As a collector of Sydney Harbour Bridge memorabilia, Nick Pezikian recently had the opportunity to purchase a batch of buttons depicting the bridge… and that’s how the investigations started.
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Pandora dolls are also known as night and day dolls, because they were often created for ladies of fashion in pairs. Imagine the tailor to the courts of England and Europe, riding up to the palace gates with saddlebags full of miniature dolls and presenting them to the queen and ladies of court, one doll featuring a dress to be worn during the day, the other a dress or gown for an evening of entertainment.
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In the past few years, vintage fashion has gone from the province of artists and alternative musicians to the preferred mode of society ladies and young professionals, and as more retail stores add vintage clothes to their inventory, it’s no longer necessary to rifle through the racks of the local thrift store to find that one-of-a-kind item.
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If you ever needed proof that vintage fashion is a modern ‘thing’, here it is. In 2020, a New York vintage store that had been open for three years with modest success suddenly had a queue of people snaking around the block waiting to get into the shop. Why? Because they’d seen a video on TikTok.
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A major exhibition at Buckingham Palace focuses on the portraits in the Royal Collection, showing how costume evolved during the early Hanoverian period.
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This is a quest of sorts – to discover if this cap really is the only known example of its kind in the world…
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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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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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Considered one of the greatest couturiers of the 20th century, in 1948 Dior was first couturier to establish a luxury ready-to-wear house and in 1949 became the first to arrange licensed production of his designs. Miss Dior, released in 1949 was named for his courageous sister and he was highly superstitious…
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Swimwear from the mid-19th century looked more like long bloomers with a big, baggy dress worn over the top, made from a sturdy black flannel fabric that was heavy enough that it wouldn’t float with the water; with weights sometimes sewn into the hem. These garments were highlighted in Godey’s Lady’s Book of 1864 as innovative women’s clothing.
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While he was still at college, Ossie saw a Pierre Cardin collection in Paris where chiffon dresses were cut in what he described as a ‘spiral line’. In 1967 he cut a range of chiffons and crepes on the straight and turned them to fit the body on the bias, to replicate the same ‘spiral line.’ At the end of 1968 he introduced his famous Nude Look …
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The concept of having a special dress for your wedding day is fairly recent. For centuries the bride simply wore her finest dress to the ceremony, even if that dress was black or patterned. Blue was particularly popular because it represented purity. But when Queen Victoria married her prince in 1840, she initiated a tradition that’s still going strong 177 years later.
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Fashion has always gone to extremes, but the crinoline was possibly the most impractical, cumbersome and indeed life-threatening creation ever. A twenty-year phenomenon, from the 1850s to the 1870s that swept all before it – often literally, if some cartoonists of the time are to be believed.
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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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‘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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In fashion terms, 18th century Milan was renowned for quality hats, hence the term ‘milliner’. In the 19th century, elaborate fashions emerged and nowadays the hats at UK events such as Royal Ascot attract almost as much attention as the horses. Historically, however, in terms of the 19th century UK economy, the staple product was the felt hat, produced from wool or fur.
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A master of cut and construction and obsessed with the perfect fit, Balenciaga was capable of cutting material, assembling a creation and sewing it by hand. He counted among his clients the Spanish royal family and aristocracy who summered in San Sebastian and wintered in Madrid – until he suddenly shut up shop in 1968.
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The 1960s was a period of revolutionary design and groundbreaking styles in the fashion industry. Inspired by music, fashion, art and a new and hip social scene, brave new fashions burst onto the stage – mini skirts, baby doll dresses, trouser suits, go-go boots. But the paper dress would have to be the one that was the most fun.
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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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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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King Louis XIV of France was so impressed by the neck scarves worn by Croatian mercenaries in the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) that he dumped the full lace ruffs so fashionable in the French court in favour of the cravat. Or so the story goes…but there are many more stories..
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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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Learn how to best shop for vintage handbags, hair combs, shoes, fans, hats, perfume, cufflinks, vanity sets, gloves and even nail polish.
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