Vintage Fashion & Textiles

Meg Andrews deals in antique dress and textiles and is a consultant to the Heritage Lottery and museums. She promotes textiles as hangings for interiors.

The charity Oxfam estimates that it saves about 47 million items of clothing a year from landfill. Its new superstore in Oxford is promoting Oxfam’s 'Second Hand September' campaign with the aim of encouraging people to buy vintage instead of new clothes.

The National Museums of Scotland has been revealed as the buyer of the Storrar Coverlet – a rare woollen textile withdrawn at the 11th hour from a sale at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh in August.

The Textile Society has run antique and vintage textiles fairs in Manchester for the past 20 years with its annual London event launching in 2009. Proceeds from these 40-plus standholder events help to fund the society’s awards and bursaries.

London-based vintage costume jewellery dealer Amanda Bhatia, aka Dottie Annie’s Vintage, is a new exhibitor at the Clerkenwell Vintage Fashion Fair.

Private buying dominated as Essex saleroom Sworders (23% buyer’s premium) offered the selected contents of a Cotswold manor house.

Metalware in all its forms played a major part in the development of the Bauhaus and recent sales contained examples in every price range.

Patchworks stitched together by successive generations in poor Japanese communities offered in Kensington exhibition

A north-west Persian carpet in the Esfahan style c.1700, offered for a price in excess of €30,000 by Massoud Milani from Paris, was one of the leading sales at the first HALI Fair in London’s Mall Galleries.

Pleased as the vendors were to be told by Gloucestershire auctioneer Martin Lambert that a 1920s trunk from their late parents’ home could be worth £2000, they were happier when pre-sale interest in Tayler & Fletcher’s recent sale brought a revised estimate of £2500-4000.

With interest high in vintage clothing, we ask fair organisers for their views on the market.

The story of Cornish care worker Jordan Rogers, who proved he was the illegitimate son and legitimate heir to a £50m Penrose mansion, made national headlines in May. It also had a knock-on effect in the auctioneering world.

Two events taking place in the north and south of England offer array of vintage delights

A festival of rugs and textiles organised by HALI magazine joins the busy line-up of London events this summer.

Barry Fletcher specialises in vintage rugs and comes over regularly from Belgium to stand at the 50-dealer monthly Bath Vintage & Antiques Market.