The Chap Olympiad.

The internet is now awash with pictures of the Chap Olympiad and certainly the attendees were awash, bejesus it rained.  I expect the majority of people reading this know of this event but if not, my beloved came up with the idea in the pub, when drinking, which contrary to his assertions is not generally his finest hour. Seven years on it is still going. I’ve had a real moan about the mass media hype/hijack of the word ‘vintage’, but if there ever was a scene appended to this curious word, and it was a good thing…its chief jamboree would resemble something like the Chap Olympiad, held last Sunday in Bedford Square.

Redlegs and Naomi of Vintage Secret

This year could become known as the year of the Great Chap Flood, I went fully equipped, in a small straw hat, a pastel blue dress and cream shoes. With the exception of snow I tend to ignore London weather being a strong believer in the efficacy of ‘gin-proofing’ to make oneself impervious to all the elements. My imperviousness extended to refusals to be spanked by Atters (really!) or to compete much. My stab at shouting at the foreigner rapidly descended into hug the foreigner on the basis that said foreigner was too appealing to be shouted at. I’m useless, or a tart, I embraced Bell the Butler too. 

There are several things to treasure about the Olympiad, it is full of genuinely friendly people. It is not elitist but the usual rent a mob with false taches and polyester flapper frocks are largely absent. It is not a place for donning costume but for pulling your absolutely favourite rags out of the closet and wearing them, no matter what they be. People compete in events for..gasp..fun.  Attendees come from all over the place, one Californian chap proposed to his girlfriend in the middle of the swooning tournament. Deckchairs were trashed, butlers baited, ironing boards surfed on and men forced into sundresses to compete. An array of stylish and downright funky dancemoves were displayed and massive amounts of booze and cucumber sandwiches were despatched with barely a cross word during the whole event.

The only very minor irritations were the media, who did at least produce nice film shows after the event, the inclement weather and the drink confiscating chaps who were a tad zealous. The wonderful Chap Magazine produce a wonderful day out…roll on 2012 and the only Olympiad worth two figs (and bit of grated nutmeg).

Meanwhile I’ll leave you with some photographs of the event , gleaned (stolen) from Tony Lee, Fleure De Guerre, Laura D'Alessio, Karen Hendry, Mathew Howard and Manthe Penton Harrap (who will let me know if they are peeved I’m sure) because I left my camera in a case and got rapidly too caught up to use it! They express the feel of the day more than my verbal dribblings can.

Were you there? Has your tweed finally dried out? Billet doux and memorandums always welcomed. xxx

Chaps waiting to make chapettes swoon...

My abortive attempt as a competitor.

Evil competitor makes use of midget...

Dancing in the rain...

Chap Olympiad tiffin.

Not playing tennis...

Doing things with hats...the chappist perversion.

Matt of Lewes.

Torquil Arbuthnot fighting off Manthe's ferocious fox..

Where is his hand?

Secretary guarding bulldogs...

T'was wet.

So put on your bathing costume!

Rainbow hued vintage mafia.

Redleg's Retro Rave Up!

I didn’t go to Vintage at Goodwood, and although people had a good time on reflection, weather, queues, primark an’ all I am quite glad I didn’t. However it is all well and good (and a national pastime) to have a good moan but have any of us considered how we would go about it ourselves? I have thought about the kind of vintage event(s) I’d enjoy and came to the conclusion of how I’d do it. Welcome to Redleg’s Retro Rave-Up (first thing I would do is change the name!)

Era. I’d go for an inclusive 20’s/30’s and 40’s theme. The reasons for this are that:

a) The 20’s and 30’s are under-represented.

b) The 40’s on it’s own gets bogged down in the war which are covered in re-enactment events although forties home-front style would be welcomed.

c) The music and dance of the period, jazz, swing, big band, lindy-hop, jive etc works across the periods and might appeal to fifties fans too.

Location. Smaller events appeal to me and this kind of location would suit:

a) Somewhere like Bisley where the Hotrod Hayride is held. It is close to London, near a major train line, has camping facilities and a charming retro-feel. No Glamping or camp apartheid.

b) A London park ie Victoria or Crystal Palace Parks. Easy to get to, a huge range of accommodation on the doorstep and historical park features (boating lakes, bandstands, dinosaurs). Plus profits go to local council.

c) Cost: daily advance entry, reasonable pitch and vendor charges to cover licensing, security, amenities and clean-up. Sponsorship welcome only from relevant suppliers ie: gin and lingerie companies.

