Can’t think of anything more boring than crystalware? Then I beg a moment of your time to show that crystal is anything but dull, in both senses of the word. I’d never given crystal a second glance. To me, crystal was the stuff that my mum carefully shuffled me past…
What’s the appeal of an autograph? A connection to the world of celebrity? A brag? A record of a brief moment shared with an idol? Collector, now dealer, Adam Andrusier began autograph collecting with a signed photograph of Ronnie Barker who lived round the corner from him in Pinner. It…
The coconut effect There’s plenty of instances in life when a lie is more attractive than the truth, if not even more believable than the truth. You’ll impress nobody saying, “play it” in your best Bogart voice because we all know the line was, “play it again Sam” – except…
In 1932 a 28-year-old designer named Earl Arnault, from Oregon, USA, invented a clock to bring some cheer to a country in the midst of The Great Depression. This clock came in the form of a cat with a “wagging tail, rolling eyes, and contagious smile”.
When I buy vintage clothing I want to know that it is vintage. If I see a super 1940s knit and it turns out to be 1980s, that’s fine, as long as I’d known that when I’d bought it and it was priced as 1980s – I don’t want the…
Dating vintage with care labels (see our feature on that here) only helps with garments that are 1960s onwards, but there’s a number of other labels you may come across that will help you to date older vintage pieces. Most of these are US labels, with the exception of CC41,…
For those of us in the UK, vintage Marks and Spencer clothing, under the name St Michael, is available in abundance. St Michael was used as a brand name from 1928 to 2000. Their labels have undergone a number of changes over the years and when checked, along with the…
I was already many years an adult when I first visited Portobello Road. Bedknobs and Broomsticks had given me false expectations, it should have been obvious really that I wasn’t going to stumble into a dingy wartime alleyway with an air of Victorian underworld about it. To be fair, it…
Just as the magic carpet in the Persian tale The Three Princes and the Princess Nouronnihar (from One Thousand and One Nights) could transport its owner across distant lands, the real-world Persian carpet holds the power to do the same through its design and motifs.
More widely known in the UK as ‘paisley’ the boteh motif dates back thousands of years to the ancient Persian Empire. It adorns the columns of the 9th century Noh Gonbad Mosque and is present on the crowns and clothing of Persian kings in numerous portraits.