Tag Archives: horrockses

It would appear I’ve been feeling a bit blue…

Posted in Outfit posts by

Today it is time for an outfit post, which in reality contains a smattering of two weeks outfits. I always say to myself, yep I’m going to try and take pictures every day, but in reality I never get round to it/ my hair looks terrible. Actually if I’m totally honest my hair looks terrible in most of these pictures anyway… (*note to self* must go and get fringe cut soon).

First off is this little dress. One of my fave Horrockses to wear because the cotton is so light and cool. I’ve had this dress for about two years now, and owing to its missing bolero it cost me the princely sum of £20. This is a particularly nice, fully lined dress, and i think it might have started off life full length. Although for me it is much more wearable at the length it is now. I’ve worn it here with my trusty Miss L Fire shoes (as you can see from the rest of my pictures I live in Miss L Fire‘s/ Vans at the moment). This was also the last day I still had my glastonbury wristband on. *sob*. Memories.

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My next outfit came from a few days later. Again with the miss L Fires, and the first day of terrible terrible “humidity hair”. The dress is a 1970s number, it is a Rose for Radley dress and came from the ever wonderful Liz Eggleston of Vintage-A-Peel. If i’m feeling brave I may soon post a pic of the swimsuit I purchased from her too.

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Next off in my string of summer dresses was this lovely blue number that came from Rainbow valley vintage. I’d intended selling this dress on, but it seems to fit me better than it did last summer and managed to creep back into my wardrobe. Worn with another pair of Miss L Fire’s that have a fabulous bow on the back. I really do love Miss L Fire shoes for their ability to accomodate my fat yet childishly small feet.

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Then came this pretty little dress, which is actually far too tight for me. It’s late 1950s American (junior miss size), an ebay purchase some years back I decided that the blue check was a bit too plain for me and jazzed it up with a Tatty Devine necklace and a hot pink belt that came via a charity shop for the princely sum of 20p.

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These were the nails I was rocking for the enitrety of last week. Combo of Barry M, Rimmel AND Models Own nail polish

After I got to this point in my photo taking. I realised WAIT A SECOND. Every dress is blue, I honestly think I have a problem with wearing blue dresses, as in this time period I wore a further two 1950s blue dresses. I don’t even like blue that much as a colour….

So after that revelation on wednesday I dug out a GREEN dress from my wardrobe. I purchased this last year at the festival of vintage in York and it is by Blanes. One of my favourite labels. The toile de jouy print on this is quite subtle and incredibly elegant.

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And finally my outfit of choice from yesterday. In the morning i went cycling (I give this as an excuse for my lack of make up) and had to wear something that wouldn’t get caught in my bike wheels (Ah. Vintage girl problems i think we might say). The shirt is 1970s by John Craig, purchased from Clobber in Bournemouth and the shorts are a fabulous shipping flag print by Sportaville and came to me via ebay. One of my colleagues at work yesterday afternoon was particularly amused by them. You can “read” the shorts in their full glory in this post.

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Has everyone else been enjoying the hot weather with summe suitable outfits?

More Horrockses delights

Posted in Fashion history, Horrockses, New purchases, Uncategorized by

In the past few weeks I’ve done what can only be described as “a bit of a whoops” and purchased quite a few more Horrockses. This always seems to happen when I sell a few, that a sudden flurry of the beauties come into my collection.

So first off a quick share of my three most recent purchases:

This little number is erm. Not so little! Uber glamorous late 50s cocktail dress which came from Emma Hasell also a HUGE collector of Horrockses.

This one came from found and loved in Cheshire Street, just off Brick lane. I’ve been picking up some good pieces up in Brick Lane again recently after finding everything hugely overpriced for a while prices seem to have calmed down rather. (I can’t remember exactly what I paid but I think it was £40!)

I nicked this picture of me in the dress from Found and Loved instagram.

And my piece de resistance was this Horrockses. It has to come in my top 5 best Horrockses, partially because the print is fantastic and partially because it has a brilliant story. The dress came to me via The Vintage Emporium (just off Brick Lane) and thanks to my ever wonderful friend Naomi Thompson. As soon as I saw the picture on her iphone I HAD to have it, and had a hunch it was an important piece.

For fellow Horrockses obsessives a quick close up look at the print shows you that the dress has clear hallmarks of Alistair Morton, who was a print designer working with Horrockses particularly in the late 40s. The sketchy exuberant take he had on floral patterns helped to move them away from being just florals and into something more abstracted, less twee and with a greater focus on creating “art fabrics” rather than just textiles for dress. The finely drawn flowers seen in these close ups show striking similarities to another of my dresses by him, dating to 1950. But this one, with its printed label is just a little earlier.

The dress with its longer length and slight off the shoulder style has hallmarks of a late 1940s design and that it is, dating to 1948. Rather fortuitously I remembered the dress had appeared in a slightly different colourway at the Horrockses exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum back in 2010.

Not only did the dress appear in the exhibition, but there were also Morton’s original sketches and colourways for the print on display. These had been lent for the exhibition by Abbott Hall where the majority of the Edinburgh Weavers archive is held.

There is one last detail about the dress though that takes it from the realms of “special” to “super special”

Yep. That’s Queen Mary holding the corner of a dress in the same print as mine. The image comes from 1948 when Queen Mary visited the Horrockses headquarters on Hannover square. Pretty special right?

Now to go and hunt out the 1948 Vogues to see if I can find it there at all too!

A Horrockses housecoat from 1951

Posted in Exciting discoveries, Fashion history by



A few months back now I purchased an absolutely beautiful Horrockses housecoat from Vintage Vision, the company, based in Abergavenny is a great initiative.

A little background:

“Vintage Vision provides women with an opportunity to share their knowledge, develop confidence and new skills, and access training and work experience, through sourcing, repairing and marketing vintage and retro clothing.”

http://www.vintagevision.co.uk/index.html





So, onto the houescoat itself, this is the stunning piece I purchased, in typical high quality Horrockses cotton. I’m pretty sure it is an Alastair Morton print- it has the “handwriting” of his design style written all over it!  Whilst looking through archive posts on one of my FAVOURITE blogs (http://sheepandchick.blogspot.co.uk/ ) I found an advertisement for my housecoat!!!




Housewife magazine 1951. 

The advertisement even has the original price for the housecoat  £5 17s, a considerable sum equivalent to just over £135 today! F.Y.I a housecoat was a type of dress for lounging in and accepting visitors, it wasn’t a dressing gown as they are sometimes misconstrued as being!