Advantage In Vintage

Today I need some vintage help

2012-01-24T11:10:00.000Z

A big hello to all my lovely blog followersand readers. Today I’m after some assistance. I’m currently writing mydissertation all about the wearing of historical dress in the public andprivate environment so I want to ask all the lovely people out there somequestions and I would really appreciate some answers!

So here goes the questions:

Whatare your primary reasons for wearing vintage?

Arethere particular occasions when you wouldn’t wear vintage?

Areyou in fear of damaging the garments you wear?

Whatare the oldest garments you would wear?

Doyou consider the environmental impact of the clothes you wear? Is wearingvintage important to you because of the lower impact on the environment?

Doyou think about the provenance of the pieces you wear? Would a piece having astrong provenance (for example being by an important designer or knowing thefull details of who owned it before) make you more or less likely to wear agarment?

I’m actually going to answer them all too.Just to give everyone a little insight into my own vintage wearing philosophy!

I’ve gone for full blown long windedanswers here but just a line on each would be super helpful : )

So yes, just a few little questions I’mputting out there. If anyone wants to help me out please do drop me an email

liztregenza@hotmail.com

Whatare your primary reasons for wearing vintage?

For me vintage is all about personalexpression. I’m obsessed not just with vintage clothes themselves but also withthe history connected with them. I’m a passionate wannabe fashion historian andI think this really comes across in the way I dress. When I go out dressessolely in modern clothes I just don’t feel the same level of comfort or self confidencethat I do when I wear vintage.

I love wild bold prints and have anobsession with anything novelty, I find that in vintage clothing I have a lotmore opportunities to find such crazy prints (which I have to say fit in mywith my sometimes a bit mental/ obsessive personality)

One of my all time fave novelty prints

Arethere particular occasions where you wouldn’t wear vintage?

Not really no. I have such a varied vintagewardrobe that I have vintage for any and every occasion, and I find it is rarethat I ever go out in a total non-vintage outfit (if it’s not vintage clothesthen shoes or accessories, my current day handbag is a luscious alligator skinbag).

Areyou in fear of damaging the garments you wear?

Yes, and I’ve paid the price. I’ve haddrink spilt down a number of my favourite vintage dresses at parties (by myselfand also by others too). I’malways in fear of anything in mint condition I have to say because with vintagegarments, particularly vintage silk it can be hard to clean! A lot of pieces Iwear do have the odd alteration here, and stain there which makes me feel a lotmore comfortable about wearing them, because I don’t feel like I’m damagingtheir potential historical value bywearing them. Weirdly though this doesn’t seem to apply to my 50s cotton circleskirts. I think nearly every one I own is in perfect condition yet I have nofear of wearing these, partly I think because they are so easy to care for!

Whatare the oldest garments you would wear?

My 30s jacket, one of my few forays into older vintage

This is trickyas it does depend hugely on condition. Although I know realistically I wouldnever wearing anything from the 1920s or earlier. Generally I don’t wear anything earlier than 40s. Although,I do own a late 30s jacket, dress and suit which I wear occasionally but feelthat they are too fragile. I would only wear them to places where I would have to move around toomuch or risk getting things spilt on me etc. I tend to stick to wearing fabricswhich are durable and I know how to care for such as cottons. I always have abit of a fear of heavily embellished or very fine fabrics. For example as muchas I adore them and would love to own one I would never wear an embellished1920s dress because they are just too fragile, and also too rare. I feel thatitems such as this deserve to be preserved and shouldn’t be worn.

Do you consider the environmental impact of theclothes you wear? Is wearing vintage important to you because of the lowerimpact on the environment?

I really wish I was more environmentallyconcerned than I am, but when it comes down to it, for me this is always anafter thought rather than my primary concern. I find that with vintage and modernclothes I have completely different attitudes to wear and repair. If a moderngarment gets a stain or damage I’ll get rid of it. With a vintage garment Iwould always find a way to work round it and try and bring it back to life.Even when a vintage item is knackered I always consider it to have reusepotential. I’ll often sell stuff on ebay with the suggestion that a patterncould be made from it.

Provenance is a huge deal for me. I amforever asking sellers on ebay if they know where a piece came from (much totheir annoyance I’m sure) 3 of my most prized dresses have a wonderful historyworn by a lady as her dress for her engagement party, her second dress for herwedding and her favourite party dress. Whenever I wear each of these I alwaysmake a point to tell people about them. Even with my modern clothes I get likethis though I like to hold onto things with memories and connections, andvintage offers me the opportunity to do this more than modern clothes evercould. For example even if I don’t know where something came from there isoften the option to do research into the label or the brand to find out more.

Anciently old photo of me with two of my best friends (May 2008) in one of my three dresses that belonged to the same lady

Although, sometimes provenance for me wouldalso stop me wearing a dress. For example some of the pieces I own I wouldn’tdream of wearing as they are too rare or too good an example of a particulardesigners work, but to me these items are no longer vintage pieces they’realmost something else “artifacts” I suppose.

Thanks everyone!

The Duchess of Devonshire's ball 1897

2012-01-20T11:16:00.000Z

The Duchess of Devonshire in her dress by Worth. The dress is now kept at Chatsworth house

I hate fancy dress I HATE HATE HATE it with a passion. I am often known torefuse to go to a party if it has a theme, yet day to day I wear vintage, whichsome people would probably consider as a form of fancy dress. Maybe my hatredcomes from the fact that I feel some people have issues with the way I dressand that I look like a pastiche of the past? Who knows.

It is rather strange therefore that one of my keyresearch obsessions with relation to dress and textile history is that of fancydress. I have an alarming addiction to thr bright young people, a group whichCecil Beaton was part of. Beaton once commented that they wold not wear normalclothes for weeks on end!

And another of my obsession is the Duchess ofDevonshire ball of 1897. I was doing a little bit off research on it for mydissertation so I thought I would share some of the amazing images I discoveredand a little more info on it too.

All of the details for each of the images comes froman excellent V and A microsite about the Layfayette studios who took theseimages. Many of these went on to appear in the newspapers of the day such aspicture post and Lady’s chronicle.

1897 was a significant year in thiscountries history, and similarites can be drawn between this year and 1897 asthey were celebrating the monach, Queen Victoria’s, Diamond jubilee.

In the summer of 1897 the Duke and Duchessof Devonshire threw a ball for 700 guests at Devonshire House on Piccadilly,over 700 guest attended with the theme being "allegorical or historicalcostume before 1815".

The Duchess of Devonshire herself is a pretty fascinatingcharacter, known as the “Double duchess” she was first duchess of Manchestercaught in an unhappy marriage, before finally marrying Spencer ComptonCavendish (Duke of Devonshire) in the 1890s and becoming the “Double duchess”.

The costumes came from a wide variety of sources, some usedoriginal historical costumes (Alfred of Saxe Coburg reportedly borrowed a suitof armour from the famed collector of historical dress Seymour Lucas) but mostwere made by the famous costumiers and even couture designers of the day. Alarge constituent of the dresses coming from Worth in Paris and from thecostumier Alias in the U.K.

This is the dress worn by Lady Paget andwas supposedly the most expensive costume at the ball, reputably costing over$6,000 dollars from Worth in Paris (not entirely sure how much this translatesto, but needless to say I think it was around 10X the wage of an averageAmerican for an entire year at the time…this detail might be a bit out though)

Queen Maud (centre) and the dress she wore for the Devonshire ball as the character lady in waiting to Marguerite de Valois

The Duchess of Portland as the Duchess of Savoia. Her costume is the one to the right of the image. This was exhibited for the Victoria and Albert landmark exhibition "Fashion: An anthology" by Cecil Beaton and was one of the earliest objects he acquired.

Lady Randolph Churchill ( Winston Churchill's mother) as Empress Theodora in a costume by Worth

Princess Daisy of Pless as the Queen of Sheba. The cloth alone for this dress reportedly cost over £400 at the time

Mrs Claud Cole-Hamilton as Amy Robsart

Marquise d'Hautpoul de Seyre, as Elsa in Wagner's Lohengrin. The costume Julia wore to the Ball is an exact copy of the bride's costume worn in by the Belgian soprano, Rose Caron, as Elsa in Wagner's 1848 opera Lohengrin

Probably my personal favourite Viscountess Curzon as Queen Marie Leczinska

There are plenty of wonderful websites with many more images out there that i urge you to go and have a look at, i have only selected a few favourites!

http://www.rvondeh.dircon.co.uk/dhb/

http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1158_lafayette/categories.php?category=dhb&&page_number=

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O139027/fancy-dress-costume-duchess-of-savoia/

http://judithweingarten.blogspot.com/2009/08/double-duchess-and-zenobia.html

What I've been buying lately: Suits, dresses and jackets galore

2012-01-14T14:41:00.001Z

Today I thought I would share with you allsome of my recent purchases, my very kind Nanna and Great Aunt both gave mesome money for Christmas so I have been lucky enough to have a little bit ofspare cash to spend on vintage!

I’ll start off by saying I’m actuallyfeeling really let down by ebay at the moment, well in the UK at least. I amfinding that there are less and less sellers out there offering high qualityvintage pieces that are accurately described. There are a few exceptions,Lestervintage is one such seller. I’ve bought from this seller before and theiritems are always exactly as described. I also really appreciate how wellphotographed they are. Another on this list is redappleclothing who again Ihave bought from in the past.

The problem seems to be the sheer volume ofincorrect listings out there. I’ve ended up with three paltry eighties copiesof 50s dresses lately due to people insisting things are genuine 50s that arenot. If you aren’t sure, state it!

So yes, this means my vintage buyinghabbits have swerved overseas and I’ve been buying quite a few bits fromAmerica, something I never used to do for fear of a)import charges and b) theitems taking an age to arrive.

This has surprisingly not been the case andI’ve been really happy with the items I’ve picked up from the US and the priceI’ve paid including postage.

Here are a few of my recents.

First off these lovely two Bobbi Brooksjackets which I think cost me under £40 for the two and from America. They arein MINT condition and are really versatile too. They both look amazing withjeans, and when the weather warms up a little more I’m sure they will become myspringtime failsafes.

I also bought this SENSATIONAL 40s redsuit. I’m sure it only cost $45, it wasn’t expensive at all. The quality ofthis piece is quite frankly wonderful. It has padded weighted pockets it is beautifullylined in silk throughout and has a really strong metal zipper. The fabric issome sort of Gaberdine and its pretty warm. I think come February I’ll bewearing this number regularly. I’m not normally one for wearing red (I think itlooks a bit funny with my skintone) but the colour really looks good on, andeven better the suit makes me feel amazing.

Then onto this lovely little Blanes dress.Another of my obsessive collecting labels. I believe this dress is a veryearly 60s piece and is a sensational fit too. What gives this dress the edge isits lovely cowl draping at the back. I just need to find a belt to go with itnow. Hmmmm….

I also wanted to show the fact that I don’tonly buy vintage and sometimes the odd new piece creeps into my wardrobe too. Ibought this during the week in Leeds as my finishing coursework treat tomyself. I love a good bit of zingy orange and it has some little side splitsfor added interest. I bought it in the Whistles sale and it was reduced from(if memory serves me correctly) £175 to £40. Ace! I just want to apologise formy drag queen worthy make up in these pictures, unfortunately the light in myroom is absolutely horrendous and I can never tell until I leave the housequite how heavily I have clarted the make up on!

Celia Birtwell book: A review and investigation

2012-01-10T15:52:00.003Z

For Christmas I receiveda rather delightful book that I had wanted for a while the new book on Celia Birtwell. What I like about this book is that it is a real marriagebetween beautiful images of original garments, Celia’s prints and tales fromthe time. It gives you an insight into Celia’s life and also helps you to better understand herprints. It not only gives an insight into her heyday in the late 60s and 70sbut brings you right up to the present. For any print aficionado I cantrecommend it highly enough.

I have a bit of a book obsession. This is my book shelf in my uni house. Almost all of these books are about fashion history with a few books dotted in about some of my other random obsessions too (graffiti, mid century typography Dali and Gaudi feature heavily)

What I also reallyliked was that it gave me a few more clues into the interesting links betweenAlice Pollock, Ossie Clark, Quorum and Radley. Which has been one of my bigvintage obsessive research areas of the past six months.

Reading the bookhelped me to uncover something really interesting. This is the Celia prints onRadley dresses debate. Something that I’d long known about was that Ossie wasfiercely protective over Celia’s designs and whilst designing for Radley Celiararely produced any designs for Radley which were not on Ossie dress designs.Why therefore does the odd definite Celia print occur on Radley dresses withoutthe magic Ossie name too?

Well, the book shedssome light on this Ossie stopped working with Radley in 1973 but Celiacontinued to work with Radley (producing 2 fabric collections a year) until1976. It would appear therefore that those unmistakable Celia designs that aresometimes seen on Radley dresses without the accompanying Ossie name datebetween 73-76. Helping me to date my own lovely Celia Birtwell printdress.

The book helped mefurther with this dress too. Whilst I’m still not 100% sure of the exact printit is definitely one of her bouquet prints which were some of her most populardesigns.

I love a good bit offashion investigation, and I highly recommend purchasing this book too!

This is how 2011 looked for me

2011-12-30T17:35:00.001Z

With my beautiful best friend

I can’t believe that 2011is coming to an end, it is a petrifying thought. 2011 has been the best year ofmy life. I remember at the end of 2010 my best friend and I Katie Rickard statingthis is going to be our “year of opportunities” and goodness me, it has been(This is true for both of us by the way, my amazing best friend this year got afirst in her undergrad degree from Warwick in politics and internationalstudies, is now doing a paid internship with the OSC and has been offered aplace at Oxford for her masters).

I started off the year working for Hampshire museums service on my placement, which I began in 2010. Although, it was really 2011 that was my crowning glory. Seeing the Little Black dress exhibition that I had worked so hard on open in February and receive amazing comments and feedback was really enthralling. It felt like such a vindication to see all of the wonderful objects I had chosen bring back memories and provide people with inspiration. One of the best things though was seeing the exhibition awarded with a guide award in November 2011 for “best exhibition”. Wonderful stuff!

