Vintage Dresses, Couture & Fashion History Worth Thousands | Antiques Roadshow UK

This is a great dress. I can just imagine this being worn in the 20s. I would never have thought of it that much. I didn't expect that much. This really is the most unspeakably smart dress, isn't it wonderful? Isn't it just beautiful? Who wore it? My wife before her mother-in-law. Oh brilliant, proper family treasure. Yes indeed. Looks like the Odeon cinema on the front there doesn't it? Exactly the same date. That's really what dates it isn't it? It is very deco, very chic. I think you ought to insure it for somewhere around about £300. Really? Yes. Goodness me, I would never have thought of it that much but very nice to know. I don't think it's likely to go out of the family home. I'm sure it's not. I wouldn't let it go if it was mine. No, not at all. Well they say three is a crowd but this is really quite a crowd. There's you, me and Vivienne Westwood. Indeed, yes. I'm just going to do something very rude. I'm just going to check that we have... We do have the label. That's all right, that's good. This is a great dress. Tell me where you got it. I actually bought it, my husband bought it I should say. I'd seen it in a magazine spread and absolutely fell in love with it and we just happened to be up in London. This was 14 years ago and I just happened to guide him down the King's Road towards the world's end. I do that to my husband sometimes. It works. It did and it also happened to be my birthday so it happened. It's great. How could he possibly resist and it looks terrific I have to say. Even now 14 years on there's something about Westwood designs that have this sort of classic feel to them and of course there is this year a retrospective of Westwood at the V&A Museum. Have you been? I have. I did go and see it because I love her clothes. I don't own any other Westwood. I wish I did but I don't or anybody else come to that matter but I was delighted to see the dress in the exhibition. Well I mean Vivienne Westwood she's an icon really in late 20th century design. She and Malcolm McLaren created punk rock with their shop in the King's Road called Sex and out of that came this wonderful extraordinary passion for design and a very quirky and a very English type of design. What did you pay for it? I'm sorry. No that's okay. Am I allowed? We're trying to remember. Yeah it was about 250 pounds. I can believe that. I have to say today I would have thought we're talking about sort of 300, 400 so I mean it hasn't shot up in value but the great thing is unlike almost anything else that you buy and wear it hasn't gone down in value. It's not worth nothing. So are you going to continue wearing it? Oh yes I mean I love it and I would never sell it anyway because it's just I don't know I just adore it and I love wheeling it out every now and again. Well I hope you and Viv have a great great future together. Thank you very much. I've got to do this. I can just imagine this being worn in the 20s. Have you ever worn it? You're not old enough but no I haven't worn it recently. How did you come to have it? I bought it at a local auction about two or three years ago in the local auction in Dalgafly and I just liked it. It's such an unusual colour isn't it? It certainly is. What is so lovely about this era is that the 1920s was if you like modernisation of women, emancipation, they threw away their corsets, they were free. I love the stylised. It's glorious isn't it? If you like bows they're like bows they're not flowers are they? So I think it could have been made in England. I don't think it's French. It's difficult because there's no label inside so it has a lining but the outside is muslin. It's very fragile and very heavy with all these beads. It just lends itself to the dance doesn't it? It certainly does. Now at the bottom I had to look twice because I thought hang on it doesn't quite the right length. Now the 20s were the short length and then suddenly by the time we got to the 1930s it was much longer and so someone has put that on so they can go on wearing it. How do you keep it at home? I lay it, I've got it on a layer of acid-free tissue and I keep it flat because I think to hang it would be the weight of the beads would drag it. Eventually with gravity and I think you're right. In fact I'm hoping you can give me some advice on that. Well the advice is I think you're doing absolutely the right thing. You want to protect it from moth. Yes. Acid-free paper obviously is the right thing. Now what did you pay for it? £50. You have done well. That's fantastic. Well you've obviously got a good eye. In the right sale, probably in London, we are talking about somewhere between £500 and £800. I didn't expect that much. That's a pretty good return compared with stocks and shares isn't it? Because it was the end of the war they couldn't get the fabric they wanted to make a coat so all the ladies gave some material and designed it and sewed it up themselves. So the way they've done it is they've done it as if it were a patchwork quilt. That's right. So they would have done it round a template, joined it up in the patterns just using up bits of material that they would