Getting Ready For Twinwood

Twinwood - 29th to 31st August 2015

We are terribly excited about Twinwood! Its one of our favourite 40s & 50s events of the year. So much to see, so much to do and plenty of dancing to be done. Its always wonderful to see so many of our customers both throughout the day in the stall but also out and about in the evening. So many fabulous outfits to see too!

This year, our stall has moved to the main traders area between the arena and the dance tent - not far from the Colonial Club. If you are around on friday night - we are hoping to be open for a few hours so do pop in.

We are bringing our full 40s range plus an extensive sale rail with end of lines and samples - you will be guaranteed to grab a bargain! We have also got some brand new special editions that we are