I continued my time atthe museum service working on a number of other wonderful projects and meetingsome truly amazing people. Although one thing I have to say is that myplacement allowed me to meet one of the most wonderful people I know, mysupervisor Alison Carter. Alison knows more about dress history than I think Icould ever aspire to know. In the time I worked with her she taught me so muchand offered me so many opportunities. Not only is she a fantastic curator andhistorian but she is also one of the loveliest most giving people I have met,and I don’t think 2011 would have been even half of what it was without her.

This year blogging andtwitter have taken me to all new places ( I now have more views on my blog perday than I got per month at the beginning of the year!) Social media allowed meto meet Naomi Thompson, one of the friendships I feel most privlledged to havemade this year. Naomi is best known as stylish and vintage personal shopperVintage Secret. I helped Naomi out with her book Style Me Vintage which is outin February. (Just a tad exciting!) You can pre order on Amazon now!!! Naomi isanother insanely kind and generous person who has allowed me to see somewonderful pieces from her collection and also allowed me into the vintage worldof London. Without her I don’t think I would have plucked up the courage to goto some of the events I have been to.

On the Beautiful Naomi's birthday in December. She was poorly, but still looks lovely as ever i think :)

Photo by Hanson Leatherby

Undoubtedly two of the best nights I have been on this year have been The Vintage Mafia presents the Ric Rac Club. Fine frocks and fine company. Even if one did leave me with a horrendous drunken injury (scarred hands, scraped knees and a bruised chin anyone?)

Sophie, Simone and I at the second Ric Rac Club, photo by Hanson Leatherby

Both of these events Iwent to alone. But everyone was so welcoming that it didn’t matter. I have tosay special thanks to Mara, Johanna , Sophie,Simone and all of the VM for really making these events so fun!

I turned 21 in August too and I have to say a huge thanks to all of my beautiful friends that came. Especially to the Tribe girls. There is no need for a gushing love in here girls, you know how much i love you all : )

Some of the tribe girls on my 21st birthday

Coming back to University was a scary experience after a yearout. But I am in the process of writing my dissertation which I hope shouldbecome a piece of interesting an exciting research on the wearing of historicaldress. And my two design modules aren’t going anywhere near as badly as Ithought they might do.

And at the moment I am applying for masters, here I am with fingers crossedthat maybe I might just get offered a place at one of my universities ofchoice. I need to live the academic life!

Emily, Laura and I showing off our dance moves

I have to also offermy thanks to my wonderful housemates, Vic, Ally, Emily and Laura. I love themall to pieces and my uni experience wouldn’t have been half of what it iswithout them. I have to say a huge thanks to them too for putting up with thevintage selling I do from my bedroom, taking in the ridiculous number ofparcels I sell and putting up with all the fur coats I had stinking out theplace for months!

So yes, professionallife on track, uni life on track and for once maybe even my personal life is ontrack.

Wonderful.

Thanks for treating meso well 2011 and roll on 2012.

As Katie Rickard and Ihave defined it “A year of taking risks”

Nina Leen

2011-12-21T20:33:00.000Z

I absolutely adore a good bit of vintage photography, and I am a massive Beatonophile (yep, I’m really that obsessed with Sir Cecil that I have a word for it : )) So imagine my glee today when I came across a midcentury photographer whom I had never come across before.

Today I introduce you to Nina Leen. Leen was a Russian born photographer who primarily worked for Life magazine in America. She was very well known for her animal photography but I’m most interested in her fashion shoots. She started working for Life in 1945 producing over 40 covers for the magazine and countless other stunning shoots too! I love the way in which Leen organises her compositions very artfully done with a hint of quirkiness for good measure.

Look at these for novelty print circle skirts. Sigh. Want them all!

This beautiful lady comes from 1953. I adore her hat.

Another dreamy dress from 1949

Candid shot of a home ec class possibly?

Pretty vintage dresses

2011-12-17T18:37:00.000Z

I'm a bit quiet on le blog front at the moment as I'm working full time (loving life!). Just thought I would share a few outfits of late in the meantime : )

Loveeee this dress. I purchased this last Saturday from Hope and Harlequin in Brighton. The shop that got me into buying vintage in a BIG way. I wore this for the NSC christmas party. I had originally intended to wear a delightful pink sparkly number but due to a hideous knee injury i had to purchase something new to cover it up!

This delightful dress is a 30s heavy velvet example which i believe was probably altered in the 40s to give it a new life (I'm guessing a resourceful wartime alteration) I reckon it was probably originally full length and that the only fastening was the rouleau loop buttons. It now has a side zip and is much shorter than it would have been originally but that made it just right for me! A perfect seasonal little number : )

This dress was worn for a simple outing to the pub. It has pretty much become my failsafe winter dress as i seem to be incapable of buying any winter clothes. It is quite a heavy blended fabric, i think it has moygashel in it. It is "An original by Marie Phillips". I bought this dress over three years ago now and I must have worn it at least 20 times. It is a perfect berry like colour pallete. When i bought it I was told it was 1940s, and this I'd always believed until i started to think more carefully about how it buttons at the neckline. Increasingly i'm now thinking its a 50s number. No doubt it is a beauty though.

A mini rant on charity shop pricing

2011-12-11T22:04:00.001Z

So over in a little place I like to call “vintage land” on facebook wehave been discussing our anger at the overpriced nature of charity shops. Now,don’t get me wrong I am no kind of charity scrooge who hates giving money tocharity, No, no. Infact I really LIKE buying from charity shops because Itmakes me feel a little less guilty about the insane amount of money I spend onclothes ( I’m one of these crazy people who will often go without buying foodto buy more clothes and live off a diet consisting of only food my parents havebought me when they feel sorry for me or biscuits cos I love a good biscuit).

My problem all stems from the fact that a charity shop by the nature ofwhat it is should be about providing reasonably priced clothing for those whoneed it.

Madeline Ginsburg wrote a wonderful article for costume in 1980 whencharity shops were still in their infancy which succinctly explains this. (Thearticle is a very interesting piece about the second hand trade as a whole, butI’ve just picked out this section for your reading pleasure)

"The popularity and upgrading of the jumble sale has led toanother newdevelopment - the Nearly New or Charity Shop, now an important source of income for almost every welfare organization, though the form in which the accounts are published makes it impossible to isolate the profits of the clothing part of their stock. Usuallyhoused inrent-free centrally placedbut temporarily unlet properties, they have a pleasant atmosphere, encouraging to the needy and no deterrent to the merely curious. The stock is given, the staff voluntary and the overheads low. Choice is easy and the prices midway between jumble and the trade."

I’ve picked out two key statements:

They have a pleasant atmosphere, encouraging to the needy

ENCOURAGINGTO THE NEEDY. This is what charity shops should be about. It is not aboutcreating another high street boutique, it is not about isolating people. Itshould be about availability. Allowing people the opportunities for goodquality clothing at low prices!

Prices midway between jumble and the trade.

Can’twe go back to this???

Manycharity shops are so much more expensive than trade prices it is ridiculous. £89for an Aquascutum coat in Winchester. £55 for a Per una jacket in Cheam. £40for a Next jacket in York. It really is getting out of hand.

One ofthe joys of going into charity shops used to be the opportunity to find abargain. Now going into a charity shop often leaves me feeling distinctly sad. Ifeel like charity shops have changed so much in their meaning. The fuddy duddynature of the charity shop was one of the things that made them great, and MaryPortas trying to make every charity shop hip and trendy has actually destroyeda lot of what made going to charity hops an altogether fun experience.

Sothat is my two cents worth on it all!

My info comes from Madeleine Ginsburg, "Rags to Riches: The Second-Hand Clothes Trade 1700-1978," Costume 14 (1980

Welcome to my world: Adventure in my boudoir

2011-12-11T18:38:00.001Z

Today I’ve made it back down to good old Romsey. Which is my sometimeshometown. I’ve come back to find my room completely transformed from what itlooked like three months ago. My mum has been out of work for a while andclearly beautifying my bedroom is a way she has been spending her time!

I’ll take you on a quick tour (it’s only small!) and you can see some ofmy lovely vintage goodies : )

my mum likes making arty displays. The dress here is actually a new look dress that i've had for at least 7 years. Its such a sweet little piece. The handbag is a Mappin and Webb 1950s one.

Onto my wardrobe. The two dresses seen hanging are two personal favourites the black one is handpainted silk by London town and the blue number is one of my gorgeous Horrockses!

This is just a tiny selection of mine and my mums vintage jewellery collection. We have ALOT more

My lovely art deco dressing table. Apologies for all of the parcels piled up on the chair. Ebay addict o'clock.

A closer look at what is on my dressing table. The shoes were an absolute find and are amazing supple gold kid leather that date to around 1890. The vintage handbags are a mixture of mine and my mums. Handbags is how i started my vintage collecting habbits.

Two pairs of Rayne mules. Oh how i wish my feet were narrow enough for these!!!

My amazing 1930s light fittings. Aren't they stunning!

Oh and just a cheeky image of my Horrockses bedding with my original Horrockses dress. Just a little bit of a Horrockses super fan you could say.

And my lovely little illustrations on the wall that my mum and I picked up at a vintage fair in Halifax (P.s. I hate these curtains with a passion and they are the only part of my room that i dislike. I actually hope my mum reads this and gets the picture : ) : ) )

Matilda Etches: long forgotten couturier

2011-12-07T21:54:00.001Z

I have a bit of a thing forlong forgotten couturiers. Couture now is such a dying art and the couturesystem today is only a tiny proportion of what it once was. For example inFrance couture represented a thirdof the countries G.D.P in the late 1940s. Yet today there are just 11 officalmembers of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture

Britain on the other hand has a verydifferent couture legacy with couture houses often seeing their money made(unitl 1958 when presenting stopped) through debutante dresses. In Britiantoday the couture industry has allbut ceased to exest and those names who were once revered in a similar light tothe French couturiers (for example Hardy Amies and Bianca Mosca) are oftenforgotten.

Today I would like to introduce you to aparticular British couturier of note, Matilda Etches (sometimes seen as MatildaEthces-Homan). Etches for reasons I will discuss later has a very importantposition in terms of the acceptance of fashion into the museum world.

Etches was famed throughout the 40sparticularly for her fashionable yet innovative clothing that often featuredcareful sculptural detailing. I originally discovered her work when investigatinggarments using minimal seams. I then found this example of her work in the Vand A collection. The jacket here can be worn either as seen in the image orworn the other way round to create a dramatic peplum. The jacket must have beencreated as a circle for this to be possible.

Etches though should be remembered for her pivotalposition in terms of the Victoria and Albert museums acquisition policy. Etches had two of her pieces(seen here) accepted into the V and A collection in 1969. The pieces “were shown to senior Museum officials as keyacquisitions. They were the first modern fashion items to be accorded thishonour” (V and A website)

From correspondence of Madeleine Ginsburg to Matilda Etches-Homan,letter written 9 June 1969, following acceptance of the Etches collection &dossier

"The image of our 20thcentury costume collection has received a great boost through you! For thefirst time clothes from this century have been chosen to show the meeting ofour advisory committee - a honour usually reserved only for medievalembroideries. They are to see the Butterfly cape and the West African cottondress."

So all in all a prettyimportant lady in terms of British couture no doubt! I was also rather lucky tofind two pictures of her. These are from the Doris Langley Moores book “theWoman in fashion” and see Etches posing in a dress from 1900(above) and 1913(top of post)

Moore used key peoplein fashion of the day for this book, so Ethces must have clearly beenconsidered important enough in 1949 to be included!

(additional images from the V and A collections website)

30's film star glamour- Joan Crawford

2011-11-25T21:17:00.001Z

I absolutely adore the glamour ofHollywood in first half of the century but the stand out decade forme has to be the 1930s. This truly is the “golden age” and whenfilm and fashion were in perfect synchronicity. The 30s is oftenrecognized as the decade when Hollywood was dominating fashion ratherthan Paris, this had a lot to do with the audience at the time. Somany more women were able to see films in the cinema than ever wereable to see them in the Paris salons. Fashion was openiing up to newaucdieces and people were really able to understand how fashionsmoved and actually looked on bodies rather than seeing them in staticform in fashion magazines. Interestingly it was Schiaparelli (oneof my all time favourite designers) who was the first couturier torecognise the influence of film on fashion.

One of the most famous stars of thedecade was Joan Crawford. Crawford appeared in numerous filmsthroughout the 30s but the film she is probably best known for isLetty Lynton. The film is incredibly rare with few originalrecordings left. This is mostly due to the fact that the film wasbanned in the 30s as the plot following too closely to the play “adishonoured lady” .The film also has some of the most sensationalcostumes of the decade.

The designs were by Gilbert Adrian , probably the most respected film costume designer of the 1930s. Helater went on to design the costumes for the wizard of Oz, which heis probably best known for.

The costumes throughout the film aretypical of early 30s Hollywood glamour. Crawford wears a number ofslinky bias cut dresses and also luxurious mink fur coats. The character she plays is a socialite so the clothes really helped to embody this stylish New Yorker.

The dress the film is probably bestknown for is widely known as the “Letty Lynton dress”. The dress,a design by Adrian, was made from white cotton organdie. Thedepartment store Macy’s soon copied the gown and over half amillion copies of the dress were sold across the U.S. (This figure iswideley debated, just to warn. Sometimes you see it as 50,000 andsometimes half a million. Although, I have seen it mostly stated ashalf a million)

The styling of this dress was verymodern at the time, and helped to usher in the new shape of the“romantic” 30s with its puffed sleeves and full skirt. I’m justwaiting for my new 30s dress (green and white silk check) to arrivewhich is definitely inspired by the infamous Letty dress!

All of these images come from www.legendaryjoancrawford.com a wonderful website for anything related to the star.

A vintage guide to...York

2011-11-21T15:06:00.001Z

It’s vintage guide time again!

My place of choice this week is York. Off I popped this weekend to thewonderful York with two of myhousemates and a lovely day was had.