Organisation. Divide into four sections:

a) The Chap Olympiad in one section (because you can never have too many Chap Olympiads!)

b) A vintage fete: beer and cider tents, entertainment marquees and bands, performers and activities. And bumper cars.

c) Vintage flea market: vendors, vintage emporiums.

d) Arena. Area for display of cars, motorbikes, bicycles, utility vehicles and other shiny things that people are proud of.

Things I’d like to see?

A dress code at the entry gates.

Lectures on dress from various periods and how to preserve, care and clean vintage clobber. Fan painting.

Men’s hat doffing classes.

A dog show.

A fashion show a la the Chapwalk but where visitors can sign up on the day and show off their best togs.

A bonfire of jeans to end the day with pagan purification.

Now I just need someone with a bit of cash to help out with the funding.

Would you come to this or do you have ideas for your perfect vintage beano, please share, who knows perhaps a future organiser might listen, so please comment. x

Chap Olympiad 2010

The contestants await their fate..

The Chap Olympiad has come and gone, again and once more the Internet is awash with photographs; it is a very photogenic event. I am remarkably unphotogenic, I will always look like a double chinned housemistress enjoying a private joke.

Vivien of Holloway frock, vintage bolero jacket, hair by Betty.

But despite this I enjoy my one day of sanctuary, ensconced in a little green oasis of fecund Bloomsbury amongst hordes of other people that think (some) of modern life is rubbish. As you join the queue, or circumvent it (I’m a Magellan of queue circumnavigation) you are immediately struck by three things: the stylishness of the vast majority of the attendees, the friendliness and the familiar faces. There are people you only seem to see at the Chap Olympics. A familiar refrain is ‘where do they all come from?’ Well they come from all over the place. As do the photographers. Chap Olympians wonder who will win the Getty picture steeple chase every year….

My experience of the event varies, once I had to deal with a profoundly drunk bearded one who could only stand up when supported by a couple of burlesque dollies. Another saw a triumph in the gin martini relay, enhanced by a hat so large my unphotogenic face was largely hidden. Then there was a hot Saturday in Hampstead which basically involved sitting on a blanket knocking back cava and nibbling quails eggs until I was incapable of movement or indeed thought.

The Chap Olympiad has a number of things to recommend it, apart from the variety of potential experiences. One is that its resolute promoting of amateurism, eccentric sporting and events cocks an elegant snook at the revolting orgy of corporate arrogant dullardism that infuses all major sporting events. We don’t need their cocacolaMacanike extravaganzas in citizen murdering nations. Stuff ‘em.

Is it Bloomsbury or Casablanca.

We want the cucumber discus, and jugs of pink cocktails and twirly taches. In the spirit of this, whilst the organisers lay on the props and some vague semblance of organisation (albeit of the Dad’s Army variety of organisation) those in attendance make the entertainment.

Fleur de Guerre and the ultimate winner of the event square off.

There is pleasure in observing the well dressed hordes. NOT in ‘costume’, something I wish the meedja could get their heads around but in their Sunday/Saturday any damned day of the week best.

Then the snippets of conversation are endlessly amusing. There are the dogs in neckties, men in bathing costumes plus stevedores, dandies and vintage poppets strewn across the acreage gossiping, making arch comments or indeed talking absolute rubbish: in an elegant inebriated way. Several hundred tickets were sold and people were drinking steadily all day (hurrah!) yet there was not a single fight (well apart from the competitors).

As one virgin Olympian noted people were overwhelmingly friendly and genuinely interesting. It would not be going too far to say it is a joyful occasion. The Chap Olympiad crowd burst into song, impromptu umbrella duels and flamboyant congas at the drop of a top hat.

The gathering of the tribes that takes place is also refreshing: steam punks, tweedy gents, tattooed rock chicks and Victorian flaneurs loll about in what the editor of the chap, Gustav Temple, might describe as a state of ‘chumradery’.

Of course all is not perfect. The cakes sold out. And not even the Chap Magazine can legislate against the presence of the odd annoying charmless ‘look at me’ bore. Whilst gentlemen attendees had almost all made an effort a few young ladies had decided that as they were young and pretty they would just turn up in festival style crap. Lads, if you invite them next year, be kind and treat ‘em to a tea dress they looked like Poundland plastic tulips in a sea of real daisies.

However the sight of decadent ruin at 9pm when those having to return to the outposts of Chapdom had departed was reassuring. Dancing continued on the stage. Bodies lolled around on the grass, wine and cocktails were being consumed. Even the debris was stylish….

Some of the photos on here are from taras curiak's flickr account.

Not a field in Somerset but a Square in Bloomsbury...

"My wife got dressed up like Worzel Gummidge, put some bog roll in a bag and roared off in her Aston Martin to watch a bunch of useless teenagers singing in the rain at Glastonbury. I think she may have gone mad."

