I've only gone and found myself another vintage Afghan nomad dress to add to my collection. Worn by the Kuchi, Afghanistan's nomadic tribe, these dresses - usually made from heavy cotton - feature a hand-embroidered bodice with a notch opening than can be worn at the front or the back and have wide sleeves and a very full skirt. They were traditionally worn over trousers that gather at the ankle with a chador (headscarf) to cover the hair. The dress with the black skirt and the one alongside it with the mirrored inserts on the bodice are traditional dresses that would have once been worn by the tribal woman themselves while the others were produced especially for export to the West, when the hip and trendy became obsessed with ethnic fashion in the late '60s/early 1970s. Ethnic dresses are hugely popular and deservedly so, even Zara do passable imitations, but the original versions can go for crazy amounts of money. It took me a few years to find an Afghan dress at an affordable price but, as any collector will tell you, as soon as you finally find the item you've been searching for, like buses, others soon start turning up. I could gaze at images of Kuchi women in their traditional dress all day. I was definitely born in the wrong country, tweed, tartan, pearls and Burberry raincoats in endless neutral shades, the clothes we Brits are well known for, have never appealed. SOURCE Give me rich vegetable-dyed cottons, intricate embroidery, sparkling mirrorwork and lashings of heavy metal jewellery that clanks when you move. SOURCE SOURCE SOURCE SOURCE SOURCE SOURCE Despite their bastard massive size the oxidised tribal earrings I'm wearing aren't visible in my photos. Like the dress they're vintage Kuchi and were a lucky find on eBay. WEARING: 1970s Afghan nomadic dress & Reiss wool fedora (both eBay), 1960s cranberry suede & patent leather go-go boots (car boot sale over a decade ago) Unless you live under a rock you'll know all about Thursday's UK general election results and, like 99.9% of my friends, I'm utterly devastated but here's a vote with results that made me very happy indeed..... Not only did I win Best Blog in the Vintage Pony Awards 2019 but also Vintage Guy/Gal! I can't promise that I'll change anything with my win, I shall just continue in the way I always have done, dressing from head-to-toe in vintage clothes and writing about stuff that interests me to anyone willing to read it. Thank you so much to everyone who was kind enough to vote for me and for putting a smile back on my face for the first time in days. See you soon!