Sunday 13 February 2011

Retail therapy

It seems that the gods of charity shopping are favouring me at the moment. After my reasonable success earlier this week, I had a blindingly successful day yesterday. I've rather failed in my attempt to save my money, but I'm very happy with my little haul!
The first thing I found was this dress. I thought it might be 80s when I first picked it up, but the more I look at it, the more I'm convinced it's a 1940s house dress.
The buttons are far enough apart that the dress gapes as you move, so it's not meant to be worn outside and it has pockets on the front. It did have a self fabric belt at some point from the look of it, but someone has sewn elastic into the sides to gather it in. The bodice waist has a couple of little pleats in and the sleeves have several, which puff the shoulders out a bit. Sadly one of the buttons has been replaced through the years and I don't know whether to try to find a similar one or replace them all.
This label interested me. Apparently 'Tebilized' means the fabric's been treated to be crease and stain resistant. I've found mention to it being a trademark in the 50s but I can't find much more about it, nor date the label any more certainly. Any thoughts about the date? Do you think I'm right about it being 40s?

The second amazing find was this shirt. Again, it didn't look like much till I noticed the collar, and the raglan sleeves, and the pointed fold back cuffs, and the waist pleats...correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is a early to mid 50s shirt. The label is 'Keynote', which google tells me was a Littlewoods (British department store) brand which was well known in the 50s through to the 80s, so seems to confirm my feelings. Best of all, this was on sale for £3.75. Bargain!

Then finally, I picked up a wad of 50s and 60s knitting patterns. I'll probably put most of these up on etsy. How cool are the photos though?! 
 Your family could look just like this!

Other great finds were 2 berets
 an Ava Gardner biography
 a pretty blue glass for my makeup brushes
and finally some fabric. It's cotton with a gold lurex and I don't think there's enough for a dress, but I can probably make a big circle skirt from it without too many problems.
What a haul! I came home very happy from this trip and I think I'm going to have to make more of an effort to look round charity shops in the future!

7 comments:

  1. Well done on finding such lovely things, I spent a couple of hours in vintage and charity shops yesterday but didn't find anything this time! But that's part of the fun is'nt it? x

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  2. Great haul! Love the housedress, would love to know more about the unusual fabric.

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  3. I love the cardigan from that twinset pattern on the left!

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  4. I love your striped shirt. x

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  5. wow that shirt is fab. Well done!

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  6. Great finds, all of them! The dress and the shirt do seem to be authentic vintage. Sometimes it can be so tricky to tell =) My guess is that the housedress is probably meant to be worn over other clothing, hence the gaping.

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  7. What a haul indeed! I love that striped blouse. I know I have a pattern with almost the exact same collar, though I'm not quite sure how to date it.

    I love old P&B knitting patterns!

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