have had in their bottom drawer. As you can see some of the red is crepe de chine, you just wouldn't get that. So do you reckon they were using old dresses as well? Yes, some of it was old dresses and the white, some of the white was a lady's wedding dress. Really? Well that was a great sacrifice. That's right. But why do you think it was made? Let's have a look at the back. Why do you think was it made for a special occasion do you know? It was their best coat to wear for great festivals like Christmas or Easter. I wear it when I'm doing baptisms or doing a wedding. I have to be a bit careful when I'm doing a wedding because it is so beautiful. I find if I'm not careful I tend to upstage the bride when I sweep in with this. Well it's not the sort of thing that we very often get on the road show. Needless to say as far as a value is concerned it's irrelevant. I'm not saying it doesn't have a value but it has a wonderful social story and that's the value to you and I. Well I'm very lucky because I rescued them from a dustbin. You didn't. I did yes. I studied at an art school and when I was working at a studio that did painting for costumes and films they were throwing them out so I said may I have them please and I've had them for 40 odd years. This one for instance this is by Roger Furze who was a superb draftsman. This is for Lady Hadley in Woman Hater. Edith Evans. Wonderful. For me it's a drawing in itself with a watercolour on top. It's obviously meant to be exactly how they were going to clothe her and all these what she had to wear underneath and wearing a sable and there's her sable. Wonderful. It even looks like her and it's only meant to be for the costume isn't it? Now this is another well-known costume designer called Barclay Sutcliffe. Now Moira Lister this is another one. We don't know exactly what this was going to be. I think it was sweetest and lowest. I love the pinched in waist and it's wonderful. I think this this fashion ought to come back don't you? It's very much a fashion of the 40s isn't it? Very much very much. A sort of light fashion. Beautifully executed so that is very fragile. It's amazing they didn't sort of scrunch it up to throw it away. I'm glad they didn't. Yes so am I. This is a splendid one look at this. This is Hermione Gingold. Hermione Gingold holding what is meant to be I suppose a Venetian mask in front and look at the eyelashes aren't they wonderful. Again by Barclay Sutcliffe. This is sweetest and lowest so obviously Moira Lister and Hermione Gingold both in the same production. Absolutely wonderful. Again very decorative. Very decorative and I think in a way the value lies in that. The Roger Furze was almost more collectible than any of the others. So the Roger Furze one we're talking about maybe 200 pounds. This one because it's Hermione Gingold there's a great following of her and collectors will probably pay somewhere around 100, 150 possibly up to 200 for this one. But you've got a huge collection there this is the tip of the iceberg. So together if you really work out on an average of 100 to 250 I think you must have probably 5,000 pounds worth there. I think probably yes thank you. I've got a lot more actually at home. Have you? Yes. Oh my goodness. But this one is I think probably one of the nicest. Yes I think so too. Wonderful. They were done by my grandmother in the 19 teens and 1920s. I mean they are extraordinary. Here's a bathing costume here put that on there and lovely dresses here. I mean there must be about sort of 50 or 60 dresses. I remember as a child that I was allowed to play with them on high days and holidays. Yes. And that I've always treasured them and they were given to me when I was a teenager. Yes well I mean she must have worked very hard because they are quite sophisticated and they're all hand-drawn and they're all coloured in with watercolour. She went to an art school in London and then became a dress designer apparently for somebody called Raymond. Raymond somebody who... Raymond sounds terribly sort of French doesn't it? I don't know if it's male or female but that's all I know and really I wanted to find out how I can find out more about fashion in the 1920s and whether she really did design anything that was worthwhile. I think you'd obviously have to go to a fashion museum or fashion design museum. You could go to the clothing museum in Bath I suspect and see what literature they've got in fact they can trace him back or her back. But I think all of these are obviously good designs. This one's rather interesting because this one comes... It's almost contemporary isn't it you know sort of very much off the shoulders but also with the contemporary tattoo very contemporary I think. And this one here my goodness you could hardly it's hardly decent. No well she was a bit of a girl I think in her day. Right. The roaring 20s and all that. Absolutely roaring 20s. And of these you've got what I suppose about another 50? I think so yes. Set of drawings. So a fabulous collection of costume design of the 1920s. It has to be worth these 50 have to be worth somewhere in the region very hard to value but I would have thought between 500 and a thousand pounds. That's me.