Author Archives: liztregenza

The tale of a showstopping wedding dress

Posted in 40s, lotus, rationing by
Today I wanted to share with you one of my latest additions to my collection and a piece that I know will never leave me.

The dress in question is this stunning wedding dress. The dress date to 1948 and demonstrates the vogue in the UK for 30s styled bridal gowns in the late 1940s when the “new look” was still in its infancy. The dress features typical characteristics that replicate Hollywood style 30s glamour with its gently padded shoulder fishtail hem and slim sleeves.  The dress- to my mind- also has elements of Queen Elizabeth’s wedding dress,  with the shaping at the neckline and slim sleeves (I am sure she had a huge influence on wedding fashions seeing as she married just a year before this wedding dress was produced!)

                                                                    (apologies for the wonky pic, i was trying to show off the hem to its best advantage!)

This dress though is not just any old (beautiful) wedding dress. I recently acquired two pairs of beautiful platform 1940s shoes and this is actually the wedding dress of the same lady. You can read all about them here. This means that I now have her wedding ensemble dress, shoes and veil. I feel a certain sense of pride and happiness that i can keep the legacy of this evidently very stylish woman going by keeping the three elements of her wedding ensemble together. What I found amazing is that such glorious items could have been purchased on post war ration coupons. I imagine that she must have been a relatively wealthy lady to have afforded such beautiful shoes and dress, although she must have had to scrimp on other items of clothing to have enough coupons to buy the dress and shoes.
The original owner of the dress and shoes died in April and I hope that I can keep a little bit of her legacy going by keeping the items together. Whilst I don’t intend to wear the dress (despite it being a perfect fit) it really does demonstrate a certain vogue in wedding dress styles at the end of the 1940s and will still  be put into good use, as I will be taking it to talks with me in the near future.

A VERY special Horrockses

Posted in Uncategorized by

Last week I added another Horrockses to my ever expanding collection, and needless to say it was rather an exciting one!





Here is the dress in question. I purchased this from What the Butler wore in Lower Marsh (near Waterloo). It is a really ace shop and on the same road is Radio Days another high quality veritable emporium of vintage (seriously they have EVERYTHING in that shop!). I have to say actually that my trip up to London restored my faith in vintage shops in London. I had become a bit apathetic towards them and the prices charged, but I went to Brixton, Brick lane and Lower marsh and on the whole found that prices were quite reasonable. I’m not sure whether this just means everyhwere else has come into line with London prices or whether London prices aren’t as high as I remember them being two years ago when I did so much vintage shopping in the capital.
Anyway, after my divergence back to the dress itself. I knew when I saw the dress that it was familiar but I couldn’t quite place a reason as to why. So, on saturday evening I got my research head on and managed to do a bit of digging. The dress in question dates to 1950 and actually feastured in one of Horrockses many advertisements amongst the pages of Vogue, worn by Barbara Goalen.

A little bit more on the dress… this is one of the very few early Horrockses I own. An early Horrockses can be dated by the label (almost a papery feel and printed rather than woven) As a general rule this label is found in dresses dating between 1947-52. Thankfully because of the advertisement this can be accurately dated to 1950.

What I find even MORE interesting about this dress is the fact that it features lots of different Horrockses prints rather than just the one (i’ve tried to photograph as many different elements as I can).And I have seen other Horrockses here and there which feature similar element to this dress- For example this amazing housecoat (I’m afraid it isn’t mine- but the image does come from one of my all time favourite blogs!)

My research has suggested to me, although i never like to say these things for definite, that the print design is by Alastair Morton, certain elements of the overall print are so characteristic of his style I don’t think it really could be by anyone else!

As an aside I highly recommend Alastair Morton and Edinburgh Weavers: Visionary Textiles and Modern Art which features some wonderful examples of Morton’s work (I still don’t own a copy myself yet but spent faaaar too long perusing it in the Victoria and Albert museum bookshop. (*ahem* if someone wants to buy me a copy i would be eternally grateful ; ) )

Swishing about in a Horrockses

Posted in 50s, Horrockses by

I am currently VERY briefly back in Hampshire (I was doing a tres exciting photoshoot for which i will reveal details about soon).

Anyway…this afternoon, considering I had an ENITRE CASE of Horrockses with me i thought, what better opportunity is there to take lots of pics of me swishing about in one of my all time favourite dresses?

You can read more about this c.1958 Horrockses dress here

And the bike is my Mums latest acquisition(which i am currently trying to persuade her to “donate” to me) it is a 1950s Raleigh.