Summer Holidays

Last day of August... Last day to think again about our summer holidays! Autumn will be soon here, kids will go back to school and it's time for me to count the days from now till Christmas... Xmas is really my favorite time of the year!!!

So let's think again about those sunny days...

I took a break of 3 weeks in August.

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DORDOGNE

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We went to Dordogne, a really touristic area in South West of France. The place where you can visit pretty medieval villages and amazing castles. My familly in law lives there so it was quite economical holidays!
It's really not the place where you must start a diet. You can eat so much delicious specialties like "Duck's Confit" and "Foie Gras" or goat's cheese!

We visited the MONBAZILLAC castle with some friends and tasted there my favorite white sweet wine.

We also listenned some good music at Mike Sanchez's concert near Lot river! I love this great artist and his powerful boogie woogie.

A nice cruise in our friend's car, a 1955 Ford Fairlane Crown Victoria, was really fun too!

I really love the old yellow stones of the medieval city of Sarlat!

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BRUXELLES

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And to finish these sunny vacations we spent a week-end in Bruxelles (Belgium) for a rockabilly event.

A good flea market and some vintage clothing shops to begin... (I was hunting NOS 50's earrings on this picture!)

Mussels at the most famous Brasserie in Bruxelles "Chez Léon"...

Some vintage cars...

And the concert of Si Cranstoun which was really good. A great voice!

I finally could heard his DYNAMO song live, a real pleasure!!!!

And you, where did you go for vacations?

Did you spend nice Summer Holidays?

Concours d'élégance

Have you ever heard about the french words CONCOURS D'ELEGANCE?
They were typical 30's to 50's events in Paris to present beautiful cars and elegant ladies wearing HAUTE COUTURE clothes.

American cars were often the most somptuous cars after war.

It was not only luxurious cars but also middle class french cars.

A dog was the must to have, poodles and greyhound were really popular!!!

Cars and Ladies, called an "équipage" in french were presented in front of a panel of judges and some prices were given at the end of the day. 

Even the kids were part of the show!!!!

You can click on this link to see a lot of beautiful black and white vintage pictures from Paris:

http://www.parisenimages.fr/fr/galerie-des-collections-selection.html?lieu=&personnalite=&oeuvre=&mots=elegance&source=&noiretblanc=&couleur=&oeuvre=&debut=&fin=&exact=&start=0&count=80

I really love all these glamourous pictures!!!



There are still some Concours d'Elegance in France and the most popular takes place in St Clou and Bagatelle near Paris once a year. I had once played a part in a Concours d'Elegance with my husband and our '59 Cadillac, it was in Sarlat (South West of France). I was so much fun, I really want to be part of another one soon!!!

Me and my car. It can be at a Concours d'élegance, isn't it?

Have you ever been part of a Concours d'Elegance? Have you ever seen one? Does that exist in your country?

Vintage Fashion Magazines...

My madness about vintage 40's and 50's clothes began about 10 years ago when I bought some vintage 50's magazines at a local flea market.
I have never dreamed to be a sexy 50's pin-up but more a Haute Couture model like in these amazing magazines.

The first vintage magazines I ever bought were some 1955 "ELLE" french edition.

ELLE were not glossy magazines in the 40's-50's, the quality of the paper was really bad and only the front page was in full colors but it was a weekly magazine. At the beginning in 1945, there were only 40 or 50 pages due to the after war paper restriction in France. Somes pages about Haute Couture and everyday fashion, some about decoration, a cooking recipe, a novel published in several parts and the readers' mail.
I'm collecting ELLE from 1945 to 1960 and have almost all the issues.

Another amazing french magazine is "L'Officiel de la Mode". Unfortunatly they are really hard to find and most of the times expensive, I only own about 10 issues. This magazine can be compare to VOGUE in the USA. The first one was published in 1921 and these magazines only deal with HAUTE COUTURE with amazing pictures mainly in the 40's-50's. They really were high quality magazines.

Please check this folling link, you will see all "L'Officiel de la Mode" from the 20's till now: all pages scanned and textes written (sorry just in french...).

http://patrimoine.jalougallery.com/lofficiel-de-la-mode-archivesp-13-1920.html

I really love Haute Couture but everyday fashion is most of the time what I prefer. I like to hunt at flea market vintage magazines with sewing paterns (even if I'm really bad at sewing...), german magazines are really the best for exemple BURDA.

I discoved some weeks ago this russian site with a lot of scan of my favorites magazines:

http://www.ms77.ru/articles/burdahistory/15088/

So all these magazines are my precious treasures that I keep as references to dress myself as close as possible to these so elegant after war ladies!!!

Picture of me in PARIS in front of the Galliera Palace a wonderful fashion museum. It can be one of those magazines pictures, isn't it?

And you, do you love vintage magazines, do you collect them, which are your favorites?

How to start a blog???

How to start a blog? That's the question I'm asking myself just now....

Why not making a little presentation?

So my name is Laurence a french girl in love with the 40's-50's.

My first decision is to write this blog in english instead of french, I think it will be easier with english to have a chat with people all around the world. But you must be understanding it's not my birth language so you will probably find a lot of mistakes in my posts, sorry for that!!!

I'm a married about thirty woman who is living in a 60's home in France really closed to Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. I can be called a vintage girl living in a vintage house with a vintage husband, driving vintage cars, wearing vintage clothes, loving all vintage stuff from the 40's-50's. My favorite era is 1945-1955.

I will not tell you everything about me on my first post, you will have to follow me thru this blog to know more about my vintage life and I also hope to know exciting things from you too!!!

Let's share our love for VINTAGE!!!!


A little picture of me and my husband to start this blog, you can also see one of our vintage car....

Picture taken during a drive-in event some months ago
in Luxembourg...the movie was... GREASE!!!!