Our Gibson mentioned buying a Cricketeer jacket not so long ago. I forget the name of the emporium.
So-called 'vintage' shops are sprouting like mushrooms, but mostly offering the same mix of Carhartt, Fred Perry, Dickies, Ralph Lauren, Champion, Hilfiger etc. Of interest to some - not all. I've more or less stopped bothering to visit Nottingham since the Old School shops began to close down.
London always had a fair reputation, didn't it? But wasn't a lot of rather indifferent clothing on the expensive side?
Ebay throws up 'a few scraps', certainly, but is rather disappointing and discouraging these days.
I see - from time to time - plenty of rather ho-hum darted tweed jackets, often made in the USA. I went through an entire big box last autumn and bought nothing. Yet the Stanley Blacker I bought from the USA a few months ago has just gone to a local charity shop.
I'm no longer interested in pea coats, army jackets, deck jackets, Filson, barn coats etc.
Is anyone in a position to report on conditions in London?
'Beyond Retro'. Dalston Branch. How I dislike that word 'retro'. 'Retrospective', yes, as in an assessment of, say, Fellini's early output but 'retro' - never. 'Vintage' is almost as bad, putting me in mind of Edwardian motor vehicles and steam rallies. And something only has to be around for five minutes before becoming 'a timeless classic' or - Christ Almighty - 'iconic'.
I was intending to visit a few old vintage haunts on my next visit, in a month or so but my initial research shows me a lot of them have closed, or moved. I genuinely long for the days when you could stroll into Kensington Market and buy 501's for peanuts. Blackout II (Endell St) was always worth a look for ladies-wear, less so for me, although American Classics would have been a semi-regular haunt - at one point the only place to buy LVC and other interesting stuff coming in from Japan. Interstate (opposite ish) too had some interesting stuff, being one of the first places I noticed Edwin Jeans and some of the more unusual Barbour offerings. I bought an English-Made International there in the late 2000's which I still have, although it sees little use.
Rokit vintage around the corner on Shelton St was one of those places I'd probably poke my nose into every third visit, if I'm not much mistaken, it's in the building next door to where the once infamous and long gone Duffer Of St George had their shop. Covent Garden was once host to a number of smaller independent vintage clothing shoes - there was another on Earlham Street I seem to recall that had some interesting military stuff - it was in an old hardware store. This is well after the hey-day of the vintage clothing store so many of you speak about in revered tones and which I've forgotten the name of.
I occasionally look at the beyond retro website and would poke my nose into their Soho store often enough when I worked around the corner (2008-9ish). They had quite a high turn over of incredibly attractive Swedish sales girls which made the visit more appealing.
More of a trip down memory lane for me than any use AFS, sorry.
Fine, Tim. It sets everything in perspective, which is valuable.
The scene was once pretty good in Nottingham. I used to catch the train over about once a fortnight and there might have been around a dozen shops all told. Many, though, were selling stinky old 70s disco/fancy dress type tat, so you needed bags of patience.
I'll bet TRS checked out those Swedish girls!
I still miss Celia and Frank in Nottingham. Their shop was amazing - and amazingly eccentric. You could be trying on a jacket or a pair of shoes in one corner of the fitting room while some chick was being fitted for a corset in the other. They did party hire - a major part of their income. Celia really had an eye. I once had a compliment from a lady in her scanties on my seersucker jacket. It was straight out of the 50s, like an old department store. Frank used to stand at the ironing board.
'Backlash' was also good. I remember buying a lovely Lora Piana jacket from there around 2008 for about £25.
There was one in Seven Dials, London called The Vintage Store which stood out head and shoulders above the rest for me. The stuff was carefully sourced, in good order and was nicely displayed, not crammed in. It went by the wayside during lockdown. I never bought anything in there because the prices were stupid, but I always enjoyed having a look.
Because I’ve got more clothes than I need, my starting point with vintage or charity shops is that I can’t really be bothered to scour them. Few things are so dispiriting in the clothing world as rifling through rail after rail of worn out, smelly rubbish. So unless something really jumps out at me I soon move on. But in amongst the 99.99% toot it is possible to locate the odd find like 2RS’s Cricketeer jacket.
Thanks, Woof.
An Unseen Scene once mentioned somewhere that was crammed with funky wide lapel disco plaid horrors at around £80 a throw.
Charity shops in this neck of the woods often want £25-£30 for Daks and M&S. Whether they get it or not is a different matter of course.
I went into a charity shop in Barnes a while back, just as things were opening up from lockdown. There, jumping out at me on the shoe shelf were a pristine pair of Sanders playboys in a fawn colour, my size, 25 quid. I hummed and ha’d, but eventually walked away.
Woof is I think thinking of the same store as me on Earlham St, a stones throw from seven dials. Creaky wooden floors, genuinely really nicely curated (probably another word you don’t approve of AFS, along with Artisanal I imagine), olive greenish exterior? I remember it opening and always being impressed. Never bought a thing in there, extortionate is the word that springs to mind.
There is Hornets in a nice part of Kensington. That is more ‘gentleman’ than Ivy.
There used to a place in Fulham Broadway the proprietor used to wear baggy corduroys with braces. Closed now as he was convicted of either tax or VAT fraud/non payment. ‘Gentleman’ again though - the tweedy cyclist crowd.
https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/owners-upmarket-fulham-tailors-jailed-13722228
Used to see him on the way up to Craven Cottage.
I also can't help wondering what the position might be in the USA now. We did have hard-working sellers on here years ago, didn't we?, including Zach and Dennis The Plumber.
It sounds - thus far - as if London is something of an 'Ivy League Wilderness' as far as the secondhand market is concerned (although TRS has not commented on 'Beyond Retro', the source of his Cricketeer two-button).
'Wild' in Nottingham was one of the better locations (and still is) for 'generic Americana', with odds and ends of 'Ivy League' popping up every now and then. The pea coat I bought from there around fifteen years ago is still giving good service, although no longer to me.
I wonder if anyone on here browses the 'One-Off' items at Chiltern Street.