I went to the Goodwood Revival on Friday – and what a fantastic day out! If you haven’t heard of it before, the Goodwood Revival is a 3-day long festival of fashion, cars and planes from the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

You’re encouraged to dress up, and this gives the event a really special and unique feel. I loved all the vintage fashion, and the boys in my family loved the cars and planes, so we were all happy!

As well as the vintage car racing, there were air displays with Spitfires and a Lancaster, lots of vintage shops and stalls, live music, a retro fairground, a vintage hair and beauty salon and even a replica 1960s high street to wander around!

I took some photos of my favourite vintage fashions from the day – I didn’t quite have the nerve to ask people to pose for photos so these are really just the snaps I could get. I’ll have to work on that for the next event I go to – has anyone got any tips about the best way to ask people to pose for photos for you?

[20 photos]Oh and apologies for a couple of the photos being out of focus – we’ve got a new camera and I haven’t quite worked out the focusing yet – frustratingly it seems to focus on the nearest thing in automatic mode (even if that is somebody’s elbow in the foreground).

From a fashion point of view, I was surprised by the amount of real fur on display. I don’t have a problem with people wearing vintage fur although I wouldn’t choose it myself.  I figure the harm was already done many years ago and it certainly adds to 1940s look. However I’m not sure all of it was vintage and that makes me a little uncomfortable. Some of the vintage stalls were selling vintage and new fur – which I don’t approve of at all.

What do you think?

Note:

One thing I would warn though, is to allow yourself plenty of time to get to and from the event. When we went on Friday, we were stuck in a traffic jam for about an hour to get into the venue (especially fun with a 6 year old in the car). They may have used some kind of traffic management over the weekend. I hope so otherwise you waste a lot of your day just sitting in your car…

Also at the end of the day the tractor shuttles which take you back to the car parks stop running ‘around teatime’ (not sure what time that is exactly) so when we left about 6pm we were faced with a very long and badly-directed walk back to the car park at the end of the day!

If I’d know about this, I think we whould either have left earlier or worn more comfortable shoes!

Above: Me and my son in our sixties outfits – would you believe I saw somebody in exactly the same vintage dress? What are the odds of that?!

Above and below: 40s style fashions at Goodwood Revival

Above: 1940s-style yummy mummys with seamed stockings and a big pram!

Above and below: lots of real fur…

What the men were wearing: above my boys in their 1960s race overalls and flat caps, and below: a magnificent moustache (real or fake…?)

Above: the gorgeous Glamcabs girls

Above: Sixties style fashions on the retro high-street

Above and below:  Military style fashions were really popular

Above: The Pimms party bus complete with deckchairs – a very welcome place to sit down!

Above: 1950s-style gingham

Above and below: 1960s fashions

Above: a 1940s American GI strolles down the vintage high street with his sweetheart

Above and below: the cash machines were all disguised inside red telephone boxes – great idea!