First off I have to highly recommend the charity shops in York, not onlyare there loads of them but a few have specialist vintage and retro sections.The best road to visit is Goodramgate where there are about 7 charity shops onthe one road! My favourite was the Sue Ryder shop (head upstairs).

York’s charity shops are best for: Retro goodies particularly shoes!

My next recommendation is the lovely York Antiques centre in theShambles. The market is predominated by vintage and antique jewellery at prettyreasonable prices. Downstairs is a lovely little vintage clothing area wherethere was a wonderful selection of vintage clothing from the 30s through to the80s. There was a sensational full length buttercup yellow ballgown for just£40! Whilst there I picked up two fantastic pieces. A wonderful 30s chenillejacket (I’m not telling the price because it was too good for words!) and alovely pair of green leather Dents gloves.

York antiques market is best for: Reasonable priced vintage from any eraand jewellery!

Then it’s off to the vintage shops, there are quite a few dotted around York but I have just picked my two favourites.

First off is House of Avalon. This beautiful little shop has an equallywonderful café out the back. The stock here is predominantly 40s and 50s. Therewas a wonderful selection of vintage evening dresses when I visited.

I also just have to say how much I appreciate the ethos behind the shop:

“The idea for the House of Avalon was born in 2008 as part of Avalon’svision to create employment opportunities for people with learning disabilitieswithin a Social Enterprise. We know there are limited ways in which people withlearning disabilities can gain meaningful employment and the House of Avalonhelps address this nationwide problem.”

House of Avalon is best for: Mid century evening dresses.

And secondly is the wonderful vintage emporium. Owned by Keeley Harriswho runs the discover vintage fairs this shop is wonderful. It is an absolutelybeautiful shop with a lovely mix of homewares and also clothing. There are ahuge amount of wedding dresses here, and I particularly loved the selection of40s and 50s suits, if one had fitted me I would have definitely been buying.

What I also really liked abut the shop was that it had an excellentselection of Mens vintage too. There were so many beautiful quality suits!

(Pictures from the Vintage Emporium website)

Vintage emporium is best for: Suits for men and women. 40s and 50s daydresses and Wedding dresses (Keeley also runs the Vintage wedding fair hencethe selection of amazing wedding dresses!)

A vintage guide to...Harrogate

2011-11-14T15:59:00.001Z

Apologies for my recent absence, this has been due to a very poorly macbook. All has now been fixed, and I am back to my blogging best (despite a 5 day panic that I might have lost all of my work, pictures and music!)

So, I have decided that I am going to start a new little series of blogs offering my own "vintage guides" on certain places. Due to my current location: Yorkshire, this is where the first few will be.

First off is one of my absolute favourite places in the country: Harrogate.

To give a brief overview, Harrogate is a spa town and is a truly beautiful place filled with many elegant Victorian buildings. The town was frequented by nobility in the late 19th and early 20th century and this is when a lot of the beautiful buildings sprung up.

One of the things Harrogate is best known for is Betty's tea room. I can't recommend Betty's highly enough. At any time of day there is a likelihood that you will have to queue but the delicious cakes and tea is well worth the wait. The atmosphere within the shop too is fantastic and i love the curved windows allowing you to look out onto the town centre.

My "must try" at Betty's though has to be the caramalised onion chutney. It is delicious and the prefect condiment for a cheese sandwich.

Now onto Harrogate's vintage!

Harrogate, for a relatively small town has a veritable plethora of vintage havens. The town has numerous charity shops dotted around both the town centre and on the outskirts for the bargain hunters among you!

The latest offering to the vintage scene in Harrogate is Sissy Jupe located near the theatre. This lovely shop is bright and airy inside filled with a selection of beautiful bits and bobs. The last time I visited there i spotted a wonderful 50s Christian Dior for Holt-Renfew jacket that I totally regretted not purchasing.

The store stocks not just clothes but a lovely selection of homeware and acsessories. My personal faves are all of the festival of Britian compacts, all at very reasonable prices too!

Sissy Jupe is best for: Handmade vintage styled bits and bobs

The next stop for vintage is Space Boutique which has a wonderful selection of vintage knicnacks. I first discovered the shop just after it opened when I was in my first year of uni. I remeber back then purchasing a wodnerful selection of vintage fashion magaziens which are still a great research tool today!

This store stocks more what i would call retro rather than vintage with an abundance of kitsch and quirky 60s and 70s kitchenalia and homeware. There is also a huge selection of vintage clothing here from many different dealers. I've seen everything from the 1890s to the 1990s here! The shop is perfect location to "kit yourself out" here you can find the clothes and the accessories along with all of the homewares approriate to create your desired look.

Space is best for: Retro pieces, quirky homewares, Mens vintage

The next stop for me is the wonderful Montpelier mews antiques market. This is a traditional antiques centre but there are also a selection of dealers offering wonderful vintage pieces. One seller offers lovely vintage handbags and jewellery, My mum and I made the most of her wonderful stock this weekend purchasing these beautiful pieces!

I 've bought many lovely pieces from this lady before, she is LOVELY and sells some of the best skin handbags around.

I think my favourite part of Montpelier Mews though has to be Elegant Era which is like a little shop within the antiques centre. On offer here is an amazing selection of vintage vanity items, jewellery, accessories and clothes. The clothing particularly is always amazing quality. The dealer was telling me that she doesn't often stock that many smaller pieces (sadly for me). Hence I didn't buy any clothes. I was though totally swooning over a sensational Lilli-Ann late 40s suit, it was to die for.

I love a good pair of vintage sunglasses, and I picked up a wonderful pair from here. I love the novelty look of these!

Montpelier Mews antiques centre is best for: Mid century suits and dresses (especially for those sized 12-16), skin handbags, vintage vanity items.

And, I've saved the best until last. On this visit to Harrogate I finally managed to visit a vintage shop I have been desperate to visit for quite a while now, Catherine Smith Vintage. What can I say? WOW. I definitely had that feeling of amazement, from the second I saw the window with its sensational Art Deco dressing table I knew I was going to love the stock in store.

Catherine has what can only be described as one of the best selections of vintage I have seen in a long time. What i particularly loved in store was the fact that there was something for everyone she had beautiful stock dating from the 20s right through to the 80s and no matter what the age the emphasis was all on quality. I was particularly enthralled by her selection of beautiful vintage suits. Swoon.

Not only this, but the shop itself is absolutely beautiful, you get the satisfied feeling when you look in every case.

Between my Mum and I we purchased rather alot in store as you can see here! I could have easily bought much, much more i honestly challenge anyone to go there and not come away with something they love. Sensational!

These sensational Rayne shoes are as to die for in real life!

I did also buy a lovely 50s white blouse, but clever old me forgot to photograph it before my Mum took it back to Romsey with her!

All of the shop images here are from Catherine Smith Vintage.

Catherine Smith vintage is best for: High quality vintage from any era. Whatever you are after, you'll find it here!

Vintage photographs and magazines

2011-11-06T21:23:00.001Z

This morning (hangover in tow) I took myself off to my favourite car boot sale at St Philomena’s high school in Carshalton, Surrey. The car boot wasn’t quite at its best, quieter than usual for sellers, although there were still some excellent bits and bobs to be found.

I bought nearly all of my goodies from one seller. The majority of my purchases were a stack of 1930s magazines (the seller had a RIDICULOUS number). But what I was really excited about was the three photographs I bought.

I always find it a bit weird buying old photographs, it is something that is so personal to someone and I always feel upset that people would not want to keep items such as this which hold such a close personal connection. My own family pictures that I have are amongst my most prized possessions. Especially the pictures of my Nanna Hazel in the 40s and 50s, who stands today as my inspiration in life.

My main reason for purchasing such pictures tend to be their clothes, but today only one was purchased on the base of the fashion. The other two ladies were just so hauntingly beautiful that they had to come away with me!

This is the first image. A 1930s one. To me with the big collars this appears to be very much mid 30s and fits in perfectly with some of the imagery in the magazines I picked up today which mostly date from the 33-35 period.

This is the second stunning lady. As you can only see a tiny hint of her dress it is very difficult to date accurately. I’m guessing this dates from the early 1910s, although without more of a picture it is difficult to tell. It is the bodice on this that is really saying that to me!

　

This is the last and my favourite, another lady who had to come with me. She is very much an unconventional beauty and the first thought when saw her was doesn’t she look like Jane Morris! Jane was the wife of the great Pre Raphaelite and arts and crafts artist William Morris. Jane was also the muse of Dante Gabriel Rosetti one of the founding members of pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. The painting this particularly reminded me of was Proserpine (1874) with Jane Morris’ luxurious waves of dark hair which are echoed in this image.

I really struggled with dating this image. To me it is quite a timeless one, but I did a little research on the photographers studio which the second and third image come from and found out that Alexander Jonas ran a photography studio at 87 high street Kingsland (Dalston) from 1906 to 1915. So I suppose it must date in between these two dates.

I did make a few other purchases too of jewellery and compacts but I thought these were far more interesting!

An original Biba ensemble from 1973

2011-10-31T14:16:00.001Z

Over on ebay this week I have some FABULOUSitems listed but the absolute gem has to be the Biba cardigan suit I amoffering.

Now 70s isn’t normally my thing, but as I said before when I was selling a fantastic Alice Pollock dress, I sometimes make exceptions, and this is one of them ( Actually I’ll be honest I’m getting more and more into 70s stuff all the time)

I’ve done quite a bit of background research into this wonderful suit and have been able to date it to 1973 after finding some amazing original images!

The first image shows just the skirt, I found this online on Helga Von Trollop’s wonderful blog, I don’t have the original reference for it but I believe this was in one of the Biba books. Doesn’t it look fab? And also show her versatile it is.

The second image is the really exciting one, this is byphotographer Brian Duffy, who took some of the most iconic shots of the 60s and70s. He was the photographer for David Bowie’s infamous album cover AladdinSane in 1973. The photograph here features Jean Shrimpton and Barbara Millerand you can see Shrimpton in the background wearing an example of the suit I amoffering for sale! I wish I had the hat too. That would be rather amazing. This image featured in the Telegraph in 1973

This suit is evidently an important ensemble, an exampleof just the jacket features in Marnie Fogg’s book vintage knitwear which waspublished a few years back (an excellent read, I highly recommend it)

This is a truly fantastic example and typifies the styleof Barbara Hulanicki’s designs.

The Bibachevron design stripe like this was hugely popular featuring on everything fromtops to skirts to jumpsuits. I really like the deco 30s look to the design,again typical Biba. As this dates to 1973 it would be pre the Big biba store,and would have come from when Biba was located on Kensington high street.

So what else can I say? Rather than buy amodern Biba from house of Fraser why not have an ORIGINAL 70s one!

You can find the suit here on ebay.

This week I’ve got lots of lovely thingslisted including a sensational Horrockses evening dress and a lovely polka dot CC41 dress too.

Schiap Schiap Hooray

2011-10-25T19:12:00.000+01:00

Today I’m going back to my roots…sort of .What I am really doing is going back to a post which I wrote nearly 2 yearsago. All the way back then I wrote about Schiaparelli who is my favouritedesigner of ALL time, today after doing a research project on 30s fashion I’mgoing back to the Schiap and I’ll introduce you to some of my favouritedesigns.

Schiaparelli was one of the most innovativeand imaginative designers of the 1930s. She began here career as a fashiondesigner in the 1920s creating simple knitted jumpers with trompe l’oeilmotifs, but it was really the 1930s when her career took off.

The 30s saw Schiaparelli take designinspiration from a wide variety of sources, from art to nature even thecelestial sky became her inspiration. Schiaparelli was more than just adesigner she created objects d’art and Balenciaga would later say she was. “the only true artist in fashion”

Schiaparelli was an innovator in terms offabric and design, bringing the zip fastening to high fashion and oftencreating gowns in unusual fabrics. She often used synthetics to create herluxurious evening gowns.

Her style came to epitomise a new woman whowas developing. Schiaparelli created “power dressing” before the term was eveninvented. She began developing more of a military silhouette in the 1930s withboxy shoulders and a squared silhouette that would become mainstream fashion inthe 40s. Her clothing oozed sex appeal at a time when this still was often seenas inappropriate using motifs which had hidden sexual meaning.

Wonderful example from the Pagan collection featuring the insect buttons which came to epitomise this collection.

Schiaparelli’s circus collection of 1938was one of her most popular and whimsical. The theme was widely copied.

The circus collection was launched inFebruary 1938, Schiaparelli “sent the performers skipping up and down theimposing staircase and leaping on and off the venduses’ desks in her dignifiedshowroom…This was the most riotous and swaggering show that fashion had everseen. Here you paraded in a tall hat and a ringmaster jacket with a highcollar, or in tights worn under long narrow black skirts.”

This is the jacket I originally bloggedabout all that time ago, which I now understand in a lot more depth thanpreviously, and it still stands to be the garment I would probably give up myentire vintage collection for (o.k. everything bar my Horrockses, they are mybabies after all). It was one of the key pieces in the Circus collection and the image here shows Maria Berenson, Granddaughter of Schiaparelli wearing the jacket (it is is the actual jacket in the V & A) for a Vogue shoot in 1971. The jacket actually featured in Cecil Beaton's exhibition of the same year for the V& A Fashion: An Anthology which was the dawning exhibition of a new age of fashion exhibitions.

The fastenings on the jackets are one of the most important parts of the Circus collection. These complex fastenings employ industrial techniques, Here industrial slide hooks are used to keep the cast metal buttons in place.

The tear dress is probably one ofSchiaparelli’s most famous designs. This piece was created for the 1938 Circuscollection in collaboration with Dali. The dress uses imagery based on Dali’spainting necrophiliac springtime. The pink and red painted design is supposedto resemble torn flesh. The dress is typical of Schiaparelli’s playfuljuxtaposition of beautiful dresses with seemingly odd print or embroiderysubject matter.

