Back to business…
Posted: August 29, 2007 Filed under: 1960s, 1970s, british boutique movement, clobber, emma domb, florrie carr, jeff banks, lee bender, sandie shaw, topshop, youthquake 1 Comment »
Thanks to the great British weather, I’ve been a little quieter than usual (NOT suitable weather for taking photographs at all, unless I want people squinting at blobs in my listings….) but I’ve just listed some doozies over on ebay….AND I have even more to come both there and on the website. Getting there…..getting there!
Firstly the ebay malarkey. Well, we have a scrumptious Janice Wainwright jacket (left) in black wool crepe and embroidered with all sorts of lovely flowers and insects(!). Eagle-eyed viewers will note that this is the black version of the suit on my website. Although, alas, this has lost its bottom half – it certainly doesn’t stop it from being excessively wearable. Just imagine over a frilly shirt and jeans!
Other notables include a very, VERY rare Sandie Shaw boutique mini (she of Eurovision and Jeff Banks marriage fame), a jawdroppingly
beautiful Thirties evening gown (check out the halter neck and the adorable bow on the tushy!) and a slinky, sultry gypsy dress by Vintage-a-Peel favourite (and scourge of Topshop, apparently), Lee Bender for Bus Stop.
Coming up on the website in the next week will be a red cord Youthquake mini dress (laced up the front….sauuuucccccyy!!), a delicious Forties-inspired moss crepe printed dress by British Boutique woman of mystery Florrie Carr (I suspect she may be married to David Silverman and they both live in Atlantis or something….), a Paddington Bear type check mini dress by Clobber (a.k.a Jeff Banks, of Sandie Shaw marriage fame) and one of the most stunning dresses I’ve had the good fortune to come across by Emma Domb (right) under her earliest label. It’s seriously movie-star-tastic!
Liz xxx
Power to the People: The True Meaning of Vintage
Posted: August 3, 2007 Filed under: Ms Peelpants' rants, topshop 3 Comments »Vintage clothing is the ultimate expression of individuality. Vintage sellers are those who have fallen in love with vintage and want to work with vintage (as well as eat, drink, sleep it….well, some of us…). Vintage shouldn’t be about big business.
Unfortunately, big business always seems to want a piece of vintage. Displayed clinically, major flaws unmentioned and with designer information taken wholesale from places like the Vintage Fashion Guild label resource with no credit and no genuine research, big business doesn’t see the soul of a dress. It doesn’t feel the bizarre, beautiful touch of moss crepe or the sensuality of draping satin. It doesn’t appreciate the time machine element of an Ossie, instantly transporting you back into the heady days of Marianne, Mick and Anita. It can never understand how a Biba dress will make you skip down the road or how a pair of perfect patent shoes can transfix you for hours.
Perhaps I’m too emotionally involved in vintage for my own good, perhaps I’m an old romantic and a daydreaming thorn in the side of the cynical world of fashion. But that’s why I do what I do, and it’s why all independent vintage sellers do what they do.
Why does a multi-million pound fashion empire like Topshop start selling vintage? Why do they crush the spirit of small business by invading our world? I certainly can’t think of a good reason.
But then why do they also duplicate original vintage clothes and make money out of designers who always put creativity before profit?
(oh the irony that they’re now selling vintage Lee Bender pieces, bearing in mind they shamelessly copied her work for the appalling Kate Moss collection)
I’m resigned to it, I’m far too much a small fish against the mighty shark of big business. But I feel my opinion is valid, and I hope some of you fellow lovers of vintage will agree with me.
