Tag Archives: vintage

A vintage guide to…York

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It’s vintage guide time again!
My place of choice this week is York. Off I popped this weekend to the wonderful York  with two of my housemates and a lovely day was had.
First off I have to highly recommend the charity shops in York, not only are there loads of them but a few have specialist vintage and retro sections. The best road to visit is Goodramgate where there are about 7 charity shops on the one road! My favourite was the Sue Ryder shop (head upstairs).
York’s charity shops are best for: Retro goodies particularly shoes!
My next recommendation is the lovely York Antiques centre in the Shambles. The market is predominated by vintage and antique jewellery at pretty reasonable prices. Downstairs is a lovely little vintage clothing area where there was a wonderful selection of vintage clothing from the 30s through to the 80s. There was a sensational full length buttercup yellow ballgown for just £40! Whilst there I picked up two fantastic pieces. A wonderful 30s chenille jacket (I’m not telling the price because it was too good for words!) and a lovely pair of green leather Dents gloves.
York antiques market is best for: Reasonable priced vintage from any era and jewellery!


Then it’s off to the vintage shops, there are quite a few dotted around York but I have just picked my two favourites.

First off is House of Avalon. This beautiful little shop has an equally wonderful café out the back. The stock here is predominantly 40s and 50s. There was a wonderful selection of vintage evening dresses when I visited.
I also just have to say how much I appreciate the ethos behind the shop:
“The idea for the House of Avalon was born in 2008 as part of Avalon’s vision to create employment opportunities for people with learning disabilities within a Social Enterprise. We know there are limited ways in which people with learning disabilities can gain meaningful employment and the House of Avalon helps address this nationwide problem.”
House of Avalon is best for: Mid century evening dresses.
And secondly is the wonderful vintage emporium. Owned by Keeley Harris who runs the discover vintage fairs this shop is wonderful. It is an absolutely beautiful shop with a lovely mix of homewares and also clothing. There are a huge amount of wedding dresses here, and I particularly loved the selection of 40s and 50s suits, if one had fitted me I would have definitely been buying.
What I also really liked abut the shop was that it had an excellent selection of Mens vintage too. There were so many beautiful quality suits!

(Pictures from the Vintage Emporium website)

Vintage emporium is best for: Suits for men and women. 40s and 50s day dresses and Wedding dresses (Keeley also runs the Vintage wedding fair hence the selection of amazing wedding dresses!)

A vintage guide to…Harrogate

Posted in Rayne, shopping, Vintage by

Apologies for my recent absence, this has been due to a very poorly macbook. All has now been fixed, and I am back to my blogging best (despite a 5 day panic that I might have lost all of my work, pictures and music!)

So, I have decided that I am going to start a new little series of blogs offering my own “vintage guides” on certain places. Due to my current location: Yorkshire, this is where the first few will be.

First off is one of my absolute favourite places in the country: Harrogate.

To give a brief overview, Harrogate is a spa town and is a truly beautiful place filled with many elegant Victorian buildings. The town was frequented by nobility in the late 19th and early 20th century and this is when a lot of the beautiful buildings sprung up.

One of the things Harrogate is best known for is Betty’s tea room. I can’t recommend Betty’s highly enough. At any time of day there is a likelihood that you will have to queue but the delicious cakes and tea is well worth the wait. The atmosphere within the shop too is fantastic and i love the curved windows allowing you to look out onto the town centre.

My “must try” at Betty’s though has to be the caramalised onion chutney. It is delicious and the prefect condiment for a cheese sandwich.

Now onto Harrogate’s vintage!

Harrogate, for a relatively small town has a veritable plethora of vintage havens. The town has numerous charity shops dotted around both the town centre and on the outskirts for the bargain hunters among you!

The latest offering to the vintage scene in Harrogate is Sissy Jupe located near the theatre. This lovely shop is bright and airy inside filled with a selection of beautiful bits and bobs. The last time I visited there i spotted a wonderful 50s Christian Dior for Holt-Renfew jacket that I totally regretted not purchasing.

The store stocks not just clothes but a lovely selection of homeware and acsessories. My personal faves are all of the festival of Britian compacts, all at very reasonable prices too!

Sissy Jupe is best for: Handmade vintage styled bits and bobs

The next stop for vintage is Space Boutique which has a wonderful selection of vintage knicnacks. I first discovered the shop just after it opened when I was in my first year of uni. I remeber back then purchasing a wodnerful selection of vintage fashion magaziens which are still a great research tool today!

This store stocks more what i would call retro rather than vintage with an abundance of kitsch and quirky 60s and 70s kitchenalia and homeware. There is also a huge selection of vintage clothing here from many different dealers. I’ve seen everything from the 1890s to the 1990s here! The shop is perfect location to “kit yourself out” here you can find the clothes and the accessories along with all of the homewares approriate to create your desired look.

