The Spiegeltent has returned to the Old Steine for its annual residency as part of The Brighton Festival, boasting a line-up that includes award-winning cabaret La Clique, the theatrical Mikelangelo & The Black Sea Gentlemen and The Ray Charles Experience as well as Festival acts and club nights.

To find out more about this enchanting orginal Art Nouveau venue, we caught up with producer of The Famous Spiegel Garden, David Bates…

How old is the Spiegeltent that is in town for The Brighton Festival?

This spiegeltent is called The Moulin Rouge and was built in 1918 in Herentals in Belgium. The builders were Oscar Mols Dom and Louis Gorr.

What type of acts would have performed in the Spiegeltent in the late and early 19th and 20th centuries?

Spiegeltents were originally travelling dance halls so most of the entertainment was in the form of travelling dance organs and live dance bands. They travelled with the fairgrounds, which came to villages once a year. Spiegeltents collect the ghosts of their previous locations and these ghosts come out every time the containers are opened. So like may old buildings the sense of history is palpable and adds to the experience.

The great thing about the South East’s vintage scene is that it isn’t the sole preserve of city types. And if there were ever proof needed that vintage events can thrive in quieter towns around the not-so-big city, it was there in abundance at Johnny Loves June’s Vintage & Handmade Fair in Shoreham.

Emma Jane Faulkner from www.cakesandcatwalks.com combines her love of vintage fashion and baking to create these beautiful brooch biscuits.

Glossy shots of glamorous Sixties culture are regular features on TV and in magazines, but unless you’re lucky enough to have a keen photographer in the family, candid images of life as it was lived by those out of the spotlight are harder to come by…

Belle’s Events is hosting its first vintage and retro fair on 26 May and is offering one lucky Vintage Brighton reader the chance to win a stall for the day, plus a side-bar advert online.

Belle’s was founded when organisers Kelly and Joss Wickon started hiring out their VW Beetle ‘Belle’ to wedding parties in early 2012 and identified a growing demand for vintage events.

“I’ve been blown away by some of the divine vintage and retro ideas I’ve come across at our fairs”, says Kelly. “The wedding events have given me taste for running a more general vintage and retro fair as there is so much scope.”

The Horsham fair will offer vintage and retro fashion, accessories, furniture, kitchenalia, homewares and toys, as well a pop-up vintage tea room, beauty parlour, photo booth and makers’ craft corner.

For your chance to win a pitch at the fair (worth £48) plus a side-bar advert on the event homepage (worth £30), simply leave a comment on this post telling us about your favourite vintage fair find. Deadline for entries is 28 March and a winner will be picked at random and contacted via the e-mail address used to comment during the week commencing 1 April.

Simon Webster doesn’t do strained conversations about holidays. Rather, the artistic director of the North Laine’s vintage-specialist salon Simon Webster Hair is more likely to arrange meet-ups with his customers at one of Brighton’s numerous specialist vinyl nights.

Vintage Brighton editor Jo-ann Fortune pounds the hilly streets of Edinburgh in search of the best vintage and charity shops in the city centre. 

Lewes-based photographer Sarah Olivier has collaborated with a team of local fashion talent to create a stunning set of images at De La Warr Pavilion, inspired by the 1920s/30s.

Stylist and fashion editor Jade Stavri opened her first vintage boutique, Scarlet Rage Vintage in Crouch End, last summer after years on the vintage fair circuit, and in November brought her hand-picked selection of 1920s to 1950s gems to Lewes with a second shop.

Having been tipped as a top trend for autumn/winter 12/13 by fashion houses including Burberry Prorsum, Vivienne Westwood and Ralph Lauren at last February’s Fashion Weeks, tweed is central to this season’s English Heritage look.

Vintage Brighton has been offering side-bar advertising on the site for well over a year now, and in that time has helped promote dozens of great vintage events, boutiques and services.

