’re wearing gear they bought at a previous fair! Their example shows that you should buy what you like, not what you think you should like. And there aren’t any rules – mix it up with new buys, mix up eras, just go with what you love.

We pursue each theme to an extent depending on budget (negligible to zero) and time (equally negligible). I wish we had more resources to do full justice to our themes, but the bottom line is that is has to be a good vintage fair. A visitor to the Vintage Village will have up to 70 stalls of vintage goods to go at – we monitor the mix so there’s always a good variety, and, whilst we do have plenty of regular stall holders, the roster is constantly changing with new traders every month. Also, there’s always been a hard core of vintage aficionados, many of them meticulous perfectionists who are devotees of, for example, 1940s wartime or 1960s Mod styles. These people are impervious to trends, and all the more admirable for being so.I'm pretty much given up watching these channels. They seem to have far too many advert breaks, and the adverts are always too long (usually for some cheap and nasty mattresses or discount cremations). I don't know why they are bothering to transmit these channels at all, they offer nothing that you couldn't find on YouTube with better quality. We’re keen to encourage new traders, and we’re super thrilled to welcome the old hands who help raise the standards.

It’s a social event as much as a shopping opportunity, and I can’t tell you how many friendships have been forged during our fairs Sadly there are no other music channels now on Freeview. All the others, such as Kerrang, vanished ages ago. There’s been a regular cycle of ‘buzzes’ about vintage since the mid-1960s at least. Every generation since seems to rediscover it in some form. Stuart started with us in our early days as a part-timer with a job, and has now gone full time as a professional baker and is doing pretty well

River Island

Our intention from the start was to present the kind of fair we would like to go to ourselves and we also try to ensure that there’s always plenty of things to interest the chaps too Clearly their business model is to spend as little as possible on content and show as much advertising as possible. Shan't be wasting any time on this rubbish. These people are impervious to trends, and all the more admirable for being so. Their example shows that you should buy what you like, not what you think you should like. And there aren’t any rules – mix it up with new buys, mix up eras, just go with what you love Failing that we’ll go for an international vintage-era theme that suits. And failing that we’ll just go “OK, it’s our Easter fair”!