Story donated by Paul @ St Gemmas Retro Fair

Hearts Content spied Paul strolling round St Gemmas Retro Fair with this gorgeous girl tucked under his arm. He didn’t need much persuading to let us take her picture in the Portrait Booth and she turned out be a very photogenic dolly indeed. Which is just as well because she was starting a new life as a film-prop. Paul told us he bought her for a music video and because,

“She had one sad eye and she stood out in the crowd. And thats all.”

Hearts Content think’s she looks very festive in a lonely dolly kind of way so, for today, we’re calling her Dolly Christmas.
Hearts Content

All Our Hearts Content are busy preparing for St Gemmas Retro Fair in Leeds this Saturday and pimping up the Portable Portrait Booth so we can take snaps of all the retro things people are buying. We’ll also have our Postcard Workshop on the go so, if you want to tell us about your favourite secondhand find but you don’t happen to have it in your handbag, you can always get busy with some paper and glue.

Cutsey Christmas is starting to get to me and I am really hoping to get some weird stories about strange things that people have bought. All oddbods welcome.

Me and Nomie will be there from 10am - 4pm taking pics, eating cakes and listening to weird stories. Its a hard life.
Abby

Story Donated By Hayley Avron

The first time I laid eyes on this dress was during my first week working for St. Gemma’s Hospice. I was working at the Street Lane shop, learning the tricks of the trade. The dress was hanging up in the sorting room downstairs. It was destined for the next Retro Fair and I was nowhere near confident enough to stake my claim on it so I held it up against myself when no-one else was in the room and then bid it farewell… When the fair came around, our paths crossed again and I gingerly asked to try it on, not entirely sure that it would actually fit me. Turns out, it was a match made it heaven…

It’s by a London designer called Russell Stuart and although I’ve not been able to find out anything about him, I have managed to find one other Russell Stuart dress (on EBay). I’ll keep hunting…
Hayley Avron