High fashion in the market
EVERYONE looks forward to Fridays, but no-one more so than me. But for me it was noon, my lunch hour, when l hotfooted it from my workplace – Chambers Bros in the Lace Market – and made for the, to me at least, still missed and lamented late Central Market.
My first port of call was the fish market and a certain stall to purchase fish balls, a clever and delicious forerunner of today’s fish fingers. My kids loved them and looked forward to this Friday teatime treat. Now I headed for the auction at a second-hand clothes store. It was run by an elderly lady who got her stock from fashionable houses in the more affluent neighbourhoods of our city. She would hold up a smart suit and someone would offer, say, ten shillings. Someone else came in at £1.25…..eventually it would sell for perhaps a couple of pounds.
I would stand uninterested and wait as she sold coats, jackets, slacks etc. Then, one day, I spotted a fabulous pale turquoise full-length glittering evening gown. It was to die for. But who in the mid 1960s and the days of the Twiggy mini would wear such a thing? Me, that’s who, for I was a singer and worked a couple of nights a week at the Musters Hotel. She finally got round to unhooking it and held it up saying; “Who’ll give me ten bob for this?”
I timidly put my hand up and, as some of the ladies merely glanced at it and started to move away, it was knocked down to me. About the only fashion name I was familiar with in my world was C&A, ergo the fancy label inside the dress meant nothing to me. Once home, I tried it on while the fish balls gently fried. My two kids ooed and ahhed at how lovely it was. Naturally I wore it that night teamed with a pair of gold shoes. Pat was the Musters chief barmaid and she stopped to look me up and down before asking where I’d got my dress. I told her, and also told her the price I’d paid for it. She looked shocked. I didn’t know anything about Pat, only that she was the barmaid and yet, unless l was very wrong, that was a pricey solitaire diamond ring she always wore. She said she was sure my dress was a Jacques Vert model and bid me turn round. She looked at the label. She was right. She explained that such a gown would have originally cost several hundred pounds and been worn just the once only and then be relegated to the back of the wearer’s wardrobe. From then on Friday noon became a must for me as I bought dress after dress, fancy tops and skirts for little more than a few pennies. I became known more for my frocks than my singing. Being a chronic hoarder, l still have a few of those dresses with their fancy labels, tucked in the back of one of my wardrobes