The theme of Schiaparelli’s 1939 fallcollection was music. This is one of the key garments from the collection. Thedress is embroidered with musical notes in jaunty colours with gloves to match.The collection also featured fanciful items such as buttons shaped like drumsand music boxes on hats. Many of the embroideries covering her garments thisseason featured instruments and musical notes.

And a final note, one of the key inspirations throughout Schiaparelli's career was the 1890s. She collaborated on a series of wonderfully whimiscal printed dresses with Vertes and often the shapes of her garments recall the period (leg-o-mutton sleeves anyone). So whilst Schiaparelli was a great innovator she was more than happy to borrow from history too! The image above comes from 1939, The print on the middle dress is an example of one by Vertes, there are a number of further fabulous examples in the book Fashion and Surrealism too.

My new Horrockses dress!

2011-10-20T20:15:00.000+01:00

I just had to share this with everyone. This is my latest Horrockses dress. Anyone who follows me on twitter may have seen it already (if not, why not? - @liztregenza). It is a pretty special design to say the least and I think it might be my new favourite in my collection. Saying this does make me feel like I’m cheating on all of my other Horrockses by saying it, but this one is show stopping. Quite simple in design, but wonderfully elegant, crisp and I believe in unworn condition. The dress has its original integral petticoat still and this is SO clean and white still it is almost scary.

So onto the design of the dress itself. Thedress is probably a John Tullis design. Tullis designed one of my favouriteHorrockses dress that isn’t in my personal collection ( a dress that oncebelonged to Lucienne Day). See my blog post about the other dress here. Tulliswas renowned for the complex cut of his dresses, which many of the seamstressescomplained were a nightmare to stitch! Tullis got his training at Molyneux thecouturier in Paris. This couture training could be one of the main reasons forthe complicated cut of many of his garments. If you spot a Horrockses with aparticularly complicated bodice, or details like pockets on the outside of adress, then it will be probably be a Tullis design!

As far as Tullis designs go (or probably Tullisdesigns!) this isn’t the most complicated of designs, but it is an interestingpiece. The design is what is known as a “unit” design. The bodice are made fromrelated but different patterns. A process which was used for dresses wherequantities were limited.

Something that I find interesting about Tullis isit appears he was the only fashion designer to ever be credited for hisdesigns, a feature in Vogue stated (of a Horrockses dress) “designed by JohnTullis” something which annoyed Herbert Mallot and prompted him to stipulate “a Horrockses’ fashion production is, in the future, described as such and thatno reference is made to the individual who created it…I must stress that thegoodwill of our fashion business must remain in the name of Horrockses and notin anyone who is employed by us”. This probably happened because of Tullis’couture credentials, which was also one of the reasons why he was hired in1950, to bring prestige to the brand.

In my opinion this dress probably dates to between1955-58 (if memory serves me correctly 58 was when Tullis left). As this is asize 10, a size which Horrockses (it appears) did not begin producing to1954/55.

So how do I know so much about this dress? It’s a prettyimportant design I have to say. Not only does it appear in Chris Boydell’s bookon Horrockses, but the design was also the inspiration for one of the newbedding ranges that features Horrockses original prints. This particular printnamed “Sophia”. I actually have the bedding on my bed back at home! (I’m at uniat the moment so my bedding is some very dodgy Asda value sheets : /) I boughtmy bedding at full price but on the website now there is 20% off. I urge you togo and have a look it really is lovely stuff made of really good quality cottonand when I ordered it arrived amazingly quickly.

And one last note on my new dress. It’s a perfectfit!

A vintage day out: Leeds town hall vintage fair

2011-10-16T21:40:00.000+01:00

Today I decided that I needed a day out.Unfortunately I’ve been stressed out to the max with uni work and unless I amgoing to university or the post office I have altogether stopped leaving thehouse. (O.k. I did go to Bristol last weekend, but we’ll discount that) On theplus side this means that all I have been wearing on an almost daily basis ispajamas (no ironing, excellent), but on a negative note I will probably startsuffering with some of vitamin D deficiency because I rarely see natural light(I’m only in uni two days a week meaning I really do barely leave the house).This is heightened by the fact that my bedroom is what would have once been thefront room of the house, hence I don’t open my curtains. Anyway, that’s enoughabout the depressiveness of my life! The real point of this is that today Iwent to a vintage fair, not only that a really rather good one!

So, the location of the vintage fair wasLeeds town hall. Which as a venue is somewhere that I totally love. VeryVictorian and just very Leeds as well. Whenever the antiques roadshow comes toLeeds this is where they always go.

I cannot recommend this fair HIGHLY enough.Fantastic was not the half of it. The sellers there were all lovely, happy tochat and up for a bit of bartering. Unfortunately due to the precarious stateof my bank balance at the moment I had to be a bit restrictive on my spending.I could have bought so much more because prices were (on the part of mostsellers) very reasonable. I saw a lot of high quality 50s cotton dresses of thesort I normally by at around the 25-40 price point which I think is prettygood.

For anyone interested in antique clothingand textiles this fair is a must. I actually lost count of the number ofgenuine Victorian dresses I saw. There was a particularly spectacular purple Victoriansilk dress that I was amazed to see there. The condition was fantastic andunusually the silk had not shattered. It was difficult to tell hanging upexactly the age of the dress although the vivid purple of it immediately mademe think 1860s, AND it was only £95. If I had had my dealer head on rather thanmy student head I would definitely have bought it!

First up this little knitted dress which Ipicked up for the bargain price of £10. The seller whom I bought this from wasselling things at pretty amazing prices. It was marked up as being 70s, but I’m not so sure. Something is sayingto me its earlier (unfinished seams inside and a very old looking metal zip). Ilove chevron designs and this dress is going to be a great little winter pieceI think. It’s an excellent fit too!

www.goodlifevintage.co.uk

or Goodlife vintage on facebook

Then I bought these shoes, again this ladywas selling her items at really great prices (£10!) I vey much regretted not snapping up a pair of crazy 50scats eye marbled sunglasses for £15. She also had THE most sensational 30swedding dress which was an almost exact copy of the dress worn by WallisSimpson in 1937. It was in excellent condition too, whoever snapped that up gotan absolute bargain I think. Nearly all of the images here are from this lady’s stall.Lovely stuff!

Beads and Bows

And finally my absolute gem of the day. A wonderful 70s Radley dress with a (probably) Celia Birtwell print. When I get a spare five minutes I am going to do a little bit of research into this and try and find out for sure that it is but I’m pretty sure it’s right. The dress is in wonderful condition and fits me like a dream. I’m so happy with it! The seller who I bought this from was wonderful. I can’t enthuse enough about how great her stock was. For someone who rarely does 70s it was a dream. She had lovely Radley pieces as well as some Bus Stop and Ossie Clark. I could have spent a few hundred on her stall alone!

Lady Jane's vintage bandwagon

This is my outfit for the day, all this not leaving the house means that when I do go out I tend to make an effort! The dress is a Horrockses (what a surprise) and I’m wearing one of my fave pairs of vintage earrings from Brilliant in Kingston (Surrey). The cardi is a non vintage one. It’s from American eagle. I think I’ve had it since I was 12 or 13!

Also, I just thought this was a nice opportunity to throw in a few of my vintage outfits of late! Please ignore the mess of my room in the background of most of the pics. I’m not the tidiest of people at the best of times!

My all time favourite vintage dress (I think). This was the first Horrockses I ever bought, its getting a bit tight on me now but I still adore it. I was actually dancing manically around my room at the time, hence the picture of me jumping off my bed. It’s a pretty good action shot! In the background you can just about see my vintage wardrobe, yes I do have a specific wardrobe for vintage!!!

Ace novelty print 50s American skirt here. The necklace is from one of my fave vintage shops Mela Mela in Teddington

One of my blanes dresses. You may have seen my blue one in a previous post about the last vintage fair I went to.

Valentina: A forgotten legend

2011-10-11T22:19:00.000+01:00

So, I’m currently knuckling down hard to final year work. But when I came across the image above I rediscovered a designer I simply couldn't RESIST but write about, the designer in question is Valentina.

As part of one of my themes this year I am working on trying to use as few seams as possible in my designs. Whilst searching this on Google I stumbled across Valentina, a designer I had heard of but completely forgotten about (and no this isn’t me misspelling Valentino!)

Valentina was a Russian emigree. Her full name was Valentina Nicholaevna Sanina Schlee but she went by the name “Valentina”. She went to America to pursue a career in dance, but without speaking English this proved to be very difficult. She then chose to puruse a career in looking glamorous, or modeling as one might say! Valentina was undoubtedly an exotic beauty as these pictures prove.

Valentina is a designer of great interest as she was working at a time when Paris totally dominated couture, yet she was working in America and receiving renown for a similar design style to that in Paris (interesting at a time when America was really trying to forge its only distinct style away from the look dictated by Paris) She was the first “celebrity” couturiers in the U.S.A , becoming as renowned as the celebrities she dressed. One of the women whom she dressed was Greta Garbo, who infact had an affair with her husband George Schlee. She was the first designer to really promote the idea of “persona over product” herself appearing on the cover of American Vogue to promote her clothes.

Her work is similar to the likes of Vionnet and Madam Gres. Especially in the 1930s she focused heavily on bias cut and garments which were almost moulded to the body. Looking at her garments from this period you can see the superior construction used. She created often quite simply cut garments but they were always executed to the highest of standards. The look was quite minimalistic without being too basic. The smallest of seemingly insignificant details tended to turn her dresses into something fantastic. I particularly love these two dresses which feature revealing sections. Whilst the 1930s was undoubtedly the decade of the back these show off different areas which would have probably seemed quite daring in the 30s.

What I find fascinating also is the price of her clothes, even in the late 40s her clothes cost between $800 to $1,200 a piece. Her designs were those which event he wealthy would have had to save up for! Valentina made couture garments in the true sense of couture. Her dresses were really made to fit the wearer, often she would ignore their wishes and chose to make garments which she knew would suit them. She stated, “clothes have little independent existence of their own.” Valentina made her garments so that they enhanced the wearer, and it was clear that the lady was wearing the clothes rather than the other way around.

This is a quotation from her which I really liked and is very inspiring for my current work;

"To simplify a dress, I make as few seams as possible. And I am forever standing away looking at it, asking myself what I can take away from it rather than what I can add to it."

She also often designed ensembles which could fit a wide range of sizes. These normally were created with waist ties which meant the wearer could determine the exact look they wanted for the ensemble. She tended to create garments which were without padding or boning. Her clothes were essentially “unstructured” so that they could mould to the wearer.

For anyone interested to find out more about the designer there is a book Valentina: American Couture and the Cult of Celebrity. The image here is from the exhibition which the book accompanied.

Most of these images come from the Met Museum website, do take a look, some fantastic images available!

Parcels make me happy

2011-10-07T23:43:00.000+01:00

Today I am feeling distinctly sorry for myself as I am poorly with a v bad cold. On the plus side my mum was rather sweet and sent me a parcel today that cheered me right up : ). And yes, she really does call me Betty : /

Today I also received two lovely pairs of vintage shoes in the post. Sadly neither fit me (I have small but rather wide feet) so they will simply be added to my "beautiful shoes to stare at lovingly" collection.

The Rayne shoes are particularly fab, the velvet is very soft, I just want to stroke them!

A dreamy Alice Pollock dress

2011-10-04T19:47:00.000+01:00

Alice and Ossie

Anyone who knows me knows that I rarely foray into fashion past the early 1960s, but there are a few designers for whom I will make an exception. One of these is Alice Pollock. I feel that Pollock is still quite an underrated designer yet she discovered one of the best design talents of the second half of he 20^th century so really deserves to be celebrated more ! (commands high prices, without the level of respect she deserves is what I mean)

Pollock is probably best known for her boutique Quorum which she set up in 1964. Not only was she a wonderful designer herself, but she had an excellent knack for spotting the latest design talent. Quorum is probably best known for the desiger Ossie Clark. Clark started working for Pollock in 1966 after she spotted his designs and ordered a selection of dresses for the Quorum boutique. At the time she was buying dresses from Ossie for £10 a batch (imagine Ossies for £10) The early Ossie garments for Quorum (1966) were mostly plain floaty pieces in cream or white chiffon. It was Pollock who apparently pushed Ossie Clark to work with Celia Birtwell (apparently she wanted a more organic feel for the designs).

Typically of the swinging sixties though the Quorum brand reached trouble (business management was not either Clark or Pollocks forte- they regularly gave away pieces or they simply disappeared). I’ve found contrasting information as to when exactly Pollock sold out Quorum to Radley. (Some sources say 1967 others 1969) although I think they were receiving some financial backing for sure form 1967 onwards.

So why the all the info about Alice Pollock? It’s all because of this dress. Which I am infact selling at the moment on my ebay here.

What I particularly love about this is its rouleau loop fastening (something Clark began experimenting with in 1967) it really is a glamorous feature that calls to mind the deco designs of the 30s that were so inspiring designers in the late 60s and early 70s.

I love the quality of the moss crepe too. Another thing which calls to mid older vintage dresses, it really is a beautifully made piece, I can totally see it being appropriate as a wedding dress!

The dress is an absolute dream to wear (I swanned about in it for a good 15 minutes before telling myself, no you can’t keep it you need to sell it, sob). It really does cling to you in a way that the dresses by this “set” can- Pollock and Ossie Clark mostly although I did once try on a Thea Porter dress that made me feel just as wonderful.

As you can probably tell I’ve attempted to do my research into the designs of Alice Pollock and I am a little bit stumped by this, it is difficult to give an exact date, although I have seen very similar pieces by her dating to 1973, so I would take a stab that this is an early 70s piece.

All in all a lovely piece. What I am intrigued about is when did Alice Pollock actually dissapear as a designer? I think the latest Pollock I’ve ever seen is 1974…the mind boggles.

Ebay link

A wonderful little blouse

2011-10-01T22:51:00.000+01:00

Today I am dedicating my blogpost to one little item. On first glance you are probably thinking it’s just a simple blue and white striped blouse. A vintage item most probably (this is me after all and it is highly unlikely to be modern), but this blouse is much more than it at first appears and also helps to tell a story about an important period in Britain’s fashion history.

