sixties

Bravo, Diana. Bravo!

bravo magazine, diana rigg, emma peel, sixties
Little does she realise…

I love Bravo magazine with a passion. I became acquainted with its strange ways during my aforementioned period of Diana Rigg-collecting; they seem to have specialised in abducting international stars of screen and music, shoving them in a studio and surrounding them with one of the weirdest collections of props I have ever seen.
Diana seems to have done some of the strangest, and this celebration of her Riggness (in honour of her winning something called a Golden Otto) is brilliantly bonkers. Some are pretty self-explanatory, some are pretty and some are….indescribable. Enjoy!
Diana likes antiques. But she’s a bit scared of breaking them, so she sits very still.
Diana is very politically incorrect. But she manages it with panache.
Diana and the ‘men in her life’? Top is, I’m guessing, her father. Top right is Philip Saville, her partner at the time. He was still married and they were very open about their relationship.
Diana is a very, very bad girl. (See above)
Diana grows her own.
Diana likes to sail…in very flimsy boats.
Diana is a goddess. But we already knew this.
Diana has a poodle called Poopie. This isn’t him (I hope).
Awwwww…..
Diana likes to travel (Dressed like a spy. Of course).
You can’t read her p-p-poker face.
Please tell my management, I’ve been kidnapped by this German magazine. Help!!!

Hoarding can be rewarding: Britt Ekland

britt ekland, sixties
Cine Revue, January 1969


Many moons ago, I ran a website dedicated to Diana Rigg. Time, finances, enthusiasm; they all waned drastically and it became defunct a couple of years back. Seems I rarely post about her these days (though this is certainly not intentional) and lo! this is to be another post sans Rigg. For I have realised, more recently, that I had accumulated a whole pile of bizarre Sixties and Seventies TV and film magazines (rarely even in English) in my efforts to find the rarest pictures of La Rigg.

I never really looked terribly closely at them, I was working too hard on scanning in the pictures for which I had bought them and would often file them away without really, really reading them. A couple of magazines have garnered these gorgeous shots of Britt Ekland, amongst other interesting things, and I thought I would share them.

Cine Revue, October 1968

More Boyfriend menswear gorgeousness (plus Top Ten award!)

amen corner, boyfriend annual, menswear, psychedelia, ruffles, sixties, stripeyness, the herd

I think the Boyfriend 1969 annual might as well have been called the ‘Miss Peelpants Guide to How Men Should Dress’. Here are The Herd and Amen Corner, rocking the stripes and ruffles respectively.

I’m very chuffed to have put in an appearance in Cision’s Top 10 UK Vintage Clothing Blogs, and in such esteemed company as well. Very nice to get recognition from such a site, even if I don’t quite understand how I ended up there! Thanks Cision! Thision.

(That’s for for any Look Around You fans out there….)

Stripes and Sounds: Simon Dupree and the Big Sound in Boyfriend, 1969

boyfriend annual, menswear, psychedelia, simon dupree, sixties, stripeyness

Oh no! Major oversight. I never finished scanning pictures from the Boyfriend annual 1969! Naughty me…. Since it’s a bit of an unofficial menswear week on the blog, here’s the gorgeous Simon Dupree and the Big Sound. So. Many. Stripes. Can’t. Cope. Swoon.

The Story of Cedric Safesuit

carnaby street, dandy, Illustrations, john stephen, king's road, lord john, menswear, petticoat magazine, sixties


Also contained within the aforementioned July 1967 Petticoat magazine, is this superb illustrated feature on some extremely groovy menswear. Illustrated by Gerry Richards. Utterly brilliant and too good not to share…

Cedric Safesuit was a civil servant with good prospects and only one problem – all the girls rebuffed his advances with haughty stares. Why? Because Cedric was an acute and unhappy case of B.O. (boring outerwear).

Fortunately for our story, Cedric’s best friend Teddy Trend decided to take him in hand. King’s Road, he whispered at ever more frequent intervals. Carnaby Street, he muttered whenever the conversation flagged. Finally Cedric was worn down and, let loose among the gear shops, an astonishing change came over him. With whoops of delight, he tore off his old brown suit and signed cheques for everything he could lay his hands on. “I’ll never have B.O. again,” he said happily, walking off with Teddy Trend’s latest acquisition, a Twiggy-hipped redhead. “A severe case of B.H. (big head),” diagnosed Teddy sourly.

Michael Man’s Boutique blue satin shirt, 69s. 6d., with matching striped trousers, 69s. 11d., by Lord John, and printed blue kipper tie by Sydney Smith 21s.

New summer image in John Stephen His Boutique yellow seersucker shirt, 55s., matching orange seersucker trousers also by John Stephen, 65s., boots worth a second look, black and tans by Topper, 89s. 11d., tartan chucka boots, 45s. 6d.

Brown herringbone coat by Dandy, 21gns., John Michael flat hat for flat heads, 89s. 6d., white jabot for that dapper look by Dandy, 20s.

