The loveliness of vintage labels

One of my favourite things about buying vintage is that every piece has a story attached. Sometimes this story is based in fact – when an item’s history and era are known by the seller – and sometimes I make up a wild history myself. I just love that each piece has lived its own life before I found it.

When little is know about the origin of a vintage item, one of the biggest clues or hints into its past, is the label.

Sometimes these labels just tell me I’ve got a great deal or that I’ve bought something of quality. I found a pair of metallic silver Michael Kors pumps in Rokit a few months back and I have a delicate silk scarf that claims, via its flimsy label, to be Armani.

My REAL favourites, are the items from mysterious, unknown brands or shops. It’s these little badgers that make my imagination gleefully run amok. Over the years I must have spent HOURS puzzling about my the birthplace of my favourite dresses, filling in the gaps with my own little made up tales.

For example, take my orange flowery shirt. I wore this almost every day during the summer of 2005, with a ripped denim skirt, a pair of cowboy boots and some fake raybans. Who on EARTH did I think I was?

ANYWAY. Stitched into the shirt, is one of those nametags that tells me it was once owned by someone called Magali Viallet. Who are you Magali!?!?

I imagine that Magali isn’t a child. I reckon she owned the shirt when she was 19, and in protest against her twin sister stealing her clothes, spent hours stitching her name into them all.

So, here is a selection of some of my favourite labels.

I’ve spent some time googling them myself but if you happen to know ANYTHING about any of these makes – please let me know in the comments. In reality, these dresses are probably from a 1970s American equivalent of Matalan and my romantic ideas are entirely overblown, ludicrous and ridiculous.

My favourite label of all. Magali Viallet, WHO ARE YOU?