The pincushion was created as a means to keep precious pricey sewing pins safe, with pin pillows and other little cushions
emerging in 15th century England. The pastime of embroidery was for the rich, so the pincushion became a status symbol, often worn from the waist like a chatelaine and even mentioned in wills and lists of assets.
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Vintage is all the rage in fashion collecting. An allied collecting field can be found in the tools that produced those thrilling pieces from yesteryear, especially the scissors, pins, needles and other tools that millions of homemakers and seamstresses used to
clothe their families and adorn their homes and enhance the elegance of high society.
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Specialist glass collector John Frith highlights scent bottles that shine under lights.
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Well-maintained hands were important to the Egyptians, whose ancient paintings depict carers tending to the nails of the pharaoh. The manicure set, on the other hand, is rather more modern.
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The use of extra hair was so widespread in the Victorian era that Godey’s Lady’s Book from the 1860s instructed, ‘When a lady is in danger of drowning, raise her by the dress and not by the hair, which oftentimes remains in the grasp.’
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Early in 2023, the fashion online store Mocha announced the beaded bag as a strong style statement, and Harper’s Bazaar touted ’10 beaded bags to perfect your summer look’. But it’s not the first time the beaded bag has been a fashion icon.
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Why wear your fortune around your neck? A good question, and one Coco Chanel famously asked in defence of her own jewellery creations.
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From about 1890 to the 1930s, small hand-blown coloured swirl-striped scent bottles – sometimes called purse scent bottles – were made in Germany.
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All the better to see you with… how the opera glass became an essential accessory.
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The genre of needlework tools is large but collector Doody Taylor is undaunted. Citing rudimentary needles, pins and scissors as the basics, she says, “Nowadays there is a huge assortment of tools, both antique and modern, used for making clothing, bed linen and accessories. The subject includes lace-making, knitting, embroidery, tatting and weaving, to name a few…”
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In the 17th century it became extremely fashionable to wear beauty spots, not just on the face but on other parts of the person that might be displayed. In fact, the number of patches required by the average French courtier led to the production of special boxes in which they were stored.
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Nylon was the first man-made fibre to be developed entirely in a laboratory. Its official name was Polymer 66 and when it was applied to stockings it was called No-Run, but the problem was that unfortunately the early stockings tended to have a lot of runs… a new name was needed. Some company wordplay resulted in the word ‘nylon’ and it stuck.
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Today’s era has often been called the ‘throwaway’ society, but the concept of throwaway goes back much farther than that: the ‘throwaway’ cologne scent bottle was popular from the 18th century.
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The idea of wearing something with a message on it isn’t as new as the fashion gurus might have us think… from the colours of the Suffragette movement to the propaganda scarves of WWII, people have been declaring their political views via their clothes for more than a century.
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They both protect against the weather, they look remarkably similar and until the mid-18th century the words ‘parasol’ and ‘umbrella’ were used interchangeably. Their histories are forever intertwined.
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Perfume bottles are a popular collectable all over the world. There are various types of bottles to collect: commercial, art glass, Czech, Victorian, novelty, in fact a perfume bottle to suit all tastes and interests. In the early mid-20th century, many French fashion houses began to produce their own fragrances. However, this was not the case in Australia.
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In the early 1900s one hundred New York female factory workers attacked police officers who had arrested two of their comrades for making allegedly anarchistic speeches – all of them wielding hat pins.
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A deadly device in the 18th century because of the use of lead, the wearing of make-up enjoyed a resurrection in the early 20th century and with it came the essential accessory – the compact. Slipped neatly into a clutch bag, the compact was a thing of beauty, designed with the same care as a piece of art and decorated with fine metals and stones.
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For over 100 years, collectors of 18th century English porcelain have particularly prized the charming ‘toys and trifles’ made in the 20-year window from 1750 to 1770 by the Chelsea and St James’s factories.
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If you’re looking for a really good reason to buy yourself a vintage designer handbag, try this: according to the luxury fashion website Vestaire Collective, it can make more economic sense to invest in a Chanel handbag than in the stock market.
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When the Blackborne collection of over four hundred antique fans was sold in the UK earlier this year, it was the first time any of the fans had been on the market since 1952.
