Review: Judy’s Affordable Vintage Fair, Cambridge

A couple of weekends ago, we had a little bit of sunshine, which was very nice indeed. Even nicer was The Boy turning to me on Friday night and saying, “Didn’t you want to go to a vintage fair tomorrow? Shall we go?”

He’s nice like that. So, off we headed to Cambridge. We parked slightly out of the city, so we could walk in and enjoy the sunshine and pretty flowers. Which was just lovely. Until my feet started hurting, approximately 100m down the road, because I’d worn my big heels (this is relatively speaking. My big heels now would have been my everyday flat shoes 10 years ago).

While The Boy went to mooch around the shops (read: look in all the video game shops. All of them), I headed over to The Guildhall, where Judy’s Affordable Vintage Fair was being held. I paid my £2 to get in, and walked into the first room of vintage loveliness.

Now, I’ve only been to a few vintage fairs in my time, but there’s something I learned very early on, and that is to have a fairly specific idea of what you want to buy. Too specific, and you may end up disappointed when you can’t find the exact thing you have in your head, too general and you might end up splurging on anything and everything (yep, recovering shopaholic, right here).

This time, I had a few things in mind. I wanted a cream or beige coloured vintage handbag (I have a lovely one from Collectif, but I wanted something a bit special for some of my true vintage dresses), a pair of cream or beige sunglasses (because – despite what Coco Chanel said – sometimes, black just doesn’t cut it), a pair of cream gloves (apparently, I was obsessed with cream on that Saturday. I blame the sunshine for lulling me into a false, ‘Hey, look! It’s Summer!’ mood) and a couple of chiffon headscarves, to use when jazzing up hairstyles, and also to annoy The Boy when I’m prepping my pin curls (he thinks I look like a grandma. He’s right).

And I only went and found everything! The bag was on the very first stall I looked around, and I quickly picked up two bold scarves – one red, one green – from the same lady I bought some gorgeous silk scarves from last time.

The sunglasses were on a stall with lots of lovely repro items, owned by a lovely lady who I talked about all the upcoming vintage-y events this summer. I very much hope to bump into her again, partly because she let me ramble on, while smiling sweetly.

I then headed over to a stall full of accessories, and picked up a lovely pair of gloves. And of course, I couldn’t leave without getting The Boy a gift too. He’s a big fan of his TARDIS pin!

I had a lovely time browsing the stalls, and chatting to the stallholders about the Fair, their stock, the weather, and just about everything in between, while browsing their dresses, shoes, bags, telephones, and everything in between!

Hands up now, who had one of the inflatable rucksacks? I was desperate for one when they first came out, and my mum said no. Repeatedly. It took an awful lot of willpower not to buy the blue one from the Sue Ryder stall!

All in all, I had a lovely time, and came away with some absolute bargains (and I think I had change out of £30 – not bad going, eh). The only regret I have is not taking advantage of the cake. Look at all the cake! As I didn’t have any this time, it’s ok to eat two slices next time, right?

And, by the time we got back to the car, I realised I’d matched my drink to my dress. There’s every chance my accessorising is spiralling out of control.