There is one small label sewn into the side seam of this blouse which makes all the difference: A cc41 label. What I really like about this blouse is that it shows so many of the restrictions in one item.

First off (although difficult to tell by my picture) the blouse is really quite short. Now whilst the length of a blouse was not rationed many manufacturers made garments that were designed to be tucked in to quite a short length to save on fabric. When looking inside the blouse you can also see how tiny the hem is, again a fabric saving device. All of the seams in the blouse have very small seam allowances as is illustrated in the pictures, and again was a necessary fabric saving device.

Next is the collar (I’m a sucker for a Peter pan collar any day of the week). One of the rulings under utility was that a collar could be no deeper than 5” as illustrated here, this is a very short collar!

If you look at the sleeves you can see how they have been made to look like turnback cuffs, yet the “turnback” is actually a strip of fabric stitched on as turnbacks cuffs where strictly prohibited. The sleeves also do not have any buttons- this would make it easier to get into the blouse, but restrict the amount of buttons that could be used elsewhere, hence why there aren’t any.

I think the most canny part of the blouse though is the centre front button fastening. Under Utility restrictions a blouse with full length sleeves could have up to 7 buttons, whilst one with short sleeves was restricted to just 5. This blouse originally had just four (currently 3 as one is missing) and the rest of the blouse fastens with poppers. Two at the bottom of the blouse and one for security at the neckline. I feel that the ones at the bottom of the blouse actually act as a really good design feature, if you are tucking the garment in you would not have the added bulk from the button showing through your skirt.

And, whilst researching into utility I also found out something rather interesting about the manufacturers labels themselves, they could have “no more than one name tab and one drop ticket in addition to the size tab and utility label.” This blouse has its manufacturer label and then details about the fabric “moygashel” on the same label. It is interesting to consider how in 40s garments these details would often be on two separate labels, but under the utility restrictions only one label could contain all of these details. The smaller label underneath is the utility design no. which all utility items should have.

And on another note some may be wondering what is this mystery fabric moygashel? It is a particular type of linen fabric from the area of Moygashel in Ireland, it is quite a strong hard wearing fabric and was particularly popular during the 40s 50s and 60s before falling out of favour. I have to say that the vintage moygashel garments I have come across all seem to be particularly hard wearing and also they retain their colours rather well.

The label also states that it has “tubernised fused parts” (it too me a while to work out what this word actually said) basically this was a finish that helped garments to look “fresh and clean all day” and reduced the need to starch or boil your garments (in particular this finish was used for men’s starched collars.

So all in all a very interesting little blouse, and what is even better. I am selling it! Find it over on my ebay here. I’m selling a lot in the next few weeks and months including some amazing vintage Biba and Alice Pollock, so do keep having a look.

If you want to know more about Utility check out some of the restrictions here, http://cargocultcraft.com/knowledge/wartime-austerity-restrictions-on-british-clothing/womens-and-girls-wear-dresses-jumpercardigan-suits-blouses-skirts-and-slacks/ it really is an invaluable resource. Or, have a look at my previous post on the topic here.

Mrs Exeter: One hell of a stylish lady

2011-09-23T17:25:00.000+01:00

Today I am going to introduce you tone of my favourite fictional characters, Mrs Exeter. Anyone who has read Vogue magazines from the 50s may recognise this name, but who was Mrs Exeter and what did she do for fashion?

Mrs Exeter helped bring the older woman to the forefront of fashion in the 1950s. The character first appeared in 1949 'Approaching 60, Mrs. Exeter doesn't look a day younger, a fact she accepts with perfect good-humour and reasonableness' she confesses to a 33-inch

waist, disappearing eyebrows, and a yellowing complexion as well as her rheumatism!”

Initially the character was an illustration by Audrey Lewis, it wasn’t until 1952 that photographs of the character actually appeared. The original Mrs Exeter was played by a Mrs Eastley who was a similar age to the character of Mrs Exeter. Mrs Eastley had lived a similar late Victorian upbringing as the character, where values such as poise and elegance were key and a woman was nothing without good posture. It is interesting also how slim the character was in the first photographic representations (33in waist, no way, more like 23in). It wasn’t until 1954 that the person most associated with Mrs Exeter, Margot Smyly, began to play her. Interestingly Margot Smyly was only in her thirties when she began to represent her. Vogue still suggested that Mrs Exeter was in her sixties, despite the younger model being used. If I were a model I don’t know how happy I would feel about representing a character 30 years older than myself!

The 1950s were one of the few periods in fashion when an older woman could look chic and at the height of fashion without looking overdone. The styles of the 1950s (full skirts, etc) could be quite forgiving for the older woman, and it was a period where many young girls were dressing almost to look like their mothers. This had a lot to do with Dior’s own ideal image of a woman: his mother. Mrs Exter came to be the epitome of this older yet still impeccably stylish woman.

As a character Mrs Exter helped to show that fashion was appropriate for all ages, and featured regularly in “Clothes with no age-tag” It is interesting that in these features it is often Mrs Exeter who looks more comfortable in the clothes rather than the younger woman.

Mrs Exeter continued to appear in Vogue until the 1960s. Towards the end veering from a lady in her 60s to one who was only at middle age. It was mostly due to the changing fashions and an increasing focusing on youth fashions the character ceased to appear.

I wish that this idea of the older model was still seen in magazines and the like (I am a big fan of Twiggy in the now finished M&S adverts as cheesy as they were). Most representations of the older woman in fashion seem to be done in a “look how novel and politically correct we are being” manner, which simply isn’t necessary. Mrs Exeter was a very popular character and demonstrates why the 50s were such a great period of fashion, clothes to suit any age group. I think she is a great person to look to when more mature ladies now are thinking about wearing vintage clothing, the 50s styles definitely look great on women of any age!

(Mrs Exeter looking particularly youthful!)

I only wish I had more pictures to show, I only have a few copies of 50s Vogue and she does not feature in any of them!

Itchy, scratchy and most certainly not vintage

2011-09-22T18:57:00.001+01:00

Outfit today, one of my current fave dresses, late 50s/ early 60s Blanes

Today I took a little trip to Leeds Met student union to sample the vintage fair they had on. I went with quite low expectations: lots of synthetic 80s horrors, levi cut offs and oversized jumpers. This fair was actually so bad it surpassed the previous worst vintage fair I have been to by miles. The fair was basically a glorified car boot with barely any actual vintage garments. It was worrying that I felt a genuine sense of excitement when I found a single 40s blouse on a stall. Bar one stall that had quite a reasonable number of decent pieces this was the ONLY pre 60s garment I found. ONE GARMENT.

The only slight saving grace was "Curious Cleo", here there were still a lot of 80s garments but also quite a few 50s dresses and a few 40s too. There was a particularly nice blue check dress that if it had been my size I would have snapped up. I asked the stall holder about this and she said that in general the students wouldn't buy the 50s stuff and that there wasn't much of a market for it at the student union fairs.

Curious cleo website

I suppose I should really learn from my mistakes and simply stop going to the fairs at student unions rather than writing disparaging (and probably wholly unhelpful) blogposts about how awful the fairs were, but the point is I don't understand why they are so bad. And more importantly why do sellers feel that they can palm off such utter crap on students?

So, what conclusion have I come to from this fair. I will absolutely NOT be going to one of The Vintage Fairs events again ( I was sorely tempted to send my Mum to the one in Winchester to check it out, but I don't feel like I can subject her to the torture of it). I feel so rubbish after today that I think I am going to need to treat myself to a trip to Harrogate at the weekend to remember what proper vintage is!

Apologies for an extreme lack of posting

2011-09-19T10:27:00.000+01:00

I'M SORRY!!!

More interesting posts will follow again soon, but I have just moved back to Leeds to complete the final year of my degree (sob).

In the meantime. A few photos of vintage outfits of late and things I have been doing.

This is one of the dresses I was bought for my 21st. Original 1940s with the most wonderful zipped sleeves.

A rather large job lot of vintage that I have been sorting through. Anyone who follows me on twitter may have seen me tweeting about it on Friday (there is 3 Horrockses in here amongst other things)

This is what I got up to on Friday night. A farewell to all of my "home" friends. Steffie (my wonderful twinney) pulling the intriguing face in the first picture played host, before we headed out to Wimbledon. My dress for the evening was a wonderful late 50s Alice Edwards dress which I have blogged about before.

This is the main reason for my lack of posting. The mental amount of stuff I had at my Dad's house before i managed to move it back to University

And this is my other reason for lack of posting. I am selling rather a lot of stuff on ebay at the moment. Please do take a look here

Exhibitions etc.

2011-09-11T21:50:00.001+01:00

This past week has been an absolutely smashing one. Partying with my good old tribe girls on Wednesday, shopping trip to Teddington and Kingston on Thursday, Museuming with my dearest love Caroline Benn on Friday and on Saturday going to the V&A plus the Vintage Mafias inaugural event at the Fox in Shoreditch in the evening. PHEW.

So, my real reason for this post was not to tell you what a socialite I am (ho ho ho) but infact to give a few little reviews of the exhibitions I went to on Friday (more on other things I did to come, Ideally I would like to write about the Vintage Mafia event but I don’t really remember enough of it for that to be possible!)

Caroline and I started off at the Courtald gallery. I’ve been to Somerset house more times than I can count, but never before have I been to the Courtald gallery. I was quite simply amazed by the range of art they had on display in their main galleries, and that some of my favourite paintings were on display there. I think my personal favourite has to be A Bar at the Folies Bergere, 1881-82 by Edouard Manet. The painting is one of those that you just have to see to appreciate it. It has so many interesting elements, I particularly liked the bottles, Caroline the tangerines. What I really like though is how it flauts conventions. I particularly enjoy the legs of the trapeze artist dangling in the corner : )

(wikipedia)

We then went on to see the Tolouse-Lautrec exhibition. Definitely a case of small but perfectly formed. The exhibition focuses mostly on Tolouse-Lautrec and his artistic relationship with Jane Avril. Avril is a fascinating character who was one of the principal dancers at the Jardin de Paris and also at the Moulin Rouge. She was well known for her erratic dance moves which were said to have developed from a medical condition. What I really liked about this exhibition is that it gave so much background into Avril’s condition. This exhibition really felt like it told a story rather than just displaying the art work of Tolouse-Lautrec, and I cam away feeling like I had really learnt something. What I also really enjoyed was seeing some contemporary photographs of the Moulin Rouge. I had never appreciated quite how large the elephant In the garden of the Moulin Rouge was, and that there was infact a ballroom inside! (This is actually one of the pics that features in the exhibition).

http://servatius.blogspot.com/2011/02/moulin-rouge-paris-ca-1900.html

So what else can I say? For anyone fascinated by Toulouse-Lautrec or the Moulin Rouge it really is a must visit. And a quick interesting fact the character Satine in the 2001 film is supposedly based on Jane Avril!

We then popped off to the National Portrait gallery to go and ogle at some of the stars of the big screen in their current exhibition “Glamour of the Gods”. This was another small yet perfectly formed display. The exhibition focuses on photographs from (If memory serves me correctly) around 1910 up until the late 50s. The selection is fantastic and really varied, and I particularly enjoyed the cases showing the difference of photographs before and after retouching. The descriptions for each of the images was relatively short, yet informing. For each picture a little about the sitter and the photographer too.

http://www.pandorasbox.com/portraits.html

I think my favourite image has to be this one of Louise Brooks, who is one of my all time style icons. The image defines the 20s perfectly to me. If I ever go back to short hair again it’s a Brooks bob all the way!

My only real gripe was that I would have liked to have seen more images! Obviously they were restricted in terms of space, but in the book there are so many other images featured which I would have loved to have seen in their original format!

P.S. If you are reading my blog and think who is this Caroline fellow? This is she! Caro and I have have known each other for 17 years and have a love for visiting art galleries and the like. She's pretty spesh. (Picture taken in the toilets of Belgo Central, oooh)

Novelty niceties

2011-09-11T10:42:00.001+01:00

Today is a bit of a sad day for me as I am packing up my stuff ready to go back to uni in A week (I'm in Surrey at the moment, but off back to Hampshire today and off to Leeds next Saturday). Don't get me wrong, I am looking forward to going back to uni, but there is just always something so sad about packing things away. Maybe it has something to do with the fact I know I am going to have to leave some of my favourite things behind (i.e. a large proportion of mine and my mothers shared vintage jewellery collection).

Anyway, to cheer myself up i started off by getting out all of my novelty printed vintage bits, and i thought to myself there couldn't be a better opportunity to photgraph them!

These are just a few of the multitude of highlights from my collection.

This wonderful skirt is so me it practically screams "I BELONG TO LIZ TREGENZA" at you.

I have a real thing for paint palettes (the artist screaming to get out inside maybe?)

This little number has a completely loopy print. Rabbits dancing on turtles heads anyone?

This is one of my most recent novelty print purchases. I'm only showing sections of this skirt as it is a very weird barrel shape and doesn't photograph very well. I have a feeling this is an American design.

This has to be one of the craziest printed skirt i own, its so full and heavy its pretty much unwearable. I tried to wear it once and gave up before i even left the house. It has a typical 50s travel themed print with a selection of motifs calling attention to different countires across the world.

And this has to be one of my all time favourites. This was one of the first pieces of "proper vintage" clothing i bought (or should i say expensive vintage!) I bought this from Hope and Harlequin. I always like to wear this skirt in the spring time as it makes me think of summers sat outside little cafes, and dreaming of holidays in continetal europe! I reckon this is probably a very early 50s skirt as it has very old looking hooks and eyes and no zip fastening.

Lovely vintage bits and bobs

2011-09-05T17:44:00.000+01:00

Just a few pics from Trinkets: boutique market. I had a lovely day on Sunday, all my fellow sellers were so friendly. I don't really feel that the market is the kind of thing i would do again, as people were more interested in crafty bits rather than my vintage treasures and I actually didn't sell much on the day. If anyone sees anything they are interested in please do drop me an email (my email address is in the left hand bar) otherwise most of these items will be going onto Ebay in the next few weeks as I need to downsize some of my collection before I go back to university!

