Days in the sun

At Snooky Fest!

Last weekend was full on...Snooky Fest on Saturday and then the Historic Car Rally at Powderham Castle on Sunday. We've been to London and back since Sunday for a night at the opera, a flying visit to celebrate a family birthday and a quick dash around Alfie's Antiques Market! We had such a great time over the weekend rather than bore you with words we thought we'd share some of the photos we took instead! 

With Sue from the fabulous Vegan Organic Skin Care Company

Eventine at Snooky Fest ended the day perfectly

Great set from Josh Curnow

Bootleggers Turn - wow what energy!

Why live anywhere but Dawlish!

We can dream!

We want this car!

The boys are back in town 

Of course this Saturday coming it's return of the Dawlish Antiques and Vintage Fair too! Whoop whoop...can't wait! 

Lots of lovely vintage handbags for sale this Saturday

Snooky-car-e-expialidocious!

 

The sun's out and the forecast's looking good for the weekend. 

Perfect timing then to pop down to Warren Park Farm for Snooky Fest on Saturday and Powderham Castle for the Historic Car Gathering (it's their 46th year this year...wow!) on Sunday.

Vintage cars, great local bands, real cider, autojumble....sounds good to us!
 

We'll be giving out flyers for our antiques and vintage fairs at Snooky Fest too so come and say 'Hello!'

It's all hotting up!

With not long to go now until our next Dawlish Antiques and Vintage Fair on 20th July this weekend was all about filling in on the gaps on our stall and finding items we'd been asked to look out for.

A good place to do that is always another antiques fair and Saturday's in Marsh Barton didn't disappoint, especially as we'd been asked to look out for vintage ethnic jewellery, vintage sewing items, big 80s earrings, brooches and anything David Bowie!

 

We popped into The Attic too, always a treasure trove of vintage goodies, and picked up a lovely 1960s Huntley and Palmers cocktail biscuit tin and very pretty bakelite radio (that might not make it out of our private collection for a while though!).

 

The plan was also to visit Dodo Room, you can find Simon and his shop, just underneath The Attic but we ran out of time. We'll definitely pop in the next time we're in the area though, the photos look amazing.

 

A quick but refreshing pint (or two...blame the sun!) of Old Rosie at Exeter St Thomas' Spooneys finished off our mad shopping spree. It's certainly much harder work in the sunshine.

 

We're all ready now for our fair on 20th July so pop along down to the Strand Centre to look at the different stalls. We're welcoming several new traders this time (plus our lovely regulars of course) and it promises to be our biggest and best fair so far!  

 

Fair we go again!

 

Most people suffer withdrawal symptoms from chocolate, wine, cheese, fags, cider etc etc. Ok yes we'll be the first to admit that we're prone to most of these but we always get our biggest withdrawal symptoms from not going to a really good antiques fair.

 

Due to Let's Rock last weekend and other commitments we seem to have had a 6 week hiatus. Thank goodness the Matford Antiques and Collectors Fair is on tomorrow then and as the weather's so glorious there should be lots of stalls outside - always our favourite bit! 

We'll have our shopping heads on tomorrow so fingers crossed there'll be lots of good pickings. We'll keep you posted! 

Let's Rock Exeter 2019!

On Saturday we popped along to Powderham Castle for our 4th Let's Rock Exeter festival.

The highlights were the effortlessly cool Belinda Carlisle, Betty Boo 'doing the do', synth pioneer Thomas Dolby and the always amazing Human League. We were chuffed that we also got to see Jenny from The Belle Stars, Belouis Some and Billy Ocean.

Check out the review from our favourite music blogger, The Hearing Aid, right here!

A vintage time for Dawlish and Teignmouth!

It's wonderful to see such an exciting antiques and vintage scene building across Dawlish, Dawlish Warren and Teignmouth.

 

Along with the Dawlish Antiques and Vintage Fairs which we run - the next one's on July 20th by the way (pop the date in your diary please!), there's so much choice when it comes to buying antiques, vintage and retro. 

