As the seasons change in England, its time to review clothes for the spring and summer. Is it too soon to put away my big winter coat? Much loved and fabulously warm, but also space hungry, it needs a cupboard to itself.
I like to see what's on sale as the seasons end and whether there are any bargains. I was lucky - a few items that I had been after on the Oxfam website were reduced. I had been looking at them for some time but the price had been more than I wanted to pay.
I'd been checking out moto and biker jackets: they seem to have had an especial thing this winter but I have wanted one for a long time. I used to have a leather one but I've found as I got older that leather is very heavy to wear.
Oxfam has loads of biker jackets, and I'd been following the two below for months. The third item, a woollen coat, is something I'd been coming back to time and again. Both the biker jackets were under £14 and the coat was £24.
They should arrive this week.
Ossie Clark
Faux snakeskin biker jacket by Ossie Clark.
Actually, this one had already been previously sold. I'd made up my mind to buy it anyway, at its old price, but someone had got there before me and there was the ominous "this item is no longer in stock" message in red against it. I remember feeling really disappointed. But it mysteriously reappeared.
Ossie Clark was a major British designer in the sixties. He went for long floaty dresses using fabrics designed by his wife, Celia Birtwell. His wikipedia entry says that, "he was brilliant at doing anything" from a very early age. I knew him first through the famous painting by David Hockney, "Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy."
Quba:Sails
Woollen coat by Quba Sails, a maritime company that makes clothing from canvas sails.
I liked the shape of this coat and it's collarless neckline. Depending how heavy it is, I would wear it as a knee-length winter jacket, Victorian-style. It'll be good to have some extra warmth around my legs. It's a bit of a weird photograph, I wonder if one side is that long.
You'd have to buy it for the label, if nothing else. I'm wondering if it has metal buttons.
Rocha John Rocha
Another take on a biker jacket, this time a mink coloured quilted version by John Rocha.
I like that both biker jackets subvert the image with non-traditional colours and textures, the mink coloured one having a nod to the longline Barbour jackets.
John Rocha is an Irish-Chinese designer born in Hong Kong. Seventy now, and a CBE for services to fashion, he gave up showing at London Fashion Week about ten years ago. As well as fashion, he worked with Waterford Crystal designing glassware (I have some John Rocha red wine goblets) and has designed many interiors. His daughter, Simone, is also a designer.
Source John Rocha and his daughter, Simone, featured in Vogue, May 2014.
Source Bonus extra image: I love this black and white photograph of John Rocha by Simon Brown, also featured in the Vogue article, May 2014.
Previous adventures with clothing audits
