Vintage tips for London?

Midge

Super Moderator
Staff member
Time seems to be racing along... I'm headed to London next Wednesday, first for some business, and then I'm adding a few days for my pleasure too :). Anyway, it's been ages since I've been in London, excluding business, so I'd be glad for any tips in connection with vintage - shops, markets, anything worth seeing... Museum-wise I have already set myself the V&A and the Fashion & Textile Museum, and I've checked the VFG member brick and mortar shop listings, but otherwise I'd be glad for any suggestions! Thrift and secondhand shops are also good with me. I know only one vintage shop from my last visit, that still exists, which sells predominantly 60s-70s vintage. On my other visits before I hadn't been into vintage seriously yet, and the vintage shops I knew then have closed since... yes, it has been too long :BAGUSE:!

TIA for any ideas!

Karin
 
If you're there on a Friday: Portobello Road market. Open Saturday too, but the best vintage fashion is there on a Friday.

It's been seven years since I've been in London so any of my advice is likely to be out of date.

Have a wonderful time and I'm awfully jealous - I was chatting yesterday with a customer/friend who has just got back from there and it made me miss London so much. If I didn't have my shop etc I would probably have moved back years ago.
 
Oh Lucky you Karin- I spent 3 months there in 2005 studying 15th-18th century costume- I want to go back!!

Anyway- a few London tips below for you

Make sure you spend as much time as you can spare in the V&A Textile rooms- words cannot describe how amazing they are.

London Museum- it is brilliant

See a show at the Globe Theatre if you can!!

You simply MUST go visit Pollocks Toy Theatre store- its near Covent Garden and some links are below.

Above the store is a museum stuffed full of amazing old toys, and the museum is housed in 2 ancient buildings that seem to have been joined together at some stage- leaning walls, crooked staircases ,tiny doorways where you have to duck to not hit your head etc.

http://www.pollocks-coventgarden.co.uk/index.php/covent-garden-shop/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollock's_Toy_Museum

Its worth a short light rail trip out to Greenwich, wonderful musuems and old pubs, the maritime Museum is fantastic, as is there uniform collection. There was a wonderful market there too- I cant remember what day it was on- but on a weekend for sure- worth finding out if the markets are still there.
 
Nicole, it's been seven years for me too... the pound was still much stronger then and everything was so expensive. I visited all the art museums I hadn't seen before and spent a lot of time hanging around Spitalfields, Brick Lane and that area, which had just become "in" then and which I'd discovered more by accident. London is that kind of city you can always go to and there's something new and exciting to see. My mom goes almost every year, also because of the theatres, and I've been feeling so jealous...

Good point about Portobello Road - I've heard about it but didn't know if it's still on. I'll check it out. I'm basically free after the workshop ends Thursday evening, and staying on til Sunday evening.

Gayle, I didn't know about Pollocks (and I love old toys) - sounds brilliant. I should have some spare time before the event begins on Wednesday and Covent Garden is in walking distance from the hotel - now I know what to do then :). My parents went to see the new Cutty Sark exhibition at Greenwich last year - it looks great. I have been there on one of my very first London trips but not since. The V&A is fixed on my list - haven't been in there either since my first trip to London :BAGUSE:. I think we saw a Fabergé jewelry exhibition then there, which was brilliant.

Karin
 
The first thing I usually do when I get to Heathrow is pick up a copy of "Time Out" and by the time you've got to your accommodation, you'll have read up on all the events, all the exhibitions - it's brilliant!
 
Hi Karin, somehow I missed this until now - it sounds like you arrive today?

Time Out magazine is now free and is given away at tube stations on Tuesdays. There are a few other places you can pick it up: http://www.timeout.com/london/free-mag?intcid=topheader I hope you can get it at the airport, but ironically it's harder to get hold of since it went free. But everything is online anyway.

Yes, to Portobello and Brick Lane for vintage shops. While you are at Portobello you might want to visit the What Katie Did shop for good repro underwear you can try before you buy - I know I would!