Basingstoke trinkets market- I am selling!

2011-09-02T18:21:00.000+01:00

Just a quick note to say that on Sunday i will be selling some of my lovely vintage wares (mostly clothes, some jewellery and a few bits of homey stuff) at the Basingstoke trinkets boutique market. It looks like its going to be a great event.

Just a few highlights of the items I will be selling. Do pop by if you are local!

More details on the website here:

http://www.trinketsboutique.co.uk/?page_id=148

Finding vintage duplicates

2011-08-27T17:15:00.002+01:00

Today I am going to share with you one of my absolute strangest obsessions. Finding vintage duplicates. Now I know this may seem mad, and slightly odd, but honestly it never ceases to bring me pleasure to see that actually a vintage item I own isn’t the only one out there! I know other people that HATE the idea that their vintage item isn't unique, but i just like the fact that it reminds you that clothes were mass produced in the past!

First off I’ll share one of my vintage purchases from this week. It is by one of my favourite 50’s brands Alice Edwards. (I've bought a few Alice Edwards lately so i think i am going to need to update this post soon!)

Also a little note on this dress. On the front of the dress you can see a little half sash section. This is a real typical feature of Alice Edwards dresses and is always something to keep a look out for.

I recently bought this from ebay, but currently for sale is the EXACT same dress. See it here (I paid less than half the price asked for this one though. Ho ho ho)

Then I can get onto Horrockses.

I have a sizeable collection of Horrockses (23 on my last count) and I have seen dresses I own appear on a number of occasions. What is interesting with Horrockses is that they often used the same print fabric on different dress designs. Sometimes you may even see a day time shirtwaister Horrockses and a full length evening gown Horrockses with the same print.

This is one of my all time favourite Horrockses. The print is by Pat Albeck. Currently for sale on ebay is this stunner in the same print, but a bit more of a formal style.

I reckon this must have been a pretty popular print as I have seen another 3 examples of this print (2 in a blue and green colourway and one in a just blue colourway).

What interests me even more is that these dresses have different labels. Mine has the typical label seen up to 1958. Whereas this dress has the label often associated with the later (though still collectible) Horrockses. Maybe this print was so popular it was used for more than one season?

I’m getting to a point now that I am loosing count of how many times I have seen this Horrokcses print. I think this was the fourth Horrockses I bought, and is probably the one I wear most. I’ve seen this colourway design at least 6 times, and I have seen it in a paler pink version a few times too. There was a lovely one for sale at Vintage@Southbank. There is a wonderful pic of it here. A dress in this print was one of the highest priced Horrockses ever to go on ebay (June 2011) sold by the seller brewery-house who has in recent months sold some of the most stunning Horrockses imaginable.

And then I have these two wonderful examples of my own Horrockses which appear in other colourways with Hampshire Museums service. The one was my second ever Horrockses purchases and is my oldest one too (distinguished by its yellow and white rather than grey and white label which is almost papery). AND my example has set in sleeves. In all the Horrockses i have come across that i have been able to get close enough to study properly this is the ONLY one i have seen with set in sleeves.

These Horrockses features the label normally associated with the late 50's (as seen in the pink floral number above). Mine is the blue one and the yellow one is from Hampshire Museums service) Both of these dresses have absolutely wonderful colour combinations. What intrigued me most is that both my one and the one held by Hampshire Museum service are in amazing condition (both to me look unworn!) My example is particularly confusing as it has had its hem let down, yet there are no puncture marks in the fabric whatsoever to suggest it was hemmed in the first place.

These aren't actually all of my examples of duplicates i have come across but they are a few of the best!

Not just a Horrockses but a NOVELTY PRINT Horrockses

2011-08-24T23:17:00.001+01:00

I'm so wildly in love with my new Horrockses dress it gets a whole post to itself (and i had a better more informative post planned too). Its got the pretty standard Horrockses label that dates it to pre 1958. I'm reckoning with the side zip and the fact is is a size 14 but equating to around an 8 i would say it is probably 1952-55. After Horrockses introduced their size 10 it seems their sizes got considerably bigger. Hence why i believe this is pre their introduction of a size 10. The print on this is completely fabulous it defies all belief. I'm wondering who the print might be by... Something makes me feel it might be a Pat Albeck as i know she designed some pretty fabulous novelty prints whilst at Horrockses. I'm going to do my research on this one! See what else i can dig up.

Utility and CC41

2011-08-22T10:17:00.002+01:00

This is a bit of a rambling blog post about Rationing, one of my many (odd) passions and obsessions.

During World war two many basic goods had to be rationed so that there was enough of everyday goods to go around, this included clothing. Rationing of clothing began in 1942 and lasted until 1952.

For many rationing meant doing what they did anyway. Repairing garments, cutting them down to fit children or relatives or giving them new uses such as using them for household textiles.

Although, for those who had a larger budget pre-war the rationing limited the meant of clothing they could buy. An important point to note here is that a more expensive garment did not necessarily cost more coupons. At the begging of the war one could have 66 coupons per year which cold buy only a limited number of garments. By 1945 the number of coupons per person had fallen to 36, for a year this would have probably only allowed you to buy one or two outfits!

Of course despite rationing some people still found a way to buy new clothes, this included a black market (around 70,00 books were stolen in the early part of the scheme), or purchasing second hand garments which were coupon free.

This is the only example of utility I own, a pair of shoes featuring the typical utility stamp.

Some clothing during the 1940s contained a CC41 label. This label Rather than demonstrating a rationed product CC41 was a guarantee of quality. It allowed poorer people to buy decent clothing. The scheme was designed so that all clothes met a certain high standard set out by the government, which included austerity, profit, distribution and tax regulations. This included dresses made of rayon that wouldn’t shrink, dyes that wouldn’t run and high percentage woollen blends.

Two types of utility label are seen in clothing. One label features a stylised double c followed by the number 41. This denotes a standard cc41 garment. Reginald Shipp, a commercial designer for the company Hargreaves, designed this label.

The two black dresses in the picture above are both from the Hampshire Museums service collection and are both Utility dresses (the little printed one is not) both feature the typical double c label, and the label for the long sleeved dress is also pictured.

The other label found in cc41 garments features two lines either side of a circle which denotes the more luxury cc41 products. This label is known as the double elevens label, or colloquially the “dinner plate” label. It is thought this label was bought in post 1945 due to the negative connotations associated with the double cc logo. After the new look, which came into fashion in 1947, began to take over fashion the cc41 label suffered and came to represent the dull and detail free wartime restricted fashion.

Unfortunately I don’t have any photographs of dresses with the luxury label in it. Here is a small picture of one of the labels take from the Vintage Fashion Guild website. I know there are some wonderful examples in Jonathan Wolford’s book Forties fashion. Reading this book was one of my main reasons for writing this blog post in the first place! (I can not recommend this book HIGHLY enough, it is one of my all time favourite fashion history publications, I really do urge anyone interested in the 40’s to purchase a copy)

Visit his website here: http://www.fashionhistorymuseum.com/

It is important to note that all new clothing wether marked cc41 or not had to adhere to austerity restrictions applied by the government. Austerity measures included thing such as the number of buttons used, the size of the hem allowed and the use of embroidery. After the war finished , rationing continued, but many of the austerity measures were loosened. This is why post 1945 you see garments with more detailing

Rationing had to continue after the war finished in order to keep the economy steady. If rationing had not continued it is likely that there would have been high rates of inflation, like those in America. It is interesting to note that post war Britain had a large enough stock pile of wool to last 2 years, even though rationing of clothing continued.

CC41 was of benefit to manufacturers as well as consumers. The companies who were producing CC41 items could have a larger workforce than those not adhering to CC41, and attain a larger amount of cloth, meaning they could make a larger profit overall. This is why around 80% of clothing produced between 1942 and 1945 were CC41.

So there you go, only a very very brief overview of Utility and austerity. It is one of my absolute favourite topics and something I could literally go on and on about!

The three examples above are all again from Hampshire Museum service

A very special dress

2011-08-20T09:43:00.002+01:00

My blog post today is all about one little dress. This absolute STUNNER of a dress was one of my 21st birthday presents (i had chosen it before mind you). I am normally a huge 50s fan, but this dress creeps into the earlier decade.

My main reason for loving this dress is the print. I have a real thing for novelty prints, and I adore the quirky cameos in bold colours that hark to a previous era. They sort of remind me of Wedgwood porcelain. This dress screams "conversational print".

Another reason for loving this dress is the zipped sleeves. The dress has incredibly narrow sleeves, the look created with zips on each sleeve. I have another beautiful silk 40's dress with sleeves like these. They just scream elegance to me.

I also love the typical 40s combination of the peplum and shoulder pads. Its so nice to feel the quality of the older shoulder pads such as these which are softer and less spongy than their eighties counterparts. You can see in the pic too how the shoulder pad has been finished by hand. This dress being made before overlockers really came to popularity.

What i wonder most about this dress though is where is it from??? I am guessing it is American (i've had a few very similar crepe de chine dresses from across the pond before). But, there is the remnants of a shop label. I wonder where it might have been from originally?

I bought the dress from Hope and Harlequin in Brighton, probably my favourite vintage shop EVER (It's the main reason why i went from a casual vintage buyer to a complete vintage obsessive). I really do recommend visiting the shop, I don't think i have ever been there and not bought something!

I will be sure to update soon when i find an occasion to wear the little beauty too!

More 21st celebrations

2011-08-16T23:53:00.001+01:00

Yesterday was my 21^st birthday and was possibly one of the most wonderfully perfect days of my life.

I started off the day at my Mum's house in Romsey. This lovely selection of presents was awaiting me when I awoke in the morning!

Then we went off up to good old London town for a delectable Afternoon tea at the Dorchester (pretty appropriate as this week is national afternoon tea week!) I can’t recommend the Dorchester highly enough. The food was sublime and the service was wonderful. I was expecting it to be stuffy and pretentious but our waiters were so friendly in a completely genuine way. I think my favourite thing was the little square chocolate cake you can see on my plate in the picture. Incredibly rich but delicious.

bubbly on the train

My cousin and I

With the G.P.s

It was a great excuse for me to wear one of my lovely vintage dresses. This one is my Blanes one that I bought at Vintage @ Southbank. It’s a pretty perfect fit I have to say! I decided to wear it without the Bolero as I find it restricts my arm movement a bit.

Then I made a quick pit stop at home before I was off again to my friend Stef’s house. We share our Birthday. Again here I am in yet another piece of vintage Blanes (oh how I love blanes). I reckon this dress is early sixties. It’s a quite heavy cotton pique and again fits like a glove. I am actually going to dedicate a whole blog post to this dress soon, entitled "vintage snap" as i actually have two of these dresses! This lovely blue one and another in white and black too!

As you can see from my pictures I was a tad worse for wear (oopsie diaisy) and therefore probably the picture that shows my dress best is of my dear friend Stef drying my dress with a hairdryer after I spilt drink all over it. I may be 21 but I don’t think I will ever learn.

21st Birthday loveliness

2011-08-14T14:58:00.002+01:00

My Post today is a little off topic. I normally try and keep my posts to just talking about vintage, but this time i want to speak about vintage and my love for my friends.

Last night i had my 21st birthday party. I was wearing a dress i had chosen specially for the occasion. It was an amazing 50's ballgown, which i bought from one of my favourite vintage shops Mela Mela Vintage in Teddington. Do visit their website, melamela.co.uk they have some absolutely wonderful stuff. The ladies in the shop too aren't pushy they really helped me to choose a dress for my party that suited me, yet was totally show stopping! I'm guessing the dress is probably an American prom dress. I reckon its probably a mid fifties piece (typical mid fifties centre back zip and the strapless style just screams this to me!) Here are a few pics of the dress from the very beginning of the night.

You may also notice i have pretty spectacular hair and make up (The lipstick is still on now!!!) i had this done at the Vintage Hair Lounge in Southampton (where i currently have some of my vintage clothing for sale) http://www.vintagehairlounge.com. Sharon and Gloria really did a wonderful job and made me feel incredibly glamorous. The look i went for was heavily inspired by the wonderful Elizabeth Taylor.

And now onto the party itself. I had an amazing cocktail party which was topped off by my beautiful vintage cocktail cabinet from Flo and Stan in Southsea, it just fits so fabulously! We drank Mojitos, Woo Woos and Pina Coladas, they were delish and suitably alcoholic.

I have to say a HUGE thank you for my friends who travelled the 160 miles (or maybe more) to come down to Romsey for my party. A special thank you to my dear friend Caroline too, We've known each other 17 years and I can't believe she is still putting up with me! (she is the girl in the red top and black pencil skirt) All of my friends looked wonderful, and really made me feel special, and also a massive thank you to my Mum and Aunt for being Barmaids extraordinaire and making sure my party went off without a hitch!

A Spanish Senorita dress

2011-08-07T19:21:00.000+01:00

I just thought i would share a few pictures of the lovely dress i wore last night. It's a late fifties Blanes dress. I bought it about 3 months ago, but yesterday was the first time i wore it. It is made of a really lovely fine silk and the rose print is beautifully bold. I wore it with a petticoat, but i think as it is such a thin fabric it actually needs two to give it a proper 50's look. These photos were just taken on my cameras auto setting so they aren't the best. Apologies for the badly applied make-up too, it would appear that i tried to paint my face white : /

Vintage at Southbank

2011-08-01T23:58:00.007+01:00

(pic courtesy of http://www.homesandantiques.com/feature/we-saw-you-vintage-southbank-centre)

On Friday I went to Vintage at Southbank and had a totally wonderful day. Mostly the day was spent chatting and spending more money than I have (all good in my book!). I went wearing one of my fave Horrockses frocks, and throughout the day numerous people asked me about my dress. I had my picture taken more times than I can count!