From John Stephen His Boutique white satin vicar shirt, 89s. 6d., red velvet bow from the Chelsea Antique Market, 12s. 6d., matching black trousers with white inverted pleat by Lord John, 79s. 11d., and a business-like black bowler with red cherries, 15s. at the Chelsea Antique Market.

MenMenMenMenMenmimenmenmen….

english boy, king's road, menswear, petticoat magazine, quorum, sixties, stripeyness

Ahhhhh. Men. So few know how to dress these days. I’m lucky that, more recently, I have been spending time with a gentleman who definitely knows how to dress. If you’d asked me a few years back, to describe how I would like my ideal man to dress…..well, it would be pretty much spot on. But a few years ago, it would also have felt like a very impossible dream.

For some reason, the odd odd-man would come along and would want me to ‘re-style’ them. And then, for some reason, they would fail to listen to a damn word I said. The rest lived in t-shirts and jeans. Sigh. Anyway, you should never try to ‘change’ someone. I just wish they taught this kind of stuff to boys in school. Or that I lived in the Sixties.

(Mmmm, yes, the latter please!)

Anyway, I bought this copy of Petticoat from July 1967 the other day and was having severe fits of menswear-lust. The cover boys are all ‘English Boy’ models, the agency famously linked with those Quorumites in the late Sixties King’s Road scene, but I doubt any of them would be considered model-standard these days. However, they are instantly raised to godlike status simply because of the way they are suited and booted.

I also noted with amusement that the far left chappy is wearing a coat/jacket remarkably similar to my favourite (and now, inevitably, very shabby) burgundy velvet autumn coat. Confirming the fact that, I think, I often aspire to look like a male dandy when autumn hits, rather than a lady.

Lazy August Days….

british boutique movement, chelsea girl, Eighties Fashion, goth, hotpants, jeff banks, louis caring, paraphernalia, sarah whitworth, seventies fashion, sixties, website listings

But I can’t stop working. Apologies for the mixed bag of listings, we’re still straddling two seasons at the moment (fashion-wise) so I’m trying to keep it light but trans-seasonal. This is harder than you might think. I’m also working on Autumn-orientated listings which will be coming towards the end of the month in preparation for a luscious September (fingers crossed). I might sneak the odd incredible designer piece on the block before then though, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

But what am I talking about? I’ve got a few amazing pieces just listed now, including Jeff Banks, Louis Caring, Paraphernalia and Sarah Whitworth.




Must See Vintage Films: Ma Nuit Chez Maud

bfi, eric rohmer, films, Françoise Fabian, My night with Maud, sixties


If you’re in or around London, and you like a bit of subtitling and high-brow theology (Honestly! Who doesn’t?), then I would highly recommend heading over to the South Bank and seeing My Night With Maud by Eric Rohmer at the BFI (or around the country in selected cinemas). I do so enjoy the South Bank on a Sunday; why on earth so few people seem to have worked out that you can have a lovely time south of the river I really cannot understand. Terrific food, drink, culture and it’s so [relatively] peaceful there. Which is mainly due to the lack of discovery by north of the river snobs, so I should probably hope that they don’t.

Back to the film, and pretty fascinating it was too. Even if I did end up with a subtitle-headache. Mainly due to the heavy philosophical aspect of the film, but also because it was hard to keep up when you’re so very distracted by the beauty of the eponymous heroine (Françoise Fabian). I have never wished so much for stronger French skills. And for smoking to not be an utterly revolting habit: the French make it look so damned elegant.

It’s almost impossible to write anything approaching a coherent review after one viewing, and to people who haven’t seen it. I certainly wouldn’t wish to spoil anything since it’s certainly the kind of film you benefit from knowing little about before viewing. So I won’t [attempt to write a review]. Just recommend it, very highly.





Bathing Beauty

1950s, ebay listings, sixties, swimwear

Amazing 1950s ruched swimsuit by ‘Slix’.

Just a quickie post to inform you that I’ve just listed three gorgeous swimsuits over on eBay.

1960s cut-out psychedelic swimsuit by ‘Palmers’.

1950s electric blue satin bathing costume

Vogue’s Own Boutique

alice pollock, british boutique movement, chelsea cobbler, fulham road clothes shop, ossie clark, quorum, sixties, sylvia ayton, Vogue, zandra rhodes

A conversation with M last night got me thinking about the origins of the idea of ’boutique’. If it was a somewhat posthumous term applied to the era by fashion historians, in the same way that ‘Renaissance’ would not have been understood by anyone living through the Renaissance.

But then I remembered the veritable goldmine of information featured in Vogue in the late Sixties called ‘Vogue Boutique’ or variations on that phrase. So, I guess, no would be the answer. They did call it ’boutique’. This gem (featuring an outfit by Alice Pollock and another by Zandra Rhodes and Sylvia Ayton) is from July 1969. More to come, as and when I remember them…..