Posts Tagged ‘vintage’

Stop Me and Buy One

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

I was walking in Notting Hill, West London about four years ago when I was stopped by one of those extraordinarily trendy Japanese women who seem to look good, no matter how ridiculous their outfits. I thought she was going to ask for directions, but, in charmingly Japanese accented English, she asked if I would sell her the denim jacket I was wearing.

I wasn’t offended, or surprised by her request. The jacket is a red tabbed, denim blouson, single breast pocket, with yellow stitching and rear belt. I had stopped a man in Portobello Road two or three years earlier and asked him to sell me the same jacket. I knew it was a desirable Levi vintage of the 40s or 50s and I paid £15.00 ($30.00) for it.

I asked the Japanese lady how much she wanted to pay? She smiled, thought for a minute and replied: £400.00 ($800.00). I was surprised, but I was pretty well off, at the time, I didn’t need the money. I thanked her, very much, we bowed to one another, she giggled and we went off in different directions. I never saw her again.

In the early seventies, having returned from a year in Spain, I arrived penniless on Portobello Road. I crashed with friends and they introduced me to a guy making a good living from recycled denim, bought by the ton, ripped, re-cut and made into coats, jackets and shirts. He and I became friends and eventually partners.

At the time, denim was considered very low-grade by rag merchants, who recycled most of the rags they collected for use as wiping cloths in industry. Denim is not very absorbent, so it was cheap. A ton of washed denim cost us £75.00 ($150.00). In the early seventies it was not the fashion to wear your denim with holes or rips, so the denim we were buying was nearly always in good condition and reusable.

We took it in turns travelling around the UK, visiting rag yards with which we had agreements to sort and save denim. We also bought denim from the USA via a dealer named, Mr Denim. At his warehouse in Croydon, south London, we were allowed to sort through piles of denim pants and denim jackets and, as much of this denim was collected from prisons, large numbers of denim overalls (bib and brace). For each garment we were charged £0.75p regardless of condition. We found many interesting vintage denim garments too and we always had a ready market for those on Portobello Road, where we opened one of the very first stalls selling vintage.

Unfortunately we could never buy enough denim to make into clothing to satisfy our customers. People would queue outside the door of our workshop in Basing Street on the days we received new stock from our machinists and fight over whatever arrived. One of those customers decided to use the name we’d painted on the door in pink paint, but had neglected to register, turning it into a very successful brand name.

One of our very best customers for the denim clothes we were making was an Italian, with a shop in Kensington Market. Years later he became a very successful vintage watch dealer and we have remained friends. A couple of years after the Japanese lady stopped me and asked to by my denim jacket he saw me wearing the jacket and he asked if I would be willing to sell it to him. I told him about the Japanese woman and asked if he would pay more than £400.00? He offered £300.00. He said the jacket was rare, but prices had fallen since the Japanese lady had made her offer. So had the pound sterling against the dollar and £300 then was little more than $450. I thanked him and refused his offer.

I probably would not have sold it for a thousand pounds. Although it is now a little tatty at the edges and faded, I love it. I’m always looking forward to the next offer though.

Author Bio: Visit VintageRagTrader.com!

Other Fashion News

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in General Information | 2 Comments »

Vintage Lace

Monday, March 15th, 2010

Lace is a fascinating fabric, beautiful, intricate, delicate yet deceptively strong and sexy too. When I’m out hunting for vintage I am always delighted to find an interesting piece of vintage lace or a vintage lace garment.

When I was young, I enjoyed some of my summer holidays in the country, where I stayed with a fat auntie who suffered from narcolepsy. She could fall asleep without warning during almost any activity including walking. On several occasions I entered her kitchen to find her asleep at the sink with her hand deep in a washing-up bowl. She often fell asleep while riding her bicycle. It was only due to quiet country roads and a few miracle escapes that she lived to be eighty-four.

My aunty was a collector of all things vintage. She hoarded anything old and although she had very little knowledge of what she was buying, her intuition was sound – she had a good eye. Her house was a vintage treasure trove, a messy jumble of Victoriana and early twentieth century bric-a-brac. She hardly ever left the house without returning with a newly acquired object and they weren’t always small. In her garden stood a small private chapel that she used for the storage of large pieces of mostly dark brown furniture in need of restoration and a couple of pianos. Nothing that entered the chapel ever came out again.

A lace cushion she kept on the wide window seat in her parlour always fascinated me. She had bought it from a widower in her village, whose wife had inherited it from her grandmother. The last piece of lace the grandmother was working on before she died was still attached, as were all of the little bobbins and their threads. My aunt said it was Belgian and that the grandmother had been Scandinavian. The cushion was soft satin and the piece of lace attached was extremely fine. I wondered if the grandmother had glasses, or if she worked with a magnifying glass? Although I was told never to touch the cushion I regularly altered the position of many of the bobbins, knowing that it would never be noticed.

Maybe it was because of my fat aunty and the lace cushion that I have always been attracted to vintage lace. According to Wikipedia fine lace has been manufactured since the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. Unfortunately I have had to content myself with viewing museum examples of these very early pieces and representations by artists, like Van Dyke.

Over the years, however, I have bought and sold several manufacturers’ sample collections of vintage lace. I was recently very pleased to be able to purchase a large scrapbook of vintage novelty lace in many colourways and wide variety of designs – I do hope my scanner can do them justice.

This collection of vintage lace includes many large document swatches perfect for conversion, reference, trending or inspiration on mood-boards. Lace is definitely on-trend this year and will probably be much bigger in summer 2011. It looks as though almost any apparel manufactured for women this summer could be made with lace, have a lace trim or lace panel: blouses, skirts, dresses, t-shirts and even overcoats and bags will be appearing on the high street in lace. Vintage lace will be the inspiration for many of these products.

I didn’t inherit my auntie’s lace cushion. She left it to a female cousin who sold it.

Author Bio: Visit VintageRagTrader!

Other Fashion News

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Fashion | 1 Comment »

privace policy | terms of service | about us