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If it was invented today it’s a fair bet the skirt lifter would have a different name, but things were a lot less politically correct in the Victorian era, when the skirt lifter was a requirement for any lady who wished to clip up her full-length skirts to avoid getting them dirty.
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For collectors of thimbles, needlework tools and needlework boxes, some of the most beautiful and sought-after pieces are known collectively as Palais Royal.
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Bakelite is the trade name for phenolic resin, an early form of plastic. Today, many objects made from Bakelite are considered highly collectable.
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Jewellery was a male-dominated art form until well into the 20th century, at least in appearance. Many women probably worked behind the scenes, but some entered into fruitful partnerships and they were able to make their mark, even in Victorian and Edwardian times. In these more egalitarian days, a significant number continue to do so.
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‘It was sexy, slinky and cold on the skin. If you owned a Glomesh halter-neck top and the assets to support it, you were royalty among bag and purse collectors.’ So stated the Sydney Morning Herald in February 2014.
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Lockets are as decorative as necklaces and pendants and as personal as rings. They have been made and worn for centuries and are thought to have evolved from ancient amulets. Worn as pendants, rings, brooches or watch fobs, lockets usually carry mementos such as a beloved’s portrait or lock of hair, along with good luck charms, fabric soaked in perfume and even poison.
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The ring wasn’t always associated with love and decoration. In medieval times, when magic, science and religion were intertwined, a ring may have been worn as an amulet, to help cure an illness or as a sign of faith. Rings were
exchanged to cement social relations and were carefully chosen according to the status of the recipient.
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When women began entering the workforce after the end of the war they wanted to be able to look as glamorous as the movie stars they saw at the pictures. They could hardly transport the glass, china and silver bowls on their dressing tables – enter the powder compact. Suddenly it was possible to freshen your makeup anywhere and at any time of day,
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There’s not a lot of information on how ladies of the oldest profession in the world defended themselves when it came to violent or drunken suitors. But the tiny weapons they carried concealed in their clothing are now highly collectable – and quite intriguing.
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Victoria Beckham is reported to own more than 100 of them. Actresses Katie Holmes and Julia Roberts, singer Hilary Duff and celebrity consumer Kim Kardashian have all been spotted toting them on their arms… the Birkin bag. There’s at least a three-year wait for a new order, and if you want to buy a second-hand version you’ll be looking at anything from $20,000 to $300,000.
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Historians tell us that Cretan women emphasised their waists with tight leather belts and that ladies in the late Middle Ages stiffened their laced bodices with paste, but corsets as we know them were not commonly worn until the 16th century. Then came whalebone and the ability to control the silhouette, rapidly and dramatically as fashion dictated.
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The art of piqué – a pattern created using tiny gold or silver points on tortoiseshell – was first practiced by Neapolitan jeweller Laurentini in the mid-17th century. Pronounced pee-kay, although it became a popular form of decoration for jewellery, piqué was initially used mostly on snuff boxes, tobacco boxes, small decorative items and scent bottles.
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Fine thimbles of silver and gold were made for wealthy sewing ladies in the 15th century, and Queen Elizabeth I gave one of her ladies-in-waiting a gold thimble encrusted with precious stones. The humble thimble was often given as a token of devotion in the early 19th century.
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You may never have heard of her, and there’s a good reason: Suzanne Belperron pioneered the technique of setting precious stones in semiprecious materials, and was convinced that the originality of her jewellery made it so easily identifiable that there was no need for a signature.
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She might be one of the most successful costume jewellery designers of her era, but surprisingly little is known about French artist Lea Stein.
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Most people believe the term ‘guilloche’ refers to a type of enamelling, but strictly speaking it describes a process.
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In the wake of a major new exhibition at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, we look at the history and mythology of a perennial status symbol.
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These days if you see someone wearing black nail polish it’s probably because they’re a Goth, but in ancient times black fingernails were an indication of very high status.
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The hatpin had a very simple function – to keep a lady’s hat firmly attached to her head. How, then, could it be considered a deadly weapon?
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Beauty can be both egotistical and altruistic, but there is no question that throughout the ages, women (and to a lesser degree, men) of all cultures have strived to uphold their looks and methods of self-beautification.
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The exclusive Hermes handbag evolved from the humble saddlebag.
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Queen Victoria thought lipstick was for the commoner, but in ancient Roman times lip colours were worn only by the upper class…
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