4
Apr
2013
Posted by Nicole in 1950s, How to

AS part of the L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival, the National Gallery of Victoria asked me to appear as a guest blogger on their series “We Blog Fashion”.

Here are the two posts that I wrote:

1 – The fashion detective: Looking for clues.
This post expands on the mysteries that labels reveal. Previously I wrote a similar post about 1970s fashion labels as part of the Vintage 101 series, but this post has more general advice including a timeline which will help you date vintage labels.

Here’s a Norma Tullo label (Melbourne) from the early ’70s.

2 – The fashion detective: vintage sale.
The second post is about setting up and shopping at the recent National Trust vintage and designer clothing sale – and some of the goodies that I bought there.

The National Trust sale only happens once a year and it gets better and better – the ladies are now accepting donations for next year’s sale, items should be good quality and in good, clean condition – please email Nance. All funds raise support the National Trust’s wonderful historical costume collection.

Here is one of the ’50s frocks that I snaffled from this year’s sale – I love the rosebud print and that good, sturdy cotton fabric. It was made by Melbourne label “La Rhonde Fashions” – I love how they’ve matched the print up on the left side of the neckline.

20
Mar
2013
Posted by Nicole in 1950s, Melbourne

I recently had the pleasure of dressing Hetty Kate for her role as Ava Gardner in “Ava (At the End of the World)”, a new production-in-progress at the Spiegeltent Saturday next week (March 30th).

Written by Eric McCusker, the production deals with the events of 1959 when “Hollywood Came to Town” for the filming of Nevile Shute’s book “On the Beach” – the dream cast included Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire and Ava Gardner, who was soon followed by her ex-husband (and still besotted) Frank Sinatra.

At the cast reading, you’ll get Hetty Kate singing with a Big Band and a chance to see a musical in its formative stages – all in the wonderful surrounds of my favourite venue, the Famous Spiegeltent.

Tickets available now – and here’s a nice write up in the Age.

Eric McCusker and Hetty Kate in ’50s Horrockses dress, petticoats, pearls and parasol by Circa Vintage – I really do get to meet the most interesting people.

2
Feb
2013
Posted by Nicole in 1950s, Shop talk, Vintage 101 23 Comments

Yesterday a customer rang and asked for a refund on a dress she had bought last week – she had taken it home and found some yellowing in the 60 year old silk party dress, so would like to return it.

Absolutely, I replied – we take returns for any reason. I’m sorry that my dress does not meet your expectations.

(The delightful Marianne from Esme and the Laneway tried on the frock some time ago).

I live in an imperfect world, but vintage is not for everyone.

In my world, material things have lived a life and they usually show the little scuffs and marks that reveal their stories, their adventures and their history – sometimes the marks make them unusable or unwearable: a house that has burnt to the ground can no longer be lived in, but one that only needs a fresh coat of paint is just fine, especially if you’re not the sort of person to be bothered by a little peeling paint.

My home – it won’t surprise you to learn – is second hand. I call her the War Baby: Betty built her in 1942 and she’s like a budget Art Deco, built strong and sturdy with double brick and a Clinker Brick glaze, but with no unnecessary flourishes.

High ceilings, open fireplace, ceiling roses and architraves, wood floors in every room. Betty sold me the house in 1999 and I promised that I’d take good care of her – she was shocked that I had no renovation plans, “I love her just the way she is, original 1942″.

Many people like to buy a block of land in the sticks and build a big house with many small rooms and low ceilings – vintage is not for everyone.

My furniture is all second hand, or as we prefer to call it: an eclectic mixture of Victorian antiques, Jacobean Revival, Art Deco and Mid-Century Modern.

The stain has worn off my 1920s oak kitchen table revealing the pale colour beneath, but I enjoy the way it reveals many years of servicing families. It’s the “newest” (to me) piece of furniture I have – the ’20s dressing table with the big oval mirror has criss-crossed the country since 1984, and I think of my mum every time I look at her old Victorian hall table with the barley twist columns.

Some like their furniture shiny and new from Ikea: Vintage is not for everyone.

I love vintage clothes, and do my best to find good quality beautiful clothes for my customers. Some just need cleaning, some need a lot of work and I lavish whatever attention they need on them – I take my role as custodian seriously and endeavour to find the right home for the fashions to shine again.

Party dresses, ballgowns, cocktail dresses, dinner dresses and evening gowns are the most demanding – “Take me out!” they cry, especially when they’ve been packed away for decades because the lady has grown old, or misplaced her girlish figure. We keep these beautiful frocks because they remind us of happy times and are reluctant to part with them because even unworn, a thing of beauty is a joy forever.

We get them out to show our daughters, we cherish their memories – but one day they might come and visit me, or one of my fellow vintage lovers and the frocks get a chance to live again. They’re very excited!

