Through dirt covered glasses
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, […]
Loose limbs telling time
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 […]
Dating with care
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 […]
Stamp of approval
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 […]
Dating St Michael
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 […]
Flea-bitten
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 […]
Mythology and mystique
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.
A bit about the boteh
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 […]
Twenty little salesmen
1985, USA. Over 17 billion matchbooks were estimated to have been produced that year. In Brooklyn, New York, 6 million of those carried the words, ‘Law Offices of Edward Horn […]
The King’s Game and Queen’s Gambit
On the front cover of our Winter 2021 issue are a selection of intricate chess pieces. The pieces featured are from an 1800s German set of the Selenus style. Prior […]