 

Here's our very quick guide to all the shops you need to get along to:

Queens Antiques on Queens Street in Dawlish - always amazes us with the range of antiques large and small and soon to be opening another shop. Can't wait!

General Antiques, Queens Street in Dawlish - eclectic and a wonderful choice of antiques and vintage items.

Ellie's Attic, Dawlish Business Park in Dawlish Warren - could spend hours rummaging in here as you never know what you're going to find! 

 

Times Flies, Somerset Place in Teignmouth - what this shop doesn't know about clocks no-one will ever know. 

Bella's Emporium, Regent Street in Teignmouth - we want them to come and furnish our house, far too many pretty things to choose from.

 

Hello Retro, Fore Street in Teignmouth - very cool and kitsch shop selling everything 1960s & 70s. Recently opened Rewind Retro too, spoilt for choice! 

The Sound Preservation Society, Fore Street in Teignmouth - for lovers of vinyl, that's us, great choices at great prices.

Seeking Vintage, Waterloo Street in Teignmouth - everything from hall mirrors to lace tablecloths to brooches. We never know what to expect and we're never disappointed! 

 

 

Apologies if we've missed anybody, please get in touch and we'll add you to the list!  

I Guess That's Why They Call It The 'Shoes'...

 

OMG! We saw 'Rocketman' last night and it blew us away!

 

The portrayal of the transformation of Reg Dwight to Elton John is incredible as are the highs (which is the appropriate word given all the coke he snorted!) and the lows he met along the way.

 

What we loved especially was how his unique fashion sense developed, from the fair isle jumpers and shorts he wore as a kid in the early 1950s to the rockabilly quiff and drainpipe jeans in his teens, on to cord paisley shirts and cravats in the early 1960s then the dunagrees and platforms he adopted at the same time as his new stage name and and finally climaxing...steady now...with the fantastically outrageous costumes he donned when he became arguably one of music's biggest and most flamboyant (which took some doing in the 70s) stars. 

 

As he tamed his demons (drink, drugs, sex and shopping...sounds like a pretty perfect weekend to us) he toned down the outfits too and took to wearing Versace then lounge wear (probably not from Primark though we're guessing).

 

 

 All in all the film beautifully showcased the changing face of fashion and Elton himself, underlining just why we love vintage fashion so much! 

 

Go and see it now!

The Long Good Friday!



Friday!

Why can't every weekend be a 3 day weekend! We'd get so much done. Although for us we'd probably need to buy another shed for all the vintage picking time it would give us.

With a day off work on Friday we'd decided that (weather permitting!) we'd go on a bike ride to Starcross, via their charity shop, our favourite pub in Cockwood and back to Dawlish via Ellie's Attic in Dawlish Warren. Our summer doesn't seem to have started yet so we were very grateful that the sun came out. We had a great day and although we didn't find anything in the Starcross charity shop we had a wonderful time at the Ship Inn and bought some lovely vintage handbags and a very cool retro JVC mini hi-fi (CDs are the retro future remember!) from Ellie's Attic. The highlight had to be the little robins eating out of our hands at the pub, just perfect. The only downside was getting the hi-fi home on our bikes.  Ouch! The bikes - and us - are still groaning now. 



Saturday!

On  Saturday we decided to go to Totnes and Teignmouth. The Totnes market and shops didn't disappoint as we bought some very cool 1960s art books, an original 1980s Athena Erotic Kiss print by Syd Brak and a very pretty brooch.  On to Teignmouth we popped into Bella's Emporium where the lovely Keith Underhill gave us some cycling clips, Seeking Vintage where we picked up a very pretty antique silver nurse's belt and then onto Sound Preservation Society for a look around their vast selection of amazing vinyl.  Along the way we picked up another iconic Athena 1980s print L'Enfant, this was on adorned on nearly every wall when we were growing up, some very cool velvet bow ties (a couple of which are still in their original box) and a Latvian doll dating from 1960s. Of course we dropped into our favourite pub in Teignmouth, The Blue Anchor, for a pint of their finest real cider.



