A Vintage Affair: A page-turning romance full of mystery and secrets from the bestselling author

There was a sharp rapping sound from behind me. On the other side of the glass door was a man of about my age, maybe a little younger. He was tall and well built with large grey eyes and a mop of dark blond curls. He reminded me of someone famous, but I couldn’t think who.

‘Dan Robinson,’ he said with a broad smile as I let him in. ‘Sorry to be a bit late.’ I resisted the urge to tell him that he was very late. He took a notebook out of his battered-looking bag.’ My previous interview overran, then I got caught in traffic, but this should only take twenty minutes or so.’ He shovelled his hand into the pocket of his crumpled linen jacket and produced a pencil. ‘I just need to get down the basic facts about the business and a bit about your background.’ He glanced at the hydra of silk scarves spilling over the counter and the half-dressed mannequin. ‘But you’re obviously busy, so if you haven’t got time I’d quite –’

‘Oh, I’ve got time,’ I interrupted. ‘Really – as long as you don’t mind me working while we chat.’ I slipped a sea green chiffon cocktail dress on to its velvet hanger. ‘Which paper did you say you were from?’ Out of the corner of my eye I registered the fact that his mauve striped shirt didn’t go with the sage of his chinos.

‘It’s a new twice-weekly free-sheet called the Black &Green – the Blackheath and Greenwich Express. The paper’s only been going a couple of months, so we’re building our circulation.’

‘I’m grateful for any coverage,’ I said as I put the dress at the front of the daywear rail.

‘The piece should go in on Friday.’ Dan glanced round the shop. ‘The interior’s nice and bright. You wouldn’t think it was old stuff that was being sold here – I mean, vintage,’ he corrected himself.

‘Thank you,’ I said wryly, though I was grateful for his observation.

As I quickly scissored the cellophane off some white agapanthus, Dan peered out of the window. ‘It’s a great location.’

I nodded. ‘I love being able to look out over the Heath, plus the shop’s very visible from the road so I hope to get passing trade as well as dedicated vintage buyers.’

‘That’s how I found you,’ said Dan as I put the flowers in a tall glass vase. ‘I was walking past yesterday and saw you’ – he reached into the pocket of his trousers and took out a pencil sharpener – ‘were about to open, and I thought it would make a good feature for Friday’s paper.’ As he sat on the sofa I noticed that he was wearing odd socks – one green and one brown. ‘Not that fashion’s really my thing.’

‘Isn’t it?’ I said politely as he gave the pencil a few vigorous turns. ‘Don’t you use a tape-recorder?’ I couldn’t help asking.

He inspected the newly pointed tip then blew on it. ‘I prefer speed writing. Right then.’ He pocketed the sharpener. ‘Let’s start. So …’ He bounced the pencil against his lower lip. ‘What should I ask you first …?’ I tried not to show my dismay at his lack of preparation. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Are you local?’

‘Yes.’ I folded a pale blue cashmere cardigan. ‘I grew up in Eliot Hill, closer to Greenwich, but for the past five years I’ve been living in the centre of Blackheath, near the station.’ I thought of my railwayman’s cottage with its tiny front garden.

‘Station,’ Dan repeated slowly. ‘Next question…’ This interview was going to take ages – it was the last thing I needed. ‘Do you have a fashion background?’ he asked. ‘Won’t the readers want to know that?’

‘Er … possibly.’ I told him about my History of Fashion degree at St Martin’s and my career at Sotheby’s.

‘So how long were you at Sotheby’s?’

‘Twelve years.’ I folded an Yves St Laurent silk scarf and laid it in a tray. ‘In fact I’d recently been made head of the costumes and textiles department. But then … I decided to leave.’

Dan looked up. ‘Even though you’d just been promoted?’

‘Yes …’ My heart turned over. I’d said too much. ‘I’d been there almost from the day I’d graduated, you see, and I needed …’ I glanced out of the window, trying to quell the surge of emotion that was breaking over me. ‘I felt I needed …’

‘A career break?’ Dan suggested.

‘A … change. So I went on a sort of sabbatical in early March.’ I draped a string of Chanel paste pearls round the neck of a silver mannequin. ‘They said they’d keep my job open until June, but in early May I saw that the lease here had come up for sale, so I decided to take the plunge and sell vintage myself. I’d been toying with the idea for some time,’ I added.

‘Some… time,’ Dan repeated quietly. This was hardly ‘speed writing’. I stole a glance at his odd squiggles and abbreviations. ‘Next question …’ He chewed the end of his pencil. The man was useless. ‘I know: Where do you find the stock?’ He looked at me. ‘Or is that a trade secret?’

‘Not really.’ I fastened the hooks on a café au lait-coloured silk blouse by Georges Rech. ‘I bought quite a bit from some of the smaller auction houses outside London, as well as from specialist dealers and private individuals who I already knew through Sotheby’s. I also got things at vintage fairs, on eBay, and I made two or three trips to France.’

‘Why France?’

‘You can find lovely vintage garments in provincial markets there – like these embroidered nightdresses.’ I held one up. ‘I bought them in Avignon. They weren’t too expensive because French women are less keen on vintage than we are in this country.’

