I’ll tell you a secret: I really enjoy hand washing clothes, especially vintage clothes. It’s a good thing, because I have to do lots of laundry for Circa, and when you wash a garment it tells you it’s secrets - what it’s made of, how it’s made and how it wants to be treated. A lot of old garments are made from non-colourfast dyes so they need to washed separately (to avoid staining others) and in cold or lukewarm water.

Every week I wash lots of clothes but gloves and scarves get special treatment - I’ll save them up and every few months do a massive wash when the weather is just right. Yesterday was such a day, and as we go into Racing Season, the turn of the gloves. Unfortunately, I wasn’t careful enough with my colour treatment, and some dark green gloves ran and managed to spoilt a few others. Thankfully I had some “Run Away” on hand to save them.

The gloves aren’t as colourful as the scarves but they still make for an interesting pic: here be over 300 gloves of all different sizes, colours, fabrics and styles. Will be in store in the next few days, once we’ve matched them all up again and sorted them into categories.

The Heritage Hill Museum in Dandenong is presenting a series of professional workshops, including a full day textile care workshop on Friday 29th August. This will be presented by Christina Ritschel of the National Gallery of Victoria and include issues relating to the preservation and display of textiles.

Older fabric and clothing can be quite delicate and is often damaged through the process of wearing, washing and storing - this is a rare opportunity to meet with an expert in the field and discuss how to identify damage and prevent it’s future occurrence. Places are limited - if you’re interested in learning more, I encourage you to book a place. Cost is $25, which includes lunch, morning and afternoon tea (how civilised is that?)

For further information or to book contact Heritage Hill on 9793 4511.

Photo courtesy of the La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria.

I’m always on the search for wonderful vintage buttons - vintage garments have often lost them or might have had them replaced by “wrong” versions over the years so where ever possible, I like to restore them with the sort of button they would have had originally. They can make a such a difference to something plain as well.

Circa has thousands - all sorted into every conceivable colour, material and type (shanked, two hole, four hole or other) and grouped in little zip lock bags. It doesn’t seem to matter how many we have though, we don’t always have the “right” one so we need button specialists as a back up.

Thankfully, there is a small and dedicated group of ladies around who cater to just this need, whilst indulging in their own fascinating hobby. We get asked a lot about who we recommend, so here are the main ones we use:

Habadash, 8 Templeton Street Castlemaine - well worth a trip to the country and this treasure trove of buttons, sewing ephemera, vintage jewellery and linens and other goodies. I can’t go into Sonia Collard’s beautiful shop without wanting to buy something so it’s lucky that she has no shortage of fabulous trinkets at reasonable prices.

Here is some of her amazing bakelite button collection - they look like lollies, don’t you think?

In Melbourne’s Nicholas Building (corner of Swanston and Flinders Lane) you’ll find Buttonmania - Kate Boulton has the largest range of new as well as vintage buttons and conducts workshops and regular sales (a good time to stock up). I love her set of small drawers, where many of the goodies are kept:

Photo: Estelle Judah from The Age.

I also go to see Miranda at Chapel street Bazaar (217 Chapel Street, Prahran) - she has one of the best collections of vintage haberdashery all at market prices - as well as regular half price sales. My favourites; gorgeous french jet buttons from the 1940s.

Speaking of markets, there’s a wonderful lady at Camberwell market on Sunday mornings - especially good for large plastic buttons from the 1950s, and buttons in quantities. I think all of hers are brand new, unused old stock, like Miranda’s.

Of course eBay is a wonderful resource too - although I must admit to preferring to be able to touch them, see how they look up against my fabric and inspect them for small damages - as well as use them immediately!

You can find vintage buttons every where that old things are - my last two favourite sources are op shops, where lucky customers might pick up an old tin or jar containing an old lady’s collection going back many years, and vintage fashion fairs like The Way We Wear Fair and Sydney’s Love Vintage Fair.

Vintage buttons come in all manner of materials, many of which the modern appreciator might not be familiar with - a handy guide to testing buttons to determine their material can be found here.

Increasingly, students ask me to help with assignments that they have on vintage or the history of dress or the industry - to make things easier, I thought I’d answer Jenny’s questions here. If my responses are of use to you, you’re most welcome to use them with accreditation. Thank you.

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Just as it was in our Grandmother’s day, Circa’s laundry routines are dictated by the weather.

As you know - all vintage clothing in Circa is either hand-washed or dry-cleaned. During winter, the hand-washing can fall a bit behind so when the sun shines I tend to get at it, and do what I can while the rain holds off. I really enjoy a good laundry day - first off is the sorting - over the preceding days or weeks, I’ll bring home all the things that I want in the shop. Some things are constantly in demand and others are more seasonal. At the moment my washing pile is mostly cotton print sundresses and Hawaiian shirts as we get ready for Spring.

I buy scarves all the time: usually there are around a hundred in the shop and they’re popular items so I like to keep a steady stream coming. Ironically, considering they’re the cheapest item in Circa, the scarves take the most laundry work and need an especially sunny day. (more…)