1930s

If it doesn’t look nice, cover it up. It’s a philosophy that could happily sit alongside those of great interiors thinkers William Morris (have nothing in your house you do […]

Wear your heart on your sleeve and your outrage on your lapel. Protest badges are a symbol of allegiance and an act of defiance against the status quo. These small […]

The question is, does she wake back up again after you have gone to sleep? Perhaps it isn’t that ridiculous a question, apart from the fact we’ve always known stories […]

Here we present a selection of well-worn 1940s – 1950s British-made toy cars. Their individual patinas not only the result of many hours of exuberant play, but of the gradual […]

In the last issue we looked at examples of when history is made less authentic to appear more realistic and how it can either distance us from or immerse us […]

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 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 […]

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 […]

1930s-1950s printed playfield bagatelle games. Pinball was a tabletop board game. The origins of pinball can be traced to games like bocce and ground billiards in which balls were rolled on a course. Ground billiards evolved into the tabletop game with which we are all familiar, and often refer to…

Pre-War Vienna to Post-War London. Post-WW2 textile and pattern design is defined by the work of a few woman designers, of which one is Jacqueline Groag.