I find the majority of vintage shops are loaded with the garish nasty and current vogue of bad 80s wear. Never found a nice jacket in any of the mentioned stores, exception being The Vintage Showroom, where I looked in on Thursday. But I did feel their prices have increased a fair but, and pretty much always big sizes.

Mark, slightly off topic, sorry about that, but have you bought from http://old-town.co.uk/products/stanley.htm yet?

Discounting all the Mary Poppins type Victorian workman's gear, some of their jackets and trousers look quite interesting. The Borough jacket has a looser fit and the labels could perhaps be steamed into a 3/2 roll - an alternative slack coat?  The trouser cuts have nice high waists, always difficult to find these days, the Stovepipe and Plain look quite ivy appopriate.

Yes it's a difficulty, buy vintage or save up and buy reproduction / contemporary Ivy.   I'm tending to the later subject to eBay and ETSY finds.

I haven't bought from Old Town yet.  Odd as it may seem I'm waiting for a special occasion on which to mark it by treating myself to one of their jackets.  It would then be something to remember.  As you say Woofboxer, some of the items look appropriate.  Some of course do not and pick up on the fashion workwear trend coming out of Scandinavia.

cheers
Mark

Todays vintage offerings remind me of this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNxbBivguIs

Last edited by Richard Bergman (2012-07-08 13:46:42)

Bump. 
Hope AUS doesn't object, but I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned with the 'vintage' shops I visit.  On the other hand, I have to acknowledge that they're scarcely looking to sell to someone of my age/height/weight/inclinations but for someone perhaps thirty five years younger: people like my daughter, now at Nottingham University and finding her way, gradually, to shops like 'Wild', 'Cow' and 'Braderie'.  I've never been in the London shops - basically because I rarely get there and, if I did, I would expect it to be overpriced in the ways outlined above.  The 'White Rose' shops in Nottingham appear to be aimed at a slightly wider category of buyer and what they do they do pretty well.  Nice kids, too, and helpful.

I know exactly what you mean, and I'm simply hanging onto things I know no longer suit/fit because I can't bear to give them to, well, any local charity shop.  Back in 2013 The Lighthouse in Langley Mill suddenly found itself inundated with tweed jackets, loafers, desert boots and a good deal more.  As I think you said elsewhere, few if any of us older chaps on here will probably still be buying much in another ten years (when I'll be seventy two, if I last that long and don't end up behind bars).  Ebaying now, I realise that I'm interested in relatively little: the odd shirt, jumper, overcoat, pair of shoes.  But I do enjoy looking.

Grin...

Your post very much reflects my own ideas Unseen. The concept of having everything you’ll need in terms of clothing, furniture etc is quite satisfying but at the same time slightly unsettling. I turned 67 in July and it occurred to me the other day that the next car I buy might be the last one, in fact I’ll have a good go at keeping the one I’ve got going, unless they stop selling petrol or tax it off the road. With clothes I’ll freely admit to going through a spell where I became obsessed with buying and accumulating, I’d buy a new or vintage suit, or pair of shoes, or whatever, because I liked the look of the item and I didn’t have one like it, you soon pass a point where ‘need’ doesn’t come into it. I didn’t quite reach the stage of one fellow I spoke to who had had to rent a storage unit because he had run out of space at home, but I was heading in that direction! When I see a good size 16-3 Brooks Makers shirt on eBay I have to restrain myself from buying it by thinking about the fact that there are already several unused ones in the loft. With retirement coming over the hill I will have little need for formal clothes, although I do like to wear a jacket when I go out socially, if only so that I’ve got plenty of pockets to put stuff in. But the dozen or so suits I’ve acquired will need to be drastically reduced in number. So rationalising the clothing mountain will be a little project for when I give up work. I was reading an article about Tony Normand on the JS website and he commented that he wears a cord suit in the winter and seersucker ones in the summer, that sounds like quite a good way to go, bearing in mind that seersucker doesn’t only come in light colours. I don’t think I’ll ever stop looking at clothes, but from here on it it’ll be a matter of replacing things that do wear out, upgrading if I see something truly irresistible. A one in - one out policy has to be the way to go.

As to the main point of the thread; yes vintage shops are generally a bit crap and overpriced. From what little I’ve seen, the ones in the USA in aren’t much different although there is a slightly higher chance of coming across some holy grail item.

Very few people would describe that as a tight budget. For that amount you can get very good stuff. (Obviously someone into expensive designer brands would struggle. Or maybe someone who wears a suit for work each day and doesn't want to wear the same stuff each day. I've certainly seen plenty of people in education who wear the same suit 5 days a week but I wouldn't recommend it.)

This is the boom in in vintage that I mentioend my son is part of.  The kind of shop he really ikes: https://www.greatyarmouthmercury.co.uk/news/business/new-vintage-shop-market-gates-great-yarmouth-8434178

I'd only half-remembered this valuable thread.  It almost certainly answers quite a few questions and hats off to the poster who deplored the 'secondhand' to 'vintage' phenomenon. 
Ebay, in spite of its multiple pitfalls and annoyances, remains (even here in the UK) a halfway decent source of clothing and shoes.  Since the weekend I've bought a pair of Jarman smooths, a Pendleton jacket and a couple of shirts, one Saks, the other Paul Stuart.  Came to around £80 all told.

Like Woof I have everything I need ‘to see me out’.

I will put on a suit in a few weeks for a funeral but otherwise they don’t get much use.

I like to think my clothes are better than most friends and acquaintances anyway. I don’t think they give clothes much thought. I have enough coats, which are the only second hand items I would consider apart from jackets. I have enough jackets too.

Last edited by Kingston1an (2022-06-02 02:22:42)