The Vintage Village

Having won Best Vintage Fair two years running at the Manchester Vintage awards, this event just goes from strength to strength drawing vintage dealers from as far away as London to hunt for bargains.
On top of its own success, it has also inpsired the opening of at least 7 vintage shops in the Old Town area 7 Hillgate. All this is bringing a new va va voom to the area which should be applauded.
Their website is great as it lists traders, gives plenty of photos and jkeeps you ahead of the posse with developments.
2^nd Sunday of each month — be there!

Vintage Village is on every second Sunday of the month in Stockport’s totally brilliant market hall place.
If the truth be known, It was more my wife and sister in law who were the instigators in us going but I wanted to stretch my legs and go out for the afternoon so thought I would give it a shot! Gotta say, it was really really good and there were all sorts of stalls selling vintage clothes, records, antiques, furniture — pretty much anything from yesteryear.
Nice touches were a skiffle band playing live, with a DJ playing hits from the likes of Elvis throughout and a load of vintage cars and motorbikes on display outside.
Great street food was provided from the (both) excellent Lord of the Pies and Honest Crust Pizza.
I’ll definitely be heading there again in the coming months as it’s a great day out and only a £1 entry — bargain!

The second Sunday of every month is one of my favourite days of each particular month. That’s one Sunday when I’m happy to set my alarm, get my caboose out of bed and fly on further south in Manchester to Stockport’s historic Victorian Market Halls, because that’s where I can find epic 70s flowery maxi dresses, Smash Hits ‘Best of the 80s’ annuals and trinkets galore. Welcome to the Vintage Village!
I’ve been to a lot of vintage markets and shops in my time. Once, I even travelled all the way up to Edinburgh for a coat, I brought back over £40 worth of vinyl and a 56 year old fur from Glasgow and I’ve been known to scour our little Manchester boutiques for hours at a time. But what Stockport offered last month just blew me away, knocked me sideways and had me gazing around open-​mouthed like I did when I was taken to Disney World at six years old. This was epic. The quality was remarkable, the prices were insanely affordable and the sheer variety on offer was stunning. I defy you not to walk from stall to stall and see at least three things per section you covet.
If you were to slap something not only like this, but of this calibre (exceptional quality, eclectic variety) bang in the middle of Manchester City Centre it would be completely overrun with fifteen-​year-​old Noël Fielding stalkers in knee socks and oversized Urban Outfitters jumpers (not that there’s anything wrong with them — I’ve been known to rock a woolly from UO regularly and have frequent NSFW dreams about Mr Vince Noir myself), but as it’s tucked away in a sleepy town centre in the South Manc ‘burbs, it attracts a much calmer, quieter, more discerning clientele. Families bring along their children and have soup and bacon butties at Zip’s Grill. Couples with dogs mooch around for gifts. It’s incredibly relaxed and wonderfully friendly. I lost count of the amount of conversations I struck up with stall purveyors.
This is worth getting out of bed on the day of rest for. Seriously, do it! You won’t regret it. And if you do, come and have a go at me. I’ll probably whup you upside the head.
(P.S. Zip’s Grill serves some of the finest coffee I’ve ever had the good fortune to taste, and the food looks all kinds of fabulous. I’ll definitely have a soup this Sunday.)