I did spend an insane amount of time at the Horrockses bed linen stand chatting to the lovely designer Sarah and also showing Chris Boydell what I had been purchasing since I last met her! More to come on the Horrockses bed linen in another post though…

Anyway, I just wanted to show off my purchases. I somehow managed to be quite restrained!

First off this lovely little 50’s bracelet, right up my street!

Then was this lovely ¾ length sleeved dress, I love the striped print, and I can see this being one of my more winter suitable dresses, worn with nice thick tights and a vest underneath.

Then I bough two pairs of shoes. The black pair are in need of reheeling, but the brown pair still have their original box!

And finally I bought this AMAZING dress.It’s by the brand Blanes who are one of my favourite brands of the 50’s and 60’s, and I actually can’t believe I got this dress. Last year at Goodwood I saw the dress and I was desperate to buy it, but at the time I had no job and no money, and decided that it was just out of my price range. When I saw it again on Friday I couldn’t quite believe my luck. Of all time dresses under the label “ones that got away” this is the second most regret I have ever felt about buying a dress. When I saw it I’m not joking I got a bit choked up. He remembered me from Goodwood last year too! The best thing of all about this dress is the fit. It is possibly one of the best fitting pieces of vintage I own, and I can’t quite get over the fact its mine! I think this might have to be the dress I wear for afternoon tea on my 21st! I am so happy, I can’t quite believe it.

I really did have an amazing day, but I have to say in terms of the atmosphere it wasn’t as good as Goodwood last year. The problem was a lot to do with peoples attitude. I feel that last year people had really made the effort to dress up and make a real day out of it, where as this year it was more or less just an opportunity to shop. I also felt that this year it was too focused on the young. Most people there were in the 18-25 age bracket I would say, and I didn’t feel like it catered so well to an older clientele like I felt last year the festival had. I felt this was a lot to do with the fact that the vintage marketplace was free and therefore not attracting the same kind of people who were actually interested in vintage.

I did also have quite a lot of issues with what was on sale. I picked up some pieces I loved but yet AGAIN it was a fair dominated with poor quality 1980’s rubbish, and slightly tacky vintage repro pieces. Unfortunately it is this type of vintage that is diluting the whole meaning of vintage. The word vintage suggests a certain sense of QUALITY and finesse, yet more and more vintage I see can be seen as nothing more than poor quality second-hand clothing.

Advantage In Vintage hits Southampton

2011-07-28T14:11:00.005+01:00

As many who know me and read my blog realise I have a HUGE collection of vintage clothing. I’ve been selling my vintage on ebay for over 3 years (mostly jewellery and accessories) although. now I am branching out further. Now you can see my vintage in REAL LIFE!

Yesterday I embarked on a new collaboration with the Vintage Hair Lounge in Southampton. Their windows now contain some of my lovely vintage pieces and best of all, everything you see is for sale! I’m so excited about this new collaboration as the Vintage Hair Lounge is an amazing place and they do fabulous hair and make up (I’m going there to have my hair and make up done for my 21st).

The vintage hair lounge website can be found here: http://www.vintagehairlounge.com/

They will be doing hair demo’s next week at the West Quay vintage fair. I highly recommend anyone in the Southampton area pops along. More details about the fayre can be found here:

http://www.west-quay.co.uk/Website/Event.ashx?ParentSectionId=d920ffc5-e61f-4fb6-8776-187867b184e2&ContentInstanceId=ad57e5cd-710f-4fa3-9012-5b7459908a50

I will be regularly updating the windows so keep a check on my blog to see what I have put in the windows next! Also, If anyone would like any more details of the items I have for sale in the windows please do feel free to contact me.

The fabulous fifties lecture

2011-07-27T23:57:00.005+01:00

On monday i did my first proper lecture for Winchester fashion week. Now i've spoken to people before, done minor talks but this was my first talk with a BIG audience. 71 people turned up, which for a little lecture in the Winchester Discovery centre was pretty amazing.I spoke about 1950's fashion, and i think my passion for the topic really cam across! People had wonderful things to say and were so kind about the pieces from my ever growing collection which i took with me. Winchester fashion week is happening all this week. There are lots of great events still to happen such as the Cirque du fashion shows. These are just a few of my own pics, but when i get hold of the other from the WFW team i'll upload those too.

Winchester fashion week can be found here: http://www.winchesterfashionweek.com/

Also you may notice i have rather spiffing hair and make up. This was done by the Vintage Hair Lounge in Southampton who i played at being a model for on Monday morning. I'm going to write a bit more about them in my next blog post!

http://www.vintagehairlounge.com/

The importance of a petticoat

2011-07-24T13:18:00.005+01:00

I was taking some pictures of a few of my loveeeely vintage pieces on Friday and was trying to make my pieces look as "right" as possible. I have always been an advocate of the petticoat, but i think these really prove just how AMAZING 50's dresses look with petticoats.

As of yesterday i also FINALLY have a petticoat that actually fits me and is the right length. Thanks to Dead man's glory- Portsmouth (bought from their ebay). The petticoats used on my mannequin are actually too big for me, which is a problem i repeatedly have. One size fits all is simply not the case when you are a size 6. One of them said it was suitable for a 20 inch waist upwards, i normally wear a 23-24inch waist and it literally FELL down me. grrr. Annoying ebay. Anyway rant over, this really was just an excuse to show off some lovely pictures.

All three dresses are from my ever growing Horrockses collection

L'age D'or and Dior

2011-07-16T09:16:00.008+01:00

Last week I seemed to spend most of my time at the V and A museum (not a bad thing at all!) One of the study sessions I went to was about the legend that was Dior.

I’ll start with a little quotation on the man from Cecil Beaton:
“Like a bland country curate made of pink marzipan”

This is one thing I love greatly about Dior, his unassuming appearance. Dior was like any other middle aged man; slightly portly, balding and quite frankly plain looking. He hid behind this exterior one of the greatest fashion brains of the 20th century. Unlike many designers of today his appearance wasn’t showy, allowing his designs to do the talking. Maybe some designers could learn something from this today…

It difficult to know what to say about Dior, partly because a lot of it has been said before. So I will just share a few of my favorite Dior snippets of information.

1) Dior couldn’t sew.
Popular to contrary belief Dior was no expert tailor. He was a skilled designer who understood the female form perhaps better than any other man of the 20th century yet; he relied on his assistants to turn his fairytale ideas on paper into real life creations. His assistant Mme Carre was head of workrooms and responsible for bringing his ideas from paper to fabric. It is interesting therefore to note that this picture, one of the most famous of Dior is almost certainly staged. Unlike his contemporary Jacques Fath (swoon) who liked to work by draping the fabric on his model Dior was a designer who liked to work from sketches.

http://trustyourstyle.com/archive/2008_11_30_trustyourstyle_archive.html

2) Dior and his “golden stick”.
Dior was well known for his gold tipped cane he carried around with him. This cane was used to prod his models (sometimes in appreciation, sometimes in disapproval) and to select the fabrics and designs he liked best.

https://theinvisibleagent.wordpress.com/tag/dior/

3) Dior had three mothers.
He called his three key assistants his “mothers”. Mme Carre whom I mentioned previously was one. Mme Raymonde was poached from Lelong where she had been working for 25 years. She was his right hand woman and always checked all of the mannequins (models). His final mother was Mme Bricard who was his muse. She was an incredibly naughty woman who worked almost as his stylist. Dior said “Madame Bricard is one of the rare people for whom elegance is their sole reason for living.”

http://www.sandrascloset.com/tag/mitzah-bricard/

4) Dior always liked to wear his white lab coat
This makes me think of him like a chemist (or even an alchemist!) mixing together his potion of designs to create the perfect formula of feminine beauty. I can’t find any reason anywhere for why he did this, but I like to think it suggests the perfection of his designs.

5) Dior always new that Women would make him money.
At the age of 14 a fortuneteller told Dior that he would be involved a lot with women and they would make him a lot of money. How very true!

6) Dior never wanted to be AS successful as he was
Dior was incredibly ambitious this is without doubt, but his aim had never been to be THE designer of a generation. Boussac, his backer, initially needed a designer to take over the failing couturier Philippe Gaston. At the time this was one of the big couture houses, always noted in Vogue, yet having fallen a little out of favour. Boussac had Dior in mind to take over, but Dior did not want to work under another designers name and wanted Boussac to back him in his own couture house instead. Boussac was impressed by Dior’s driven attitude and agreed to back him. Dior had high hopes for a very successful yet small house. He had no inclination that his first collection would have the massive impact it did. He said at the time that he woke up the day after his first show “a famous man”.

7) Only 18 American journalists turned up to Dior’s first show.
Dior was the final show of Paris fashion week, and many American journalists decided to go home early rather than go and see the new kid on the block. Those who had chosen to go home early soon regretted their mistake and many were made to turn back and return to Paris to go and see the collection after the show.

8) Dior created 5% of France's GDP.
Couture throughout the 20th century has been a huge part of France’s GDP but in the 50’s it really was integral. Couture at the time was 1/3 of France’s GDP and Dior created 5% of France’s GDP on his own, it now seems almost unfathomable that a single man could have bought so much wealth into a nation by himself, and this really is a credit to his design prowess.

Getting super excited!

2011-07-15T16:11:00.006+01:00

It is now just over a week until I get to talk about my passion for the 50’s at Winchester fashion week!

This is the blurb for my talk
The Fabulous Fifties: Frocks and Florals Lecture by Liz Tregenza 16:00-17:00 @ Winchester Discovery Centre
The 1950s was a period of great cultural and social change. Britain was leaving behind the austerities and restrictions of World War Two and people were embracing a more positive future. But what did this all mean for fashion? Come and find out about the fashions of every day people and the influence of couture and be taken through a wonderful journey of full skirts, florals and frivolity. There will also be the opportunity to see some examples of 50s costume and accessories from Liz’s personal collection. - Tickets for this event will cost £3. To book please call Winchester Discovery Centre on 01962 873603

There are many other fabbity fab events happening over the week too which I highly recommend anyone in the Winchester area to check out.

http://www.winchesterfashionweek.com/
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=135744246442258

These are just a few of my favourite pieces that I will be taking along with me

Rayne shoes: Icons of the 20th century

2011-07-11T21:04:00.004+01:00

After the talk about couture shoes Nick Rayne of the Rayne family spoke to us. He was completely inspiring and SUCH a great speaker. I never previously understood quite how important Rayne are in terms of tracking the history of the shoe in the 20th century, but he really showed quite how innovative the company were in their day.

The Rayne company began in 1885 as theatre outfitters, started by Henry and Mary Rayne. There were many new theatres built in the late 1800’s and the family cashed in on this. Their first shop was located close to the theatres on Shaftesbury avenue which had been a slum clearance

The theatres inevitably led to the ballet and dance and hence dance shoes. This was where their first links came with the company they would later come to be. Adeline Genee was one of the first to promote the company. She was very famous in Europe and in 1897 came to England for what was meant to be six weeks and stayed for 10 years. Rayne provided all of her shoes and costumes when she first came over to the U.K.

It is thought that a lot of the costumes for the Ballet Russes also came from Rayne. Although, this is simply speculation as the costumes tended not to be marked and the only evidence comes from company invoices. Diaghilev was very difficult to deal with and was notorious for doing runners to Paris when he did not want to pay!

In the 1920’s Charles Rayne saw a gap in the market and realised that shoe design may be the next avenue for the company. The new store opened on 58 New Bond street. The logo that is now synonymous with Rayne was also designed around this time. They used a lot of American production techniques, this included using American soles to make the shoes more comfortable and flexible. The sizes and fittings were also based on American sizes. Rayne had designers based in America. Many of these people were first generation Italians so had instilled in them the ideas of Italian superior craftsmanship.

The company then went from strength to strength gaining their first royal warrant in the 1930’s after Queen Mary had the brand recommend to her by one of her ladies in waiting.

It is probably the designs of the 1950’s though which Rayne are best remembered for, elegant, expertly crafted and presented in their iconic yellow boxes. I have come across quite a few pairs of 50s Rayne shoes on my vintage travels and goodness me they tend to be good quality! It was during this period that Rayne had many iconic designers working with them including importantly Roger Vivier, who designed the shoes for both the Queens wedding and Coronation with the Rayne brand.

One of the things that interested me most was their collaboration with Wedgewood in 1958. This was a series of shoes designed in a number of fabrics (satin and leather formed the bulk of the range) with real solid china heels. At the time there was an advertisement where they stood a London bus on top of the heels and they didn’t break! Nick said that to his knowledge none were ever retuned for chipping or breaking. The china was incredibly solid.

The 1950’s also saw them move to a new store on Old Bond Street. The interior design was by the renowned theatre designer Oliver Messel. The store was decorated in the regency style with Japanese silk wallpaper. The sad ending is that whilst his was a beautiful building and one of the few examples of Messel's work the Whole building was sledge hammered in 1987. The company who owned it had to destroy it over one weekend before it became a listed building on the Monday. It is so sad the lengths people will go to simply to gain better access to office space!

Images from Victoria and Albert museum and wikipedia

The couture shoe

2011-07-11T20:20:00.007+01:00

This week has literally been mental not only have I been working a crazy amount, I’ve also been on 4 courses at the V and A. I just wanted to share with everyone some of the amazing information I learnt!

My course on Thursday was all about the history of the couture shoe. Fiona Campbell was the speaker.

The concept of couture began with Charles Frederick Worth an English designer who was based in Paris at the end of the 19th century. The term couture comes from the French- Haute Couture- meaning High sewing. Worth was not just a designer but also a craftsman and an artist who completely revolutionised design. Although my focus here is not on his dresses (wonderful as they were), but rather the shoes that were worn underneath his and other couturiers dresses.

Under these beautiful couture dresses to begin with women were still wearing long lace up boots. These boots were made of fine kidskin and commissioned through the couturiers. This was when the shoemaker was yet to come into their own as ankles were still completely covered up. The idea of the couture shoe had yet to arrive.

Pinet, now a largely forgotten name was the man to change all of this. The Louis heel had been popular for decades, but he bought in a new heel shape the Pinet heel. This heel was a little bit higher and narrower than the Louis heel. He established that shoe designers no longer had to follow the exact whims of the clothing designers and could actually establish their own creative businesses.

