I've always had a yearning to look and dress like Katherine Hepburn, all wide-legged mens suits and no-nonsense attitude

But with my genetics, that's never going to happen. 

On a good day I can convince myself that I'd make a passable (if a little short) Joan Holloway

But on a bad day, I have been accused of looking a little like Miss Marple (which may have something to do with the Welsh tapestry cape I've been known to wear when I'm on my bike)

So, who's your style inspiration, and who do you wish it could be? 

Some say that we've become a nation of shoppers, obsessed with endless spending, spending, spending and endless landfill to go with it. But, we fans of vintage like to think of ourselves as being above all that. We pride ourselves on keeping items out of the tip, preserving clothes for as long as possible and not 'indulging' ourselves in £2 t-shirts and disposable fashion from the high street. Looking good and looking after the planet at the same time. 

But is there a downside?

Vintage cuts out the manufacturing process, it's pure retail - which means no jobs for designers, pattern cutters, machinists, and so on and so on. The global economy is a finely balanced machine (ok, so it's out of whack at the moment), and aside from the banks, it's powered by jobs. If everyone starts buying vintage, could that have serious knock on effects for the economy?

Ok so we've looked at your vintage horror stories, now let's indulge ourselves a bit - what are your vintage items of desire? 

For me, in terms of clothing, it's vintage wool suits from the 40's/50's with their nipped in waists and classic tailoring, and for the home, I'm a sucker for a bit of mid century Danish, or a nice bit of Ercol (what can I say, I like me some wood).

So what floats *your* boat? A nice swing dress? Some 70's platform boots? A comfy old leather wingback chair? A set of mismatched china cups and saucers?   

It doesn't take a budding Sherlock Holmes to notice that there's a bit of a gender imbalance in the world of vintage clothing, with women making up the vast majority of buyers *and* sellers, so why is that?

Is it because it's easier for women to dress up without looking silly? Is it because the men's market is undersupplied by vintage sellers? Are the men better represented in other vintage areas, like vintage furniture? 

Do you love a man in vintage style? Are you a chap with an eye for the older stuff? Or does your fella despair at your attempts to get him into a bit of tweed? 

It can be difficult to track down exactly where my love of vintage comes from. It probably started with the dressing up box that my sister and I used to play with, and the unusual amount of amateur dramatics that I did when I was growing up. But then it could also stem from those teenage years when I was trying to find my own style on a seriously constrained budget, in a town more than adequately supplied with charity shops.

So, what brought you to the world of vintage? Was is a stylish friend of relative? Were you inspired by someone on the silver screen, or the maybe the world of fashion? Did you inherit a key piece that started you off on your own collection?

I'll use this post to pull all the survey monkey links together in one place, save you hunting round for them all. 

survey #1 - buying vintage clothes

survey #2 - general survey for vintage traders

survey #3 - buying vintage furniture and homewares

suvey #4 - vintage sellers business processes

And to save you even more time, each of the surveys has just 9 questions, so should take you no more than a couple of minutes. 

If you do 2 or 3 surveys, you may notice that some of the questions are quite similar (or, in fact identical). This is because it enables me to set some sort of baseline and do some comparisons of the data between the surveys as well as within them - hopefully it should just make them even quicker for you to fill in. 

All the surveys have a box at the end for you to leave your e-mail, but you don't have to if you don't want to, you can answer anonymously if you'd rather. 

I'll be putting the results of the surveys up on this posterous when I have them (without any e-mail addresses, obviously) but if you want me to send the information to you by e-mail, let me know. 

There's lots of gorgeous vintage stuff out there, that's why we love it, right? But amongst the lovelyness, there are some real horrors. Every era has some fashion faux pas that should really be left in the past, but they do still appear in vintage and second hand shops, to plague us a second time. 

For me, the ultimate in vintage hell has to be the dropped waist - 20's or 80's, they are amongst the least flattering items ever to come from a sewing machine, and if you are 'fortunate' enough to be of the shorter curvier persuasion (as I am) then the look is compounded by lumps and bumps being in the wrong place. 

Fortunately, we don't see many of them around these days, unlike another of my clothing bette-noir, the romper suit or jump suit. 

Why? 

WHY?

WHY?

Whoever thought these were a good idea has clearly never needed to go to the loo in a hurry. What the appeal of having to get entirely undressed for a wee is, I will never know. But they're all over the place at the moment, new versions as well as vintage examples, and it looks like it's a trend that's going to run and run (although not to the toilet, if they have any sense)

So, that's my idea of vintage hell, what's yours?

ra ra skirts? 

wriggle dresses?

flares?

When you head out to the shops, or online, do you like to go for a good old rummage, or are you on the hunt for something specfic?

Do you end up with things that you wernen't looking for? or are you laserlike in your focus, only buying the items that were on your vintage hit list? 

What is your vintage shopping style?

I've recently been given a vintage fur coat by a family member having a clear out, which leaves me with a question - what should I do with it? 

I'm not going to wear it, which leaves me with several options

leave it in the wardrobe?

sell it?

give it to a homeless charity?

use if for animal bedding?

On the one hand, vintage fur lessens the need for the new fur market - all the benefits without the bleurgh

On the other hand, does vintage fur help prop up the demand for real fur, by making it acceptable to wear fur in the firtst place? 

But on that score does good fake fur have the same effect?

What do you think? Where do you stand on the vintage fur debate? 

well, would you? 

If they've been washed properly, in great condition and are really really lovely, would you be willing to wear 40 year old pants?

what about swimwear?