Victorian Vintage Fabrics

Vintage fabrics collection “Victorian Britain”. By Manchester fashion designer Collette Costello.

Collette Costello Fabrics

This collection captures the stories told my Nanna, about growing up in inner city Salford. During the early 1990s. A world of smoky chimneys and cobbled streets. See the fabrics these stories inspired below:

More Tea Dear?
The parlour is set for tea and biscuits, table laid with the best cloth and China cups. Flames crackle in the small cast iron fireplace, awaiting the special guest yet to arrive.

Lark Hill Place
Take a trip down to “Lark Hill Place”, lined with street lamp that have a warm, cosy glow.  Behind tall iron gates, are houses where cats lounge in net covered curtains.

Ale House
Shiny tiles and brass fitting adorn the walls, the air is thick with music and singing.  Men huddle in corners playing cards, dominoes, with a pint of ale at hand.

Platform 9
Smoke bellows from the train, piles of battered, leather trunks are being loaded into carriages. Ladies in fine hats wait on the platform edge, eagerly clutching their train tickets.

My Nanna’s Victorian Childhood Stories

Growing-up in inner city Manchester. Born into the terrace streets next to Salford Cathedral. My Nanna spent her childhood in a world found in Charles Dicken’s novels. A world with smog filled streets, cotton mills and poor houses. She was descended from a family that owned Shorrock’s music hall in Chorlton. I loved hearing her stories about a bygone age. We would visit “Lark Hill Place” in Salford Museum together, a recreation of an old Victorian street. This would really bring her stories to life.

My Nanna talked about strict Victorian teachers, church ran schools. She wore brown pinafores with clog shoes. Her shoes would create sparks, as she ran across the cobbles streets. Streets where workers were woken for 6 pence by the “knocker-upper”, tapping on the window until they rose. Life was hard, children left school at 14, they were adults then allowed in pubs. My Nanna started work in a mill factory, as a sewing machinists. Working for the famous rain coat maker Mackintosh, at their Manchester factory.

After a weeks work people still struggled, the Pawnbrokers waited on every corner. People would be forced to pawn their Sunday best suits on a Monday, buying them back again on a Friday. There was no NHS, no benefits, a trip to the dentist was filled with fear. My Nanna spoke of how the dentist’s wife would sit on patients needing tooth extracts, to stop them moving. Pain relief, medicines were luxuries.

Sadly, people were so poor that on payday at the end of the week they would buy back their suit from the pawnbrokers. To wear it to church on Sunday, then sell it back to the Pawnbrokers on the Monday to get through the week.

The people had nothing she said, but they had their pride. Front door steps were always polished, neighbours helped each other. People were generous and shared what little they had. Community was everything in the good old days.

The sewing machine that I learned on was a Janome 1950’s semi-industrial. It weighed a tonne and aged just 9 I had to ask an adult to lift it on the table for me. The machine belonged to my Nanna, who had been a factory machinist. She worked for Mackintosh based in Manchester, the famous company that made raincoats.

Nanna Sewing History

It was my Nanna then that taught me how to sew. The machine was fast, yet my Nanna showed me how to handle the fabric like a professional machinist would. She would tell me stories about how in the factories you were not a respected machinist unless the needle had stitched through your finger. This proved you were sewing fast and not afraid of the machine. When it did the machinist would have to sit with the needle in their finger, waiting for the engineer to unscrew the machine to get it out.     

Learning how to sew at such a young age led me into studying textile/ fashion and going on to teach fashion. I have used many sewing machine from industrial machines, over-locker machines, cover-stitch machines, Cornelly machine, Irish embroidery machines and domestic machines.

Victorian Fabric Prints UK

Victorian printed fabrics, were preserved for wealthy British women. Printing fabrics was expensive and slow. Done by the process of wood block printing. The Victorians used printed fabrics mainly for interior textiles. Such as wallpapers and upholstery fabrics. Fashion fabrics were embroidered or woven instead.

William Morris founder of the Art & Crafts movement. Designed fabric prints in repeat patterns, inspired by nature. Featuring birds, leaves, encased in entwining vines. His prints defined the Victorian style, dark colours and heavy decorated patterns. William Morris patterns are still popular today. Liberty of London, still sell his prints. Modern fashion designers such as “Plum and Pigeon”. Use these fabrics to make vintage style dresses, with a romantic twist.

Victorian fabrics are antiques now. Yet Victorian reproduction fabrics have had a revival. In the form of steampunk fashion. The Victorian style fabric popular with steampunk cosplay fans. Is more in the style of Victorian illustrations, than the fabrics worn by actual Victorian people. Steampunk fabric is often printed with original drawings, from Victorian medical journals and advertisements. Unlike the floral, romantic patterns designed by William Morris.

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