If you’re serious about vintage fashion, or even just a little interested you’re probably already familiar with the Vintage Fashion Guild, an international group of professional traders, writers, historians and other experts in the field dedicated to the education and promotion of vintage fashions. If you haven’t seen it, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Currently celebrating it’s tenth year, I’ve been a member for over seven years, and it’s done wonders for increasing and testing my vintage knowledge, as well as a great place for like-minded people to talk about what we love the most – vintage fashion.

My collection has always focused on Australian fashion, because I buy locally – the VFG has taught me about the links between international fashion and what happens here and where they are different. I’ve learnt about styles we don’t get here – the contentious “patio dress”, CC41, fabric types (and what they’re called in different places), all sorts of things.

I’ve been invited to international events and made friends, many of whom I will probably never meet in person but feel like I know quite well.

Here are some of the ways that the VFG can help you on your vintage journey – and best of all, it’s all free for the public, provided by skilled and passionate volunteers who fund it through annual membership fees.

The VFG Forums.
The VFG Label Resource.
The VFG Fur Resource.
The VFG Blog.
The VFG on Facebook.
The VFG on Twitter.

I could spend a lot of time telling you how invaluable these resources are, but it’s best if you just go and explore them.

I’m often asked about what online sellers I recommend and the answer is easy: VFG members have to apply a code of best industry practice, which means that you can buy with confidence.

Today’s news is that I’m pleased to report that as of next year, I will be the new Vice-President of the VFG! I’m really excited about this opportunity to support the international community and a great group of people, who have been a wonderful support for me.

It’s that time again: Lulu Vintage is tallying up the votes for the most popular and best Vintage clothing webshops around the world.

Last year, Circa’s first year, we came fourth in the people’s choice category! Thank you to everyone who supported us, and if you could kindly vote for us again this year, it would be greatly appreciated.

Click on the image to go through to the page: add your vote in a comment. You can support up to ten vintage clothing webshops, but only vote once per person or IP address please.

Please write “Circa Vintage Clothing (Australia)” to differentiate from the wonderful London shop “Circa Vintage” who are also nominated.

With so many fabulous vintage clothing webshops, it’s hard to choose but here’s my top ten – all are fellow members of the Vintage Fashion Guild of course. I’ve bought from most and can recommend them for good quality vintage and service.

- Dorothea’s Closet.
- Pinky A-Go-Go.
- Denise Brain.
- Poppy’s Vintage Clothing.
- Tangerine Boutique.
- Glamoursurf.
- Meloo Vintage.
- Past Perfect Vintage.
- Couture Allure.
- Circa Vintage Clothing (Australia).

Voting ends on Friday, July 27th. Lulu will tally up your votes and announce the 2012 People’s Choice Top 10, as well as her 2012 Lulu’s Top 10 on Tuesday, July 31st,2012.

Thank you for your support!

From the in-box….if you print off the flyer, you’ll get a free gift when you go in!

As well as being ANZAC Day and Easter Monday, today is also my mother’s birthday. Denny was born on a rare occasion of ANZAC Day falling on Easter Sunday, a date that her family considered auspicious – unfortunately she didn’t live long enough to fulfill her promise, leaving us almost 25 years ago. I was in my final year of studying costume design and ill prepared to lose the most important person in my life.

She gave me a sense of appreciation for old things, an eye and an aesthetic. She taught me that beautiful things do not have to cost much money. She told me to be kind (I still struggle with that one).

Denny always wanted me to complete my education and follow my path and I hope that she would be pleased and proud of what I’m doing with my life – my first book is dedicated to her.

As well, Circa is dedicated to her and to all the other mothers and grandmothers out there, who gave us this wonderful heritage of hand-made clothing and textiles.

We have a responsibility to preserve and protect these precious artifacts, so that they can be enjoyed by future generations.

Mum and I, circa 1965 – photo courtesy Brian Jenkins.

I loved doing the Wintersun Vintage Swimwear Parade last year but unfortunately, Circa’s budget won’t allow me to do it again this year – thankfully, Candice DeVille, the Lindy Charm School for Girls, Bonnie Rose Vintage and Something Else Clothing are all banding together to put on a fabulous parade of ’40s and ’50s fashions this year, so the festival cats and kittens don’t have to miss out.

