Two of the questions I often get asked about these dresses are:
- Isn’t it difficult to find something?
- Isn’t it expensive?
Today the answer to both questions is yes but it’s worth it
if it’s something you’ve been dreaming of forever. The problem (and joy) of shopping for second hand in general
is that you never know what you might find. If you’re looking for something
truly specific, I’ve always found the more I look, the more I don’t find it.
Then a few weeks later after I’ve given up hope, the thing I was looking for
high and low will find me. I’m looking at you, long sleeved cream cropped
cardigan!
When I was seventeen and only wore jeans and t-shirts, I
went on my first lone trip to Camden. I fell in love with the mad prints on
sale in the little crowded shops, especially a halter neck newspaper print
dress. I had no idea how to wear dresses
then and £250 was five times the price I paid for my prom ensemble so I returned
to internet searching a cheaper option and eventually gave up.
In late 2014, I revisited Camden and accidentally found St
Cyr Vintage. Everything in the shop was about 10% more expensive than you’d pay
further north but this was London and Camden is a tourist spot. The shop was gorgeous, sorted by era and size
and not only dresses, but shoes and bags and jewellery. The mid-century dresses
were mostly in very good condition, and where not, most had their faults
described on the tags. At the back was a cordoned off section of rarer and
evening style dresses.
Behold!
The articles are all real articles. They’re mostly
in French and Spanish but from translating a few words and the information in
the English articles about the Grand National and Ryder Cup, I can date the
newspapers to autumn 1953 to spring 1954. The style is very early 1950s with a
longer and less full circle skirt.
It was in a state. There were no less than six rips in the
dress. The little loops to hold bra straps were almost falling off. The seam stitching
was loose. Whoever had attempted patching had pretty untidy stitches. It was
£100, far too much for a very broken dress. However, I knew that if someone
tried to fix it and did a bad job, it would be ten times worse than no attempts
to fix it at all. I had to rescue it.
I tried it on. It fit perfectly and so looked fantastic. So
I bought it. This is what I did:
The sides of the arms had been patched but the stitches were
large and the fabric crumpled. The first thing I did was unpick any lacklustre
mending attempts and once done, iron the dress and the patches I’d saved. I
unpicked the rolled edges around the arms.
I’d found some black and white polka dot imitation silk in
the Oxfam in Camden and it was perfect to reinforce torn or patched areas. I
tacked the patches and then machined them with a zigzag stitch. Machine
stitches give a flatter finish than hand stitches and the zigzags are mostly
lost in the print.
I re-sewed the arm hole hems by hand and went over the
inside seams with a straight stitch to reinforce them. I also covered most raw
edges with satin bias binding to prevent further fraying. I zigzagged the edges
of the neck facing for the same reason.
Finally, I shortened the straps slightly and replaced the bra
strap loops.
Let’s see if it will last another 60 years.
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