Time traveller. 20th century fashion specialist. Doodler and stitcher.

Born in London, now based in Brighton, I studied Costume Design at The Arts University in Bournemouth and have been a self-employed specialist dealer, collector and historian since 2003.

Always inspired by the weirder, sometimes seedier, aspects of popular culture, as well as art and history, I absorb myself in contemporary films, magazines, and music (so, pretty much anything I can get my hands on!) and seek beauty and inspiration wherever I possibly can.

I’m proud to be a fashion nerd. I roll my eyes when people say Mary Quant invented the mini skirt. I can spot an unlabelled Ossie Clark from twenty paces. I go to pieces when I meet designers nobody else recognises. I get giddy when I see clothes I recognise in old films and magazines. But I also love to share information, share the pleasure all these things bring me. It may not pay the bills, but it does bring me a lot of pleasure and inspiration which feeds into everything I do.

My magazine collection includes Vogue, Queen, 19, Nova, Honey, Petticoat, Vanity Fair and Harpers Bazaar, plus a few little saucy extras. Ephemera from my private collection was used in Richard Lester’s book Boutique London (ACC). Magazines from my collection were exhibited in Tate Liverpool‘s Glam! The Performance of Style exhibition (2013), which toured to Germany and Austria, and have also been used as source images for the V&A‘s The Biba Years: 1963-1975 by Barbara Hulanicki and Martin Pel, and for Richard Lester’s Dress of the Year (ACC). They were most recently exhibited at The Fashion and Textile Museum‘s acclaimed Thea Porter exhibition (2015).

My passion for all things Sixties and Seventies means that I tend to specialize in this era, and more specifically British Boutique fashion. There’s nothing quite like owning your own little slice of history, and being a guardian for a modest collection of fabric artwork. Vintage designer labels I sell and wear include, but are not limited to, Ossie Clark, Biba, Annacat, Alice Pollock, Foale and Tuffin, Bill Gibb, Thea Porter, Miss Mouse, Bus Stop and Catherine Buckley.

Garments from my private collection have been exhibited at The V&A (Sixties Fashion Exhibition, 2006-07), The Fashion Museum in Bath (John Bates: Fashion Designer, 2006), The Lightbox in Woking (Snap Crackle & Pop, 2011) and The Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey (Foale and Tuffin, 2009-10; Thea Porter, 2015). Some pieces are also featured in Nicky Albrechtsen’s book Vintage Fashion Complete (Thames and Hudson). As I have recently started selling more pieces from my private collection, you will find exhibited and often documented pieces for sale in my Etsy shop.

In addition to my blog and Instagram feed, I contributed to Shrimpton Couture’s superb Curate project. In September 2016, I presented the paper ‘A Peek at the Boutique’ at the UEA Symposium ‘Still Swinging: 1960s British cinema and popular culture in the 21st century’.

Now under the banner of my own website, http://www.lizeggleston.com, my blog will continue in much the same vein as it always has. Fear not! I still have shelves full of magazines yet to be scanned and films yet to be screengrabbed. I seek and take no remuneration for it, it’s just an interesting ongoing project for me, but I welcome people to take a look at my Etsy shop and to contact me if they wish to commission me, either as a writer or illustrator for any projects which might suit my style.

You can email me at lizegglestonandco@gmail.com or send me a message through Instagram.