IN its heyday, it was probably part of high society. It would have danced the Charleston, been driven around in open top cars and perhaps been on a string of dates with a variety of dashing young men.

Today, however, the heavily beaded 1920s Flapper dress is looking rather worse for wear.

Whether it’s down to the excesses of an early owner or simple neglect, it’s battered and its current owner, who runs a vintage shop, hasn’t been able to find it a new home.

But that’s all about to change as it has just arrived in the Hampshire workshop of mother and daughter duo June Allnutt and Ria Loveridge.

Dressmakers by trade, the pair have a particular interest in revitalising old garments.

As well as running workshops where people learn how to get a new lease of life out of tired items in their wardrobe by making some alterations, they have recently branched into vintage restoration and remodelling.

Our once-beautiful 20s dress will be restored to its former glory in their hands, and is sure to find a loving new owner very soon.

Sometimes restoring an item to make it wearable again means making alterations. The art is that you would never know that the work had been done.

They work closely with store owners who run vintage stalls in London, doing basic repairs and alterations but the really interesting work comes with the unsalable stock that they bring back to their workshop.

Here they rework it, making it into something that will be worn and loved again.

“With the more antique items you restore them to their era but with things from the late 70s and 80s you might mess around with them a bit more and make them more modern,”

explains Ria.

“We get a lot of restoration work around the shoulder and the armpit area, because that’s a high stress area. With some items we might take them up a bit and use the fabric from the hem to make repairs. It means the dress is slightly shorter but it also means it can be worn again.”

Other common work includes covering deodorant and sweat stains on 1950s dresses and repairing bald patches on heavily beaded dresses.

Again, this might mean taking fabric or beads from another part of the dress.

“There is a little joke among the stallholders that we’re their lucky charms as there’s a lot of stock that they’ve had for years and after they’ve brought it to us to rework it’s sold immediately,” says Ria.

The pair love to see clothes that were going to waste being worn again.

They have even worked with items such as rolls of vintage fabric that was partly rotten, using the good pieces to make dresses in styles that matched the era and turning a hand embroidered blanket that had gone mouldy in places into a stunning cape.

They were given a collection of very tatty waxed jackets that they have made into stunning patchwork designs, in a bid not to let good materials go to waste.

But they have faced moral difficulties along the way.

“People kept asking us if we would restore their old fur coats,”

says June.

“We are vegan so we said no for a while but then we had a really long talk about it and decided we would.

“We only work with furs that are at least 50 years old, because if they are going to have their old one revamped it means they’re not going to go out and buy a new one.” Ria adds: “We believe in the recycling element of it. We would never promote new fur but when something has already died for it, it is abhorrent to just throw it away.”

For June one of the highlights of restoring old clothes is seeing the work that has gone into them.

“It’s workmanship that you will rarely see today unless you go to very high end fashion shows,” she says.

“Everything is made differently to how it’s made today. We come across some really lovely ways of putting things together and it helps us when we are designing new clothes.

“If someone says they want something in a 20s or a 50s style, we can put it together in the right way.

“We worked on a wedding dress from the mid 19th century. It was lovely to see how it was made. We’re just so lucky to see these things.

“We always take notes and photographs so that if anyone ever asks us to make that sort of thing in the future, we know how it’s done.”

One of the major alternations that June and Ria find themselves doing to vintage clothes is making them bigger.

“A size 12 in a vintage dress would be more like an eight to ten on a modern figure,” says Ria.

“At some of the vintage fairs the guys and girls who are really living the era and wear all the styles are so skinny because it’s the only way they can wear the clothes.”

But with some wise shopping, June and Ria say vintage can be the perfect way to create your own look and find clothing that looks perfect on you.

“There are eras that suit certain shapes so clothes from the 20s and 30s look really good on boyish figures while curvy women look great in 40s and 50s clothes,” says Ria.

“I’m also noticing that people are creating their own niche.

There’s a trend for having a key vintage piece from whatever era and then making it modern by what you wear it with.

“I’m seeing people wearing vintage with cut off denim shorts or funky boots. They are creating their own look, not trying to recreate an era."

 

* Find out more about June and Ria at recycleandsew.com or call 01489 896535.