Vintage Fashion

'London Fashion Week' hits the city from February 15-19 in a dizzying whirl of catwalk shows from 250 designers at top venues.

Cary Whitley has been running her biannual Love Vintage brocantes in June and December in Wanstead, east London, for eight years, with the next on Saturday, December 8.

It’s party time at Savitri Coleman’s Clerkenwell Vintage Fashion Fair in the Freemason’s Hall, Great Queen Street, on Sunday November 25.

A pair of early 17th century gloves slipped into a top spot at the LAPADA Art & Antiques Fair last week.

Described in Time Out earlier this year as a place where “high art and innovation meet”, Hackney in east London, with Shoreditch and Hoxton round the corner, has dozens of independent shops, cafes and markets.

It is relatively rare to find items of 16th century costume on the market, especially pieces in good condition. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that this gentleman’s doublet from c.1580-1600 should end up going to a major museum when it went under the hammer in a Paris auction this month.

One of Dorotheum’s specialities is its staging of sales devoted to imperial court memorabilia and historical objects, which are notable for featuring souvenirs and personal memorabilia from the House of Hapsburg.

The travelling compendium reached its apogee in the late Victorian and Edwardian era. Two exceptional examples appeared on the market in quick succession in recent days.

Helen Larson was a keen collector of costume, especially pieces with historical associations. She spent half a century building up a collection that encompassed early costume, couture and pieces with historical or celebrity provenance, helped by her friend Doris Langley Moore who founded the Costume Museum in Bath.

Piasa is holding a second auction devoted to the colourful works of the Ukrainian-born artist Sonia Delaunay (1885-1975) on April 26.

Flash from the past at the Diss rooms of TW Gaze (18% buyer’s premium).