A lot of people buy mass-produced clothes made in Chinese factories at very affordable prices – vintage, vintage my friend, is not for everyone.

But for those who appreciate quality, romance, style and the chance to wear a unique item that was so important to a distant someone that she treasured it and kept it safe for decades, before passing it on to a new life – an item that will very likely reveal traces of it’s glamourous past – for you, dear lady, I have treasures – come and let me share them with you.

3
Jan
2013
Posted by Nicole in 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Sewing, Vintage 101 5 Comments

Learning to date vintage clothing is one of the challenges that the vintage lover faces: unfortunately, unlike vintage cars, clothes don’t come with VINs to help you on your mission – you need to read and interpret the clues in the style, fabric, construction and detailing. If you’re lucky, you’ll have some provenance too, but if incorrect that can send you in the wrong direction.

Books can be a great help, as can magazines, newspapers, films, TV – and the more you expose yourself to the fashions in their original settings, the better you get at it. When I was learning, I used to visualise which Golden Era of Hollywood movie star I could see in something: is it a Jean Harlow outfit (’30s), or more Rita Hayworth (’40s) or perhaps it’s something that Marilyn might have worn in “Bus Stop” (’50s)?

It’s not an exact science, and that’s why you often see people identify an item using a decade or more, but I’ve discovered that with skill, you can often narrow it down to a year or three.

Thankfully there is one easy tool at your disposal – some sewing pattern companies print dates onto their products. Also, you used to be able to order patterns through certain magazines and newspapers, and some had them as supplements too, so if you have the original publication or post-marked envelope, you’ll have a date there too.

Today I’ve been listing vintage patterns onto the webshop, and I like to play “Guess the Date” with the styles – and then I can turn it over and find out if I’m right.

Here are some for you to test your knowledge with: keep in mind a few things – the patterns all give you bonus clues with accessories, hairstyles, make up, poses, and style of graphic. Sewing patterns are rarely fashion forward, and generally represent popular designs that have already sold well in the community, so can be sometimes a little behind the times. Also: if the pattern sells well, and fashions haven’t changed much, they still might make it for a few years. The date should be from when it was first printed though.

Clicking on each pattern will take you to the webshop listing and you can see how accurate your guesses are! Good luck.








































21
Dec
2012
Posted by Nicole in 1950s, Shop talk 2 Comments

We’re not very good at taking holidays at Circa, so that means we’ll be here right through the festive season, available for your vintage sartorial needs as usual minus, the pesky public holidays.

This week we’ll be open as usual today (12noon to 6pm), and Saturday (10am to 3pm) for last minute Christmas gifts and pretty party frocks.

Next week we’ll be closed on Tuesday, December 25th and Wednesday December 26th but open on the Thursday and Friday (12noon until 6pm) and Saturday (10am until 3pm).

The following week we’ll be closed on Tuesday, January 1st but from then it’s all smooth sailing and things will be back to normal. Come and see us at our vintage salon – we love visitors almost as much as we love vintage gowns – and that’s a lot!

Have a wonderful season and if you’re taking a break, I hope it’s a good one – thank you for your support this year and we look forward to seeing you soon.

1950s Ceil Chapman ballgown. Image source here.

14
Dec
2012
Posted by Nicole in 1950s, Bridal, Media 2 Comments

The latest Melbourne Bride magazine features one of our vintage wedding gowns on the front cover! How fabulous is that? I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen a vintage dress on the cover of any mainstream magazine apart from Frankie and Peppermint.

Best of all, there’s only one gown and it can be yours!

And – they’ve done a great job with the vintage styling so the frock looks fabulous – and inside there are more pics of two of our ’50s wedding dresses: have a sneak peek. Here’s the gown on the cover…click on either image to see details on the webshop, it’s in the salon for you to try on.



Photo courtesy Jackie Henshaw and Melbourne Bride magazine.

And here’s another beautiful ’50s gown: I really love the first photo – her hairstyle and camellia are so beautiful and who can resist the charming tea cup? This one is also available from the webshop, or at the Circa Vintage salon.


Photo courtesy Jackie Henshaw and Melbourne Bride magazine.

Thank you to Bride magazine for featuring our gowns in such a gorgeous vintage style wedding shoot – and if you’d like one of these or another style, you can see more of our vintage wedding gowns here.

27
Nov
2012
Posted by Nicole in 1950s, 1960s, Designers, Vintage 101 2 Comments

Today Miss Kate and I are working on a special gown for a special person and special event – a couture evening gown by local label Raoul Couture Melb. We’re tailoring it to fit the young lady and evening up the hem. In the process we discovered that it’s been taken out at some point in the last 55 years, so in a way we’re restoring it to the original design.