Space is best for: Retro pieces, quirky homewares, Mens vintage

The next stop for me is the wonderful Montpelier mews antiques market. This is a traditional antiques centre but there are also a selection of dealers offering wonderful vintage pieces. One seller offers lovely vintage handbags and jewellery, My mum and I made the most of her wonderful stock this weekend purchasing these beautiful pieces!

I ‘ve bought many lovely pieces from this lady before, she is LOVELY and sells some of the best skin handbags around.

I think my favourite part of Montpelier Mews though has to be Elegant Era which is like a little shop within the antiques centre. On offer here is an amazing selection of vintage vanity items, jewellery, accessories and clothes. The clothing particularly is always amazing quality. The dealer was telling me that she doesn’t often stock that many smaller pieces (sadly for me). Hence I didn’t buy any clothes. I was though totally swooning over a sensational Lilli-Ann late 40s suit, it was to die for.

I love a good pair of vintage sunglasses, and I picked up a wonderful pair from here. I love the novelty look of these!

Montpelier Mews antiques centre is best for: Mid century suits and dresses (especially for those sized 12-16), skin handbags, vintage vanity items.

And, I’ve saved the best until last. On this visit to Harrogate I finally managed to visit a vintage shop I have been desperate to visit for quite a while now, Catherine Smith Vintage. What can I say? WOW. I definitely had that feeling of amazement, from the second I saw the window with its sensational Art Deco dressing table I knew I was going to love the stock in store.

Catherine has what can only be described as one of the best selections of vintage I have seen in a long time. What i particularly loved in store was the fact that there was something for everyone she had beautiful stock dating from the 20s right through to the 80s and no matter what the age the emphasis was all on quality. I was particularly enthralled by her selection of beautiful vintage suits. Swoon.

Not only this, but the shop itself is absolutely beautiful, you get the satisfied feeling when you look in every case.

Between my Mum and I we purchased rather alot in store as you can see here! I could have easily bought much, much more i honestly challenge anyone to go there and not come away with something they love. Sensational!

These sensational Rayne shoes are as to die for in real life!

I did also buy a lovely 50s white blouse, but clever old me forgot to photograph it before my Mum took it back to Romsey with her!

All of the shop images here are from Catherine Smith Vintage.

Catherine Smith vintage is best for: High quality vintage from any era. Whatever you are after, you’ll find it here!

My new Horrockses dress!

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I just had to share this with everyone. This is my latest Horrockses dress. Anyone who follows me on twitter may have seen it already (if not, why not? – @liztregenza). It is a pretty special design to say the least and I think it might be my new favourite in my collection. Saying this does make me feel like I’m cheating on all of my other Horrockses by saying it, but this one is show stopping. Quite simple in design, but wonderfully elegant, crisp and I believe in unworn condition. The dress has its original integral petticoat still and this is SO clean and white still it is almost scary.




So onto the design of the dress itself. The dress is probably a John Tullis design. Tullis designed one of my favourite Horrockses dress that isn’t in my personal collection ( a dress that once belonged to Lucienne Day). See my blog post about the other dress here. Tullis was renowned for the complex cut of his dresses, which many of the seamstresses complained were a nightmare to stitch! Tullis got his training at Molyneux the couturier in Paris. This couture training could be one of the main reasons for the complicated cut of many of his garments. If you spot a Horrockses with a particularly complicated bodice, or details like pockets on the outside of a dress, then it will be probably be a Tullis design!
As far as Tullis designs go (or probably Tullis designs!) this isn’t the most complicated of designs, but it is an interesting piece. The design is what is known as a “unit” design. The bodice are made from related but different patterns. A process which was used for dresses where quantities were limited.
Something that I find interesting about Tullis is it appears he was the only fashion designer to ever be credited for his designs, a feature in Vogue stated (of a Horrockses dress) “designed by John Tullis” something which annoyed Herbert Mallot and prompted him to stipulate “ a Horrockses’ fashion production is, in the future, described as such and that no reference is made to the individual who created it…I must stress that the goodwill of our fashion business must remain in the name of Horrockses and not in anyone who is employed by us”. This probably happened because of Tullis’ couture credentials, which was also one of the reasons why he was hired in 1950, to bring prestige to the brand.
In my opinion this dress probably dates to between 1955-58 (if memory serves me correctly 58 was when Tullis left). As this is a size 10, a size which Horrockses (it appears) did not begin producing to 1954/55.
So how do I know so much about this dress? It’s a pretty important design I have to say. Not only does it appear in Chris Boydell’s book on Horrockses, but the design was also the inspiration for one of the new bedding ranges that features Horrockses original prints. This particular print named “Sophia”. I actually have the bedding on my bed back at home! (I’m at uni at the moment so my bedding is some very dodgy Asda value sheets : /) I bought my bedding at full price but on the website now there is 20% off. I urge you to go and have a look it really is lovely stuff made of really good quality cotton and when I ordered it arrived amazingly quickly.

And one last note on my new dress. It’s a perfect fit!