It was the shoes designed Perugia (another forgotten name!) who really established the concept of the fashion or “art” shoe. He came from a long line of shoemakers. He started working with the family company at 16 and soon complained that the company was all about making and not about design. He decided that he wanted to carve his own name for himself and took is work to Nice. Here he managed to get a showcase in the Negresso hotel to display his shoes.

One of his first customers saw the shoes here and was dressed by Poiret. Poiret saw his customer wearing the shoes and loved them. He asked Perugia to come to Paris and work with him. Unfortunately due to World War One Perugia couldn’t go. Although this came to be a good thing as during the war Perugia worked in engineering and managed to put many of the practices he learnt into designing more avant-garde shoes.

After World War One finished he finally had the opportunity to work with Poiret and many of the motifs he was using on his shoes related directly with Poiret’s clothing. His shoes during this period showed how he was inspired by the art movement surrounding him, something that would again be important in his later career.
His shoes during the 1920’s were completely lavish and he really met the spirit of the times as hemlines had risen and finally shoes were shown off used to complete and compliment an outfit. He was well known for using lavish embroidery and covering shoes completely in clawed rhinestones.

This pair of shoes are one of my favourite by Perugia. These shoes are from 1931 (I think they look modern even by today’s standards) and were inspired by George Braque.

This pair of shoes I think has to be my favourite. (I think) they were created for Mistinguett in 1948. If you took a quick glance at them though you could quite easily be mistaken for thinking they were Christian Louboutin’s and from a far later date! Perugia was well known for designing shoes with up to 7in heels.

The other designer who was discussed in detail was Ferragamo. He was just 9 years old when he was apprenticed to a Naples shoemaker and at 10 he set up his own workshop and repaired locals shoes. Aged 16 he moved to America where he was closely located to the American film company and with a brother working in film costume he managed to establish links with the company. In 1923 Ferragamo designed all the footwear for the film the Ten Commandments by Cecil Bde Mille. This film helped to bring about a new trend in shoes. At this time women were still wearing very high cut shoes, but this film bought about a craze for sandals.

Ferragamo designed shoes fro many of the leading lights in the entertainment world throughout the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s including Greta Garbo and Audrey Hepburn. Although the design style he is probably best remembered for is his wedge sole. He started designing these in 1936 (trying to bridge the gap between comfort and elegance) and within two years 86% of all shoes in America had wedge soles!

Images from the Met museum collection database and
http://theshoegoddess.com/2007/04/andre-perugia-the-master-from-1928-1977.html

Some of my favourites from Hampshire Museums Serive

2011-07-03T18:30:00.004+01:00

Well, this post is one that’s making me sad even to start writing. This is just a little post about the end of my time with Hampshire museum service. I can’t believe that after 10 of the most amazing and wonderful months of my life I have now finished my placement. In 10 months I have decided what I want to do with my future, met some of the most knowledgable people imaginable and learnt more than I ever thought was possible.

I just thought I would take this opportunity to share some of my favourite pieces in the collections:

This gorgeous dress is one of the most recent acquisitions to the collection. It came in just a few weeks ago and is a stunning light weight silk. The feather print is so modern and I can just see it worn on the French Riviera by some super chic lady in the 30s when It was originally made. There is something about the print though that I definitely recognise, I am sure I have seen it on a scarf or something before, but I just can’t seem to place it!

c2011.48

I have a complete obsession with novelty prints and I think this Harbour scene print must be one of the all time best. It is just so summery. The make of it is Lenaura by Devas which is a make I have never come across before. What a beaut!

Yet another of my numerous (and ridiculous) obsessions has to be collars. This dress has a fabulous huge statement collar that would have simply emphasised the feminine figure. The oversized collar would have accented the teeny tiny waist of the wearer. Also the colours of the dress are so very delicate. What is it about cotton that is just so appealing?

Ah deary me, I will miss the opportunity to go and look at such beautiful things all the time!

Pat Albeck: Life after Horrockses

2011-06-22T13:04:00.006+01:00

Continuing on the theme of Pat Albeck from my previous post...

After Pat Albeck left Horrockses she went onto work for a number of prestigious companies.

The design Pat is probably best recognised for is her Daisychain pattern which was created for John Lewis. The design was created in what she calls her "Physcadelic period" it was a John Lewis best seller for 15 years coming in a variety of colour ways. One colourway (in varying shades of brown) was known as the Rank Hollis McDougal! ( I hope I have spelt this correctly)This design takes some inspiration from William Morris with its mirrored floral repeat. Whilst talking about the design Pat amused me saying that she dislikes the word florals feeling that flower designs better describes her work! She also said she preferred to say that things sell well rather than that they are commercial!

Pat went on to do a lot of work for the National Trust (whom she still works for now!). She designed prints for a wide variety of mediums including textiles and pottery. She said that whilst working for the national trust she learnt to be a lot more careful with her designs whereas when at Horrockses she felt she could be a lot more flamboyant. Many of the designs were much more muted in terms of colours and had to follow strict guidelines that the National Trust set out.

Whilst working for the National Trust she has designed over 300 tea towels. These have included calendar tea towels every year and those which represent specific national trust buildings. A tea towel takes her around 3 weeks to design in total. One week for the rough and two weeks to draw up the final design. She works first on a design a 3rd of the finished size, which would normal take around a day and a half to execute. Working on a small size is important because time would be wasted if a full scale design is completed and it is not liked.

Pat designed a series of tea towels last year for Emma Bridgewater (Emma is her daughter-in-law). These show she still has a fresh creative energy. I particularly love the pigeon design one (who knew a pigeon could look so beautiful).

What amazed me most about Pat is that at 81 she is still working and not only that, she is still creating designs that are as innovative and modern as designers sixty years younger than herself are creating.

http://shop.norfolktextiles.co.uk/vintage-pat-albeck-daisy-chain-cushion-cover-in-gold-1295-p.asp
http://www.dragonflydrygoods.com/shopper/emma-bridgewater-pottery/pat-albeck/grey-pigeons-tea-towel-by-emma-bridgewater.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41967905@N06/4418184968/in/set-72157622336433547

Pat Albeck: Legendary textiles designer

2011-06-22T12:44:00.004+01:00

Anyone who reads my blog knows that I have a worrying obsession with the fashion brand Horrockses. Last Friday I had the opportunity to go and see the Horrockses exhibition again, this time at its new location Basildon Park near Reading. Connected with exhibition there was a special talk by Horrockses print designer Pat Albeck. Not only was Pat lovely, she was completely inspiring and despite not really being a print designer it gave me a desperate desire to get designing!

As soon as I entered the room Pat spotted me, coming up to me and saying "That's one of my designs!". I was wearing one of my many Horrockses dresses, although I have to say the one I chose is one of my favourites. She asked me if she could touch it and said about how lovely the dress still felt after all this time, asking me to come up and do a twirl for the audience! I had a feeling that the dress I had chosen to wear *might* be one of her designs but I was very glad that my suspicions were correct!

Pat began her career with Horrockses whilst she was still a student at the Royal College of Art. James Cleveland-Belle the then Director of Horrockses was keen to use the design skills of some of the students from the college and spotted Pat's work. Cleveland-Belle went on to become a great friend and also one of Pats inspirations. She says she remembers the magical feeling when Cleveland-Belle signed off one of the sketches JCB meaning it would go into production.

The first design which Horrockses bought from Pat was this iconic pattern which has been used again recently by the V and A for a new range of Horrockses based textiles. Whilst at the Royal college Pat had two of her designs commercially produced by Horrockses. The Royal college of Art felt it was important for their students to work within industry encouraging Pat to spend one month at college and one month working for Horrockses.

Pat also remembered a dress which she owned before working at Horrockses ( a member of the audience piped up that she remembered Pat wearing it and looking beautiful in it!). The dress was lemon yellow with stripes and little egg shapes with flowers inside.

During the five years Pat worked for Horrockses she designed a wide variety of different prints drawing inspiration from all sorts of things around her. Employees at Horrockses were encouraged to used their holidays to inspire there work and Pat remembers a holiday in Venice which particularly inspired her work. Pat found that she drew anything that grabbed her, buildings, kitchens, gardens, flora and fauna.

Pat felt that the luckiest thing was that she was designing fabric for actual dresses which she would see made up. Her designs were not to be sold as fabric to be made up by the general public. She liked to have a specific dress design which she knew the design would be used for and the knowing precisely what her fabrics would be used for. One of her oddest requests for a print design came from John Tullis (who designed most of the "specials" and evening dresses). The design had to incorporate a lobster. I have to say this is probably one of my all-time favourite Horrockses prints, and I love the way the lobster is softened by its combination with the butterflies and flowers.

Pat also said about the amazing reputation Horrockses had in the 50's it was THE big company in the U.K. and was widely copied. Horrockses dresses (back then as they are now) were highly sought after and she says that the dresses did wear out because people wore them so much (this makes me feel a little big smug about my ever growing collection!)

After 5 years with the company Pat left in 1958 with Cleveland-Belle gone Pat felt it was time for her to move on too.

I will write further about Pat's later career in my next blog post.

http://printpattern.blogspot.com/2011/01/v-shop-textile-design-gifts.html

Putting clothes to bed

2011-06-19T21:52:00.001+01:00

Sob. There is one thing that makes me ever so sad about working in museums, putting all the objects away! A few weeks ago we took down the Little Black Dress exhibition and I have spent the been putting everything back away into the stores. Most costume can only be left out on display for short periods of time because they can be easily damaged by light and varying heat. Some garments can only be left out for short periods of time because of their weight, and some of the dresses we had on display really displayed how much of a problem this can be.

This beautiful dress is a prime example of a mid twenties flapper dress. The peacock inspired embroidery is simply breathtaking and I am sure the original owner would have looked the bees knees in this dress! The dress has been on display since November (first in Dazzle and then in Little Black dress) and this 7 month stint is as long as the dress can realistically take and will start to show signs of more damage if left out any longer. Here are just a few pics of the dresses beautiful embroidery. I think it has to be one of my favourite pieces in the Hampshire Museums service collection.

A vintage adventure: Horrockses and Lucienne Day

2011-06-03T18:45:00.008+01:00

For around the past four years I have been madly obsessed with the fashion label "Horrockses fashions" The company began in 1946 and was hugely popular throughout the 1950s being the big name in cotton fashion and promoting the luxury and glamour of cotton. Almost as soon as I started at the museum service I hunted for any Horrockses in the collection to add to my database of prints and styles. There was one dress at the time that particularly stood out to me, a simple blue and white cotton poplin day dress, it interested me because it contained not only a Horrockses label, but also a Harvey Nichols cotton shop label. This was obviously an expensive piece when new.

Dress accession no: C1999.146.2
Contrary to popular belief Horrockses did not produce all of their fabrics themselves (this was especially the case with dresses made in jersey, silks or satins). Most of the cottons were produced by the Horrockses parent company, but some types of cotton still were produced elsewhere. One such example was cotton poplins. Cotton poplins were used for more expensive garments, particularly evening wear. Poplins tended to be bought in from Ashton's or from Holden's.

I then forgot about this dress for a good few months. I t wasn't until march when I went to the designing the decades: 50s talk at the Victoria and Albert museum that the dress came to the forefront of my mind again. At the talk the textile designs of Lucienne Day were discussed. I had always liked the abstracted prints of Day, but the talk gave me a whole new appreciation of her work. When I returned to the museums service the next week I mentioned to my boss about how much I had enjoyed the talk, and she told me that there were two dresses originally owned By Day in the Hampshire Museum Service collection. I search on the Modes record and couldn't quite believe it when one turned out to be the Horrockses dress which I had been so interested by previously! It was amazing to find out that such an iconic dress had been owned by such an iconic lady.

I continued to research a little further and turned up trumps by finding a John French fashion photograph of the dress via flickr, which was attributed to the V and A. This really allowed me to see how the dress would have looked on and appreciated how the relatively stiff cotton pique would have created a very distinctive silhouette.

John French regularly photographed Horrockses fashions. He has quite a distinctive style where the dress is allowed to do the talking which perfectly suited the style of Horrockses dresses. Horrockses often advertised in Vogue, and their advertisements (which often used French's photos) tended to be very simple featuring just the dress and Horrockses in Serified font. This was meant to draw associations to luxury labels such as Dior etc which often advertised in a similarly simple way.

Then a few weeks ago my research came to a somewhat surprising and pleasant end. I decided to re read my Horrockses book by Christine Boydell, and lo and behold again there was the John French photograph in front of me, with more details about the styling of this dress and French's photographs.

After re reading the book I have come to the conclusion that this is probably a design by John Tullis due to the relatively complex construction of the dress. Tullis was renowned for the complex cut of his dresses, which many of the seamstresses complained were a nightmare to stitch! Tullis got his training at Molyneux the couturier in Paris. This couture training could be one of the main reasons for the complicated cut of many of his garments. If you spot a Horrockses with a particularly complicated bodice, or details like pockets on the outside of a dress, then it will be probably be a Tullis design! The fabric suggests that this may have been one of their "specials" dresses. This is further suggested by the fact that Harvey Nichols was one of Horrockses biggest customers, and one of the main suppliers of Horrockses garments in London. There was a special relationship between Horrockses and Harvey Nichols. It is known that Horrockses produced special dresses which were exclusive to the store or used particular fabric designs fro them.

If you look at the pictures you can see the interior construction of the dress. I assume that the dress has been altered at some point. Day was quite petite so it was likely the dress was taken up to suit her frame (this has bee hand done, most other cotton pique Horrockses dresses I have come across are machine finished)

So there you go, not only is this dress a beautiful piece which is totally evokes the mid 50s but it is a piece with an interesting and varied history which links a number of different areas of design history together.

http://www.vandaprints.com/image/447900/a-horrockses-cotton-poplin-dress-photo-john-french
http://www.sneakymagpie.com/furniture/design-heroes-robin-lucienne-day/