The ladies are recruiting for models – they’d like ten ladies and two handsome chaps to strut their stuff on the Wintersun stage in Port Macquarie (NSW) in a variety of outfits. There will be two parades of twenty minutes each, at 2pm on the Saturday June 11th and Sunday June 12th.

If you’d like to help, please email Nada from Something Else Clothing on sales (at) somethingelseclothing (dot) com

Official Wintersun website

Thank you!

from the in-box:

Jenny-Lynn recently sent me the below email: she’s researching the “informal” commercial dressmaking industry in Australia during the ’50s and ’60s. It’s a difficult topic to research – when you buy a dress, you’re not aware of the circumstances of it’s manufacture. It could be factory-made or sewn by an “out worker” in her home or garage on a piece by piece basis, but there are few records of the latter group.
——————————————————————————————————————————
Have you ever done dressmaking for other people?
• Did you do dressmaking in the 1950’s or 1960’s?
• Did you do your dressmaking from your home?
• Did you work for payment or exchange?

I am conducting oral history interviews for a research project on the history of women working as self-employed dressmakers in Australia in the 1950’s and 1960’s. This research will focus specifically on dressmakers using their home as the base for their work. The main aim of the research project is to investigate the personal experience of the dressmaker and what it meant to be a dressmaker in Australian society at this time.

Your participation in this research project will involve one or two interviews at your home (or a location you prefer) during which you will talk about your past experiences. The interviews will take approximately 60 minutes. You will be asked questions about your own personal experience of working as a dressmaker and how you managed your work alongside of any family or domestic responsibilities.

This is an opportunity for you to contribute to expanding the body of knowledge about the social and cultural history of women, work and family in Post WW2 Australian society.

If you are interested in participating please contact Jenny-Lynn Potter on: 0413 979 475 or by email jl2potter@students.latrobe.edu.au or write to Jenny-Lynn Potter, School of Social Sciences (GSD studies), La Trobe University, Victoria 3086, and I will arrange a suitable time for the interview.

Thank you!

There’s an interesting discussion going on, over at the Fitzroyalty blog about bloggers accepting sponsored posts etc.

It’s an issue that all of us who blog (dreadful word, call I use the old fashioned term web log instead?) should confront, and ideally, we should each have a policy to deal with it. The fact is, it’s easy to see which web logs are popular and the more popular you are, the more likely it is that you will be approached to post about a particular brand or topic or event, perhaps receive some freebies as a sweetener.

Sounds like a good opportunity to share with you Circa’s policy, because I frequently get requests, and my response is a simple one – Circa does not accept payments of any kind.

Now, let’s not forget that Circa is a business, although one with a strong community focus. I love vintage and in my fantasy world everyone would dress fabulously in vintage from the era they most identify with – or they would dress in vintage-inspired modern clothing or perhaps they would dress in second hand clothes sourced from garage sales and op shops. Perhaps they might even wear modern clothes from a fashion-forward local designer but the important thing for me, is that I would like people to consider their choices, appreciate that it is a choice, and that everything they wear sends a message out to the world about who they are, who they want to be, and who they want us to think that they are.

But back to Circa….Circa and I share a mission, but it’s not about buying from Circa. It’s about a lifestyle, a way of seeing and engaging with the world…and so I’m happy, delighted even, to share with you information that comes my way about things that I consider to be of interest. Sure, it’s nice if you would like to buy my wares (it makes my mission easier) but if you’re buying them from someone else, or going to see period costume in an art gallery or watching a film from the Golden Years of Hollywood – well, that makes me happy too.

So if you’ve got a product or an event that you’d like me to tell my readers about, by all means send me the details (and images, images are great) but added incentives are not needed, and if I run out of time and don’t get to post it, please don’t be mad at me. Circa’s web log is a kind of vintage noticeboard, made of well worn wood with a few scratches here and there. There’s a lot happening in this imperfect world of ours.

As an aside, I don’t mind those who do support sponsored posts – a web logger has bills to pay after all, and as long as they’re indicated as such, there is no confusion. It’s just that everything that’s posted to Circa in a way, supports Circa and her mission.