Sunday's items for sale!

Sunday was deservedly a day of rest and a day of putting items for sale on Facebook. Please let us know if you see anything you fancy!



More items for sale!

All in all a couple of very good days Devon picking and a fun Sunday!


Shoes for sale!



We're having a 'Trail' of a time!

Very exciting news! We've just joined the UK's fastest growing antiques and vintage directory,  the Antiques and Vintage Trail. 

 

The directory covers everything you want to know about what's happening in the antiques and vintage world, all under one umbrella..which is jolly handy given all the rain we're having right now.

 

P.S. You can find details about our next fair right here!

It's Three Time!

Three baby goslings on Dawlish Lawn

Most people have two-centre holidays, we love the thrill of the hunt so this weekend we had a three-centre vintage shopping Saturday.  It wasn't planned that way but due to the lovely weather (er...not!) it spurred us on to visit Brixham, Paignton and Newton Abbot all on the same day. Not surprisingly we were absolutely exhausted by the time we got home but a medicinal rum and coke helped.

We got over to Brixham no problem at all, having done it very recently for the shiver me timbers pirate festival. In fact you could almost say we rode in style as we were the only ones on the bus!  When we got to Brixham the rain and the wind from the day before had triumphed though and the 1940s car boot sale which we'd been looking forward to had sadly been cancelled.

Vintage Russell and Bromley shoes

It didn't put us off having a good look around the shops however and we found a pretty vintage Jane Shilton "Japelle" black velvet evening handbag (it's made in Hong Kong so we reckon dates from the late 1970s/1980s) and a very fancy pair of Russell & Bromley two tone with golden buckle court shoes (leather and suede) which have a real 80s glam look about them.

Jane Shilton "Japelle" handbag

We'd heard on Saturday that the Paignton Picture House were hosting a very hi-tech arts installation where you could experience what it must have been like to go to the cinema at the turn of the century when a 21 piece orchestra would strike up and play during the film. Sound designer Chris Timpson had done a great job of recreating the atmosphere brilliantly using some well positioned speakers and you even got to interact with it all by moving around from one chair to another (now that's what we call musical chairs!). 

Paignton Picture House

The Picture House is beautiful and there are so many original features still intact.  If only cinemas were like this nowadays!



That much needed pint kept us out of the rain!

A quick whizz round Paignton avoiding the rain and sheltering in shop doorways was the order of the afternoon, with a swift pint of The General at Spooneys of course.

RP Ellen of Oxford Street Shoes

Then it was on to Newton Abbott, where we continued with our day's task of seeing how many CDs we could buy! Our previous record had been 15 but we surpassed that on Saturday by buying 22!  We firmly believe CDs are due a revival, especially after beatboxes and cassettes went all hipster.

The future is buying CDs!

 They have great artwork, a lot of them come beautifully packaged and they're indestructible (well compared to tapes anyway!)  The gems we picked up included 4 Ozric Tentacles CDs, a Kings of Mambo compilation and a triple CD set of Donna Summer;s Greatest Hits.  In Newton Abbott we also picked up a beautiful pair of RP Ellen of Oxford Street London slingbacks, perfect for the summer...when it arrives...or if not when you go abroad to get away from the rain!


Time to get back to Dawlish and to end what was an exhausting but fulfilling day, despite the weather, we were welcomed home by the 3 baby goslings on The Lawn. A perfect ending to an imperfect day!  (NB please see the top photo!)

Dress-ing up time!

 

At Old's Cool Traders not only do we love buying great vintage shoes but we love trawling the shops, flea markets, antiques fairs and auctions for vintage/vintage style dresses too.

 

We're delighted to say that we've found some absolute stunners recently. Ranging from 1940s tea dresses and 1960s mod dresses to 1970s maxi dresses and 1980s summer dresses. 

 

We like to find items for all ages, sizes and tastes as well so please get in touch if you see anything you fancy or if you'd like us to find anything particular.

 

 

We're always open to sensible offers on our asking prices too so get in touch and get dress-ed up today!