‘Vintage clothing’s become rather desirable here, hasn’t it?’

‘Very desirable.’ I quickly fanned some 1950s copies of Vogue on to the glass table by the sofa. ‘Women want individuality, not mass production, and that’s what vintage gives them. Wearing vintage suggests originality and flair. I mean, a woman can buy an evening dress in the High Street for £200,’ I went on, warming to the interview now, ‘and the next day it’s worth almost nothing. But for the same money she could have bought something made of gorgeous fabric, that no one else would have been wearing and that will, if she doesn’t wreck it, actually increase in value. Like this –’ I pulled out a Hardy Amies petrol blue silk taffeta dinner gown, from 1957.

‘It’s lovely,’ said Dan, looking at its halter neck, slim bodice and gored skirt. ‘You’d think it was new.’

‘Everything I sell is in perfect condition.’

‘Condition …’ he muttered as he scribbled again.

‘Every garment is washed or dry-cleaned,’ I went on as I returned the dress to the rail. ‘I have a wonderful seamstress who does the big repairs and alterations; the smaller ones I can do here myself – I have a little “den” at the back with a sewing machine.’

‘And what do the things sell for?’

‘They range from £15 for a hand-rolled silk scarf, to £75 for a cotton day dress, to £200–300 for an evening dress and up to £1,500 for a couture piece.’ I pulled out a Pierre Balmain beaded gold faille evening gown from the early 1960s, embroidered with bugle beads and silver sequins. I lifted its protective cover. ‘This is an important dress, made by a major designer at the height of his career. Or there’s this –’ I took out a pair of silk velvet palazzo pants in a psychedelic pattern of sherbety pinks and greens. ‘This outfit’s by Emilio Pucci. It’ll almost certainly be bought as an investment piece rather than to wear, because Pucci, like Ossie Clark, Biba and Jean Muir, is very collectable.’

‘Marilyn Monroe loved Pucci,’ Dan said. ‘She was buried in her favourite green silk Pucci dress.’ I nodded, not liking to admit that I hadn’t known that. ‘Those are fun.’ Dan was nodding at the wall behind me hanging on which, like paintings, were four strapless, ballerina-length evening dresses – one lemon yellow, one candy pink, one turquoise and one lime – each with a satin bodice beneath which foamed a mass of net petticoats, sparkling with crystals.

‘I’ve hung those there because I love them,’ I explained. ‘They’re fifties prom dresses, but I call them “cupcake” dresses because they’re so glamorous and frothy. Just looking at them makes me feel happy.’ Or as happy as I can be now, I thought bleakly.

Dan stood up. ‘And what’s that you’re putting out there?’

‘This is a Vivienne Westwood bustle skirt.’ I held it up for him. ‘And this –’ I pulled out a terracotta silk kaftan, ‘is by Thea Porter, and this little suede shift is by Mary Quant.’

‘What about this?’ Dan had pulled out an oyster pink satin evening dress with a cowl neckline, fine pleating at the sides, and a sweeping fishtail hem. ‘It’s wonderful – it’s like something Katharine Hepburn would have worn, or Greta Garbo – or Veronica Lake,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘in The Glass Key.’

‘Oh. I don’t know that film.’

‘It’s very underrated – it was written by Dashiell Hammett in 1942. Howard Hawks borrowed from it for The Big Sleep.’

‘Did he?’

‘But you know what …’ He held the dress against me in a way that took me aback. ‘It would suit you.’ He looked at me appraisingly. ‘You have that sort of film noir languor.’

‘Do I?’ Again, he’d taken me aback. ‘Actually … this dress was mine.’

‘Really? Don’t you want it?’ Dan asked almost indignantly. ‘It’s rather beautiful.’

‘It is, but … I just … went off it.’ I returned it to the rail. I didn’t have to tell him the truth. That Guy had given it to me just under a year ago. We’d been seeing each other for a month and he’d taken me to Bath one weekend. I’d spotted the dress in a shop window and had gone in to look at it, mostly out of professional interest as it was £500. But later, while I’d been reading in the hotel room, Guy had slipped out and returned with the dress, gift-wrapped in pink tissue. Now I’d decided to sell it because it belonged to a part of my life that I was desperate to forget. I’d give the money to charity.

‘And what, for you, is the main appeal of vintage clothing?’ I heard Dan ask as I rearranged the shoes inside the illuminated glass cubes that lined the left-hand wall. ‘Is it that the things are such good quality compared to clothes made today?’

‘That’s a big part of it,’ I replied as I placed one 1960s green suede pump at an elegant angle to its partner. ‘Wearing vintage is a kick against mass production. But the thing I love most about vintage clothes …’ I looked at him. ‘Don’t laugh, will you.’

‘Of course not …’

I stroked the gossamer chiffon of a 1950s peignoir. ‘What I really love about them … is the fact that they contain someone’s personal history.’ I ran the marabou trim across the back of my hand. ‘I find myself wondering about the women who wore them.’

‘Really?’