We aim to keep side-bar advertising affordable so that local outfits don’t have to think twice about using the site to help expand their reach, and that’s why we’ll be keeping advertising rates at just £25 a month for 2013, and offering January advertising for just £20!

All you need to do to take advantage of this deal is book in your side-bar advert before 22 December by e-mailing vintagebrighton@gmail.com. We’ll need a 300 (width) x 250 (height) advertising image that will link directly to your website.

Vintagebrighton.com now attracts over 19,000 page-views a month and we’ve had some great feedback from advertisers this year.

Daryl Bowen, organiser of Chichester’s Vintage & Very Nice Market, said: “After the advert went live we had interest from traders and visitors and the first event we held after the advert went live we saw an almost 80% rise in visitors, many stating that they had seen the advert.”

If you’re scratching your head over what to get for a vintage-loving friend or relative this Christmas, you may just find your answer at Truc vintage.

An online boutique specialising in antique, vintage, retro and secondhand fashion, accessories, gifts and homewares, Truc takes its name from the French for ‘thingummy’ or ‘whatsit’.

Owner Lindsey Jones explains the philosophy behind the brand: “Ultimately we offer ‘beautiful old things’ of varying kinds. There are only two criteria: Firstly, they must be old or pre-loved and secondly, they must be gorgeous, unique or interesting.”

Among the treasures to be discovered are Italian and Scandinavian art glass pieces, retro kitchen and barware, quirky table lamps and vintage books. For catwalk-conscious vintage lovers, regularly updated collections are curated with a nod to the current season’s key trends, with fashion stories for AW12 including country styling, oriental luxury and purple – the colour of the season.

Found out how you could win £75 to spend at www.truc-shop.com by reading the full post…

This year Brighton is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Artists Open Houses Christmas festival over the first three weekends of December (1/2, 8/9 and 15/16).

Marking the start of the festive season, AOH offers a chance to buy unique pieces from the best local artists and makers at 54 venues, many of whom look to the styles of the past for inspiration or use vintage materials to create new works of art. Here, Helen Cann champions vintage-inspired talents from three different types of media.

Fashion & textiles

Fashion and textiles always play an important part in the vintage lovers’ open house experience. Barbara Jones’ is showing clothes and homeware in colourful 1950s style inspired fabrics at her house at 99 Ditchling Rise. Flirty frocks are beautifully retro. Quilts are made from genuine vintage fabrics, all handmade and totally unique. And homewares such as cushions and zip bags come in playful patterns and make gift buying decisions easy.

Paper-based art

Paper-based 2D work shows up strongly in the Artists Open Houses this Christmas. Mid-century styles influence Lou Taylor’s striking papercuts, showing at the AT Open House, 42 Hendon St. Bold colours and geometric cuts reference ’50s synchronised swimming routines, classic cinema scenes and the elegance of ’30s fashion magazine covers.

Just in time to solve those Christmas gift conundrums, the Vintage Brighton x Southern Retro vintage interiors book is available in soft-back at the reduced price of £23.95.

As well as stunning full-room shots, Your Inspection Welcome: Modern Vintage Interiors features interviews with 10 owners of vintage-inspired homes in the South East, plus the stories behind their favourite finds. The editors also share interior tales from their own flats in the coffee table book.

Having been featured in titles including Vintagexplorer magazine, Vintage Life, Heart & Home and The Argus, to name but a few, Your Inspection Welcome has been called “fascinating”, “beautiful” and “inspirational”, and readers agree: “It is a real treat to dip into this colourful, well-produced book,” says Helen Smedley. “The inhabitants of these quirky and individualistic homes simply radiate enthusiasm and make you want to spend an evening, at least, in their company!”

A great Christmas present for vintage-lovers in Brighton and beyond, you can order your copy at www.blurb.co.uk.

To celebrate the exhibition documenting her life’s work, Barbara Hulanicki has created two new illustrations, which feature in a new range of products on sale at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery.