Vintage Fashion & Textiles

Matthew Adams is holding his first virtual vintage fashion fair, 'Lockdown Frockdown', this Sunday (December 6).

This leather-soled silk and kid leather shoe decorated with pleated ribbons is inscribed in pen on the heel 'Soulier de Marie-Antoinette donné à M.de Voisey'.

For the second time in as many sales, Sworders’ (25% buyer’s premium) 20th Century Design auction on October 13 included a ‘microgauze’ wall hanging by the British artist-weaver Peter Collingwood (1922-2008).

As travel possibilities opened up with the advent of railways and steamships, the question of how to transport belongings became an important one. One of the first manufacturers to tackle this with great success was entrepreneur and designer Louis Vuitton (1821-92).

Oxfordshire dealership 3Details offers this original Louis Vuitton trunk with its instantly recognisable monogrammed canvas for £22,500.

This c.1905 leather top hat ‘bucket’ by the prestigious hatters Johnson and Co of Regent Street, London.

At TW Gaze (18% buyer’s premium) in Diss, Norfolk, on August 12 this early 20th century Louis Vuitton wardrobe trunk, no 796731, sold for £4200 against an estimate of £1800-2500.

Mayfair gallery fashions an innovative method of exhibiting works from the 1950s-80s.

A bowler hat that once belonged to Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria will go under the hammer at Dorotheum on October 19 in the sale of imperial court memorabilia and historical objects in Vienna.

Meg Andrews was as disappointed as many others by the cancellation due to the pandemic of the Textile Society’s antique and vintage textiles fair at Chelsea Town Hall earlier this month.

An auction record for Grayson Perry’s (b.1960) 'Britain is Best', a limited edition coloured embroidery depicting five loyalists from East Belfast, was set at Phillips (25% buyer’s premium) in London on September 10.

This handwoven tapestry by Czech designer and architect Josef Místecký (1891-1957) is offered at Galerie Ulrich Fiedler’s exhibition Textile Moderne, which features Avant Garde carpets and textiles by European makers.

An unexpected but welcome entry to Bonhams’ latest sale of Fine Books, Atlases, Manuscripts & Historical Photographs was a pair of 17th century linen, leather and black silk shoes.

Estimated at just £30-50, a late 19th century sampler sold via thesaleroom.com for £1850 at Wotton Auction Rooms (18% buyer’s premium) in Gloucestershire. A clue to the appeal is the inscription 'M Mountain, 5 Orphan House, Ashley Down, Bristol, 1879'.

Personal items that belonged to Marie-Antoinette were the highlights of Osenat’s (20.83/18% buyer’s premium) themed sale titled Royalty at Versailles.

This couture gown, sold for £360 at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium), was once owned by the woman who hosted the wedding of Wallis Simpson and the Duke of Windsor.

This late 19th century surcoat or longgua, finely embroidered in silk and gold thread with eight dragon roundels, was originally worn by a high-ranking woman at the Chinese Imperial court.

'Calyx (Blue)', a 1951 textile by Lucienne Day (1917-2010), sprouts with Modernist forms. Its colourful, flower-like shapes hint at the mobiles of Alexander Calder or the biomorphs of Joan Miro.