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.