Check out this site: http://www.thevintageguidetolondon.com/

There's a couple of fairs this weekend:

Saturday: The Shoreditch Vintage Fair http://www.facebook.com/events/133268936813219/
Sunday: The Vintage Furniture Flea: http://www.judysvintagefair.co.uk/events/the-vintage-furniture-flea-2/

For thrifting, you might want to try your luck at one of the many carboot sales, go early: http://www.timeout.com/london/things-to-do/londons-best-car-boot-sales

Talking of furniture, if you are into vintage interiors you might enjoy the Geffrye Museum: http://www.geffrye-museum.org.uk/
And if you like toys, don't miss The Museum of Childhood - it's an outpost of the V&A in the East End: http://www.museumofchildhood.org.uk/

If you fancy a show with a vintage feel I loved 'The 39 Steps' - the spy story turned into a comedy - it's hilarious. http://www.love39steps.com/

Nothing to do with clothes, but my museum tip for London is the Sir John Soanes Museum, an unusual and not so well known house-museum full of oddities - I would go on a weekday if you can manage it, it's gets crowded: http://www.soane.org/

Message me if you fancy meeting up!
 
Midge, sorry I posted this in the wrong place at the outset.

I've bought several things at Pandora's. It's between the V&A and Harrod's on a side street. Don't cross Knightsbridge after you leave the V&A. There are several high-end vintage shops nearby on a street that runs parallel to Knightsbridge. Sorry I don't remember the name--much too expensive but interesting to visit.
 
Cheval Place.

Oh and if you are trying to pronounce it because you are asking a Brit for directions it is
Shh val not Chev all :USETHUMBUP:

And it is just off Montpelier Street pronounced Mon pell ee er :clapping:

Which is almost opposite Beauchamp Place which is pronounced Beech am not Beau champ :wacko:

You turn down Montpelier (Pret a Mange is on the corner – pronounced monge a not mange :duh2:) and turn left into Cheval just before Bonhams auction house – pronounced Bon ams – not Bon Hams :headbang:

British English is so easy - Good Luck :)

Oh and if you do go out to Greenwich as suggested earlier it is pronounced
Gren idge :cheer:
 
I miss London!

Anne, I love your pronounciation guide: it explains why I was fine in London but had trouble in the US!

I have a soft spot for the British bizarre pronounciations - I read once that many of them were amplified in the Victorian era when education started to be not just for the rich, so the rich started deliberately mispronouncing words so they could still be different! No idea if it's true!

My favourite is Magdalen College in Cambridge, pronounced "Maudlin".
 
Many years ago Thea Porter had a boutique--maybe on Beauchamp Pl. I stopped in and Thea was there. She was very personable and we chatted about her designs, how she began, growing up in Lebanon, etc.
She recommended that I look for fabric on Berwick St. It took forever for me to find it because it's pronounced Bare rick St. and I didn't know how to spell it.
 
I lived in North London for two years - Crouch End - and now the North London accent sounds so normal, I don't hear the accent at all. Although I used to giggle at "ruum" for "room". I love a British accent.

One day a friend and I were driving through Somerset, looking for the town he went to school in. After driving around for ages, Jon suggested I ask for instructions from an old man walking along the lane.

"Excuse me" I said, rolling down the window "Can you please direct us to Bruton?" He had no idea what I was talking about - after many frustrating minutes Jon leaned over and said "Broo En!" The response was immediate: it was just over the hill.
 
I have a soft spot for the British bizarre pronounciations - I read once that many of them were amplified in the Victorian era when education started to be not just for the rich, so the rich started deliberately mispronouncing words so they could still be different! No idea if it's true!
.

I wonder! I picked up a copy of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh's book on upper class sayings and pronounications at a book market a few years ago but haven't read it yet. The upper classes have this thing called U and non U language (aka ordinary joe shops like myself) where they can identify other members of their "class" by the way they pronounce things. Now being Irish myself, and Ireland having a long, fraught history under British colonialism I don't buy into that and use my rough as you like Irish accent ^^

The book:
8447363877_25786e2d85_z.jpg

(sorry I don't have any other picture)
 
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