Here it is:

Raoul Couture was a fashion house based in Flinders Lane, and it was opened in about 1955. The head designer was Leonard Legge. All the garments I’ve seen with this label are top quality, and show an appreciation of fine fabrics – generally silk or wool, with embellishments. The label is one of the better ones, sitting well respected amongst collectable contemporaries like Le Louvre, Hall Ludlow and Magg.

The label was closed in 1963 and in the late ’60s, Leonard Legge became the head designer for Prue Acton, bringing classic couture techniques to modern fashion.

Here are some more examples of his craft, now available in Circa Vintage’s Lonsdale Street Salon.


Here’s the label – all of the pieces from Raoul Couture have featured this label, so as far as I know there is only one (unlike some designers, who bring out new designs).

You can see the contrast in stitching between the original couture technique on the right, and the amateur stitches on the left, when perhaps the label came unstuck on that side.

We also have a silk metallic and mink skirt suit in the webshop (click on the image to go through to the listing).

I also found this image in the State of Green blog, from a Beaumaris shop called Cherie Vintage – image found here.

Here’s a richer, stronger colour – an image of a Raoul Couture gown from Vogue 1960 by Helmut Newton, that I found on Pinterest. Thanks Julia – stunning!

I have more Raoul Coutures, so I’ll add images as I find them – if you’ve got some RCs, you’re welcome to send me images and I’ll add them too, with full credits of course.

23
Nov
2012
Posted by Nicole in 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, New in store

Here are some pics of some of the evening dresses we now have available in the salon – they’re all from the late ’40s to the late ’60s and sized between and 8 and a 12. We have other gowns too, of course, especially of other sizes.

22
Nov
2012
Posted by Nicole in 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, Circa event, fashion parade 1 Comment

A little while ago we put on a fashion parade for the Australian Sewing Guild – this one was a little different to our usual formats, for a specialised audience and we combined the parade with my popular talk on ladies fashions of the ’20s to the ’70s.

Instead of me just standing up the front and showing dresses, the dresses were worn by models, who strolled around and let the audience touch the fabrics and see them up close.

It was a great success and I loved the opportunity to focus more on the fabrics, the construction techniques and the detailing than usual – here are some of the frocks as worn by our lovely models Apple, Carolina, Lola and Carley. Esther helped behind the scenes with dressing.

Here are some of the many frocks that were paraded: we took a few liberties with accessories: they’re not all period correct, but I think they’re suitable for each era to help create a look.


Carley looking very chic and summery in 1920s fuji silk day wear.


Apple in 1920s silk crepe with cutouts and embroidered detailing.


Carolina, stunning in 1930s silk evening gown – now available in the salon for purchase.


Carley in my WW2 Red Cross nurses uniform.


Lola in cotton print 1950s sundress – coming soon to the webshop.


Carolina in 1950s silk ballgown – this one is featured in my book “Love Vintage” and I now suspect it was made by Sydney couturier Beril Jents.


Carley in 1960s polyester dress with machine smocking – now available in the salon.


Apple in sheer floral party dress, early 1970s – coming soon to the webshop.


Lola in early 1970s cotton print Laura Ashley – everyone loved this one especially, we all seem to have worn something similar at the time!


A surprise finish was not a dress at all but Carolina in a silk pantsuit! Now available in the salon.


My favourite photo – the happy audience! The parade went really well and the feedback I got was wonderful. Here are some words from the National Newsletter about the event:

“Nicole spoke on the history of fashion and fabric through the 20th century and with four beautiful models paraded clothes from the ’20s to the ’70s…there were a lot of gasps of joy and no one wanted her to leave. As we said our goodbyes the audience were slow to leave, wanting to savour the moment a little longer”.

Thank you to Fay for inviting us to be a part of your event and sharing these great photos, the lovely models, Esther for dressing and Sue, the editor of the Newsletter – it was a lot of fun and a great to meet like-minded people. I hope we can work together again!

19
Sep
2012
Posted by Nicole in 1930s, 1950s, Bridal

One of the pleasures of our new city salon is the discovery of how well suited it is to one-on-one attention that is required when shopping for a special occasion dress. In the short time since we relocated, wedding and ballgowns are proving our most popular styles.

Here are some beautiful images by Finessence, featuring some of our vintage gowns – hair and make up is by Candice DeVille. Ladies, if you’re looking for someone to help you with your event I can recommend both businesses.


1950s silk organza and lace gown modelled by Hannah (now sold).


1950s lace and taffeta ballgown modelled by Dolores Daquiri (more information about the gown here).


1930s silk bias cut gown modelled by Marianne of Esme and the Laneway (more information about the gown here).

If you’d like to make an appointment for a personal fitting to try on our range of wedding gowns and special occasion dresses, please call us on 9606 0776 or send me an email – we have lots more at the salon too!

Thank you to Finessence and Candice DeVille for granting permission to reproduce the images.

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