- Jeremy Clarkson

I am writing this because if I post it now, you dear reader still have a chance to get a ticket for the one festival I can wholeheartedly recommend and to another which is brand new and I would go to if it were not for a pronounced aversion to tents. That last sentence was probably enough to suggest that the ‘festival’is not my natural environment. I can see why teenagers might enjoy it, they enjoy just about anything that doesn’t include their parents and does include drugs.

In the past I’ll admit the open-air music festival did have an air of rebellious camaraderie. The exterior location redolent of pagan jollities, bandit festivities, revolting peasants and inclusive of recreational pursuits plus large bonfires was appealing. The lack of hard-sell, the cheapness of comestibles and the ad hoc entertainment made enduring hadean toilets, people peeing against your tents and indeed the struggle that is the tent itself tolerable. I can tell you that applying full Goth makeup in a 2 metre tall sodden Woolworth’s tent is no mean feat! The only establishment figures in evidence were a few disgruntled young policemen and the St John’s ambulance chaps providing a remarkably good natured ‘drunk’, ‘drugged’ or ‘ill’ triage service. There were very few twats, very little money and a great variety of people generally misbehaving in a harmless manner.

But look at festivals now. Hienously expensive mega-events that cost a week’s wages to attend. Tent segregation with the rich in their gypsy caravans and yurts. Sponsorship by major corporations. Pages on festival-fashion in the Daily Mail. Some festivals such as Bestival or the Secret Garden party attempt to carve a niche or be different but they cannot do much about the costs or some of their clientele. If I wanted to spend a weekend surrounded by accountants or management consultants Glastonbury would be absolutely the place to go. The urban working class type have no place unless they are serving burgers or looking after a bouncy castle. Nowadays an Oxbridge May Ball is more ‘alternative’.

However this years brand newVintage at Goodwood festival looks intriguing. If it attracts retro-types there will be an initial weeding of the festival goers. However it has extended its brief to cover the 70’s and 80’s so there may be a few twatkids in the mix, and like a mozzie in your room at night they are difficult to ignore. Nonetheless if I were not busy I would fancy it as a day ticket is not too expensive. The problem, as ever, is accommodation. The dreaded tent. There are the usual posh options which are unaffordable. Herein lies the rub. I know I cannot look nice staying in a tent, I know I will not sleep, I know they are insecure and my stuff may well get stolen. I cannot afford to spend the money I would spend on a holiday abroad on resolving these problems. Moreover I suspect that a major appeal of this festival is its shopping possibilities. But it may be worth a visit, Goodwood has form in organising retro events and I know some very nice people who will be there.

However I will get to go to the Chap Olympiad (a mini-me version of which is appearing at Vintage Goodwood). This was originally conceived of by the bearded one, as an antidote to events such as the Olympics; tainted as it is by it’s association with Coca Cola, corruption, winning at all costs and bad politics. The Chap Olympiad supports ideals of amateurism and fun leavened with a generous dose of surrealism. Competitors enter events such as ‘The Gin Martini Relay’, ‘Umbrella Jousting’ and ‘The Cucumber Sandwich Discus’. It is unsurprisingly organised by the Chap magazine, a publication with a long established anti-corporatist pro-eccentric stance. The Dandy Fop Anarchist hordes are gathered into Bedford Square for a day that promotes losing stylishly, or winning stylishly…if you must. The atmosphere is hard to describe but one friend felt it redolent of an episode of the Avengers. Certainly neither Steed not Mrs Peel would look or indeed feel out of place.

What particularly marks it out is the variety of attendees: steam punks preen, chaps wander around twirling moustaches and the only ‘rock chicks’ here are resplendent in fluffy skirts and kiss curls. Also how you enjoy yourself is up to you, no herd mentality. One year I am ashamed to say I was captain of the winning Martini Relay team, another year I spent in a champagne induced haze under a parasol. Unlike other festivals the portaloos are clean, the ticket prices reasonable and the only tents are protecting those carrying out such important jobs as providing tea or gin. Nor will it be commentated on by Edith Bowman or feature caterwauling indie bands or talentless R & B stars. The only powder encrusted around one’s nose will be loose face powder and Top Shop will not be selling Olympiad themed clothes manufactured by children in Laos. The only potential hazard is the lesser-striped moustachioed quail egg scoffer but even he asks first. In short the Chap Olympiad has the drugs (snuff), the sexy people (seamed stockings a go-go) and the Rock (and Roll) So get yourself a ticket …and if you do buy me a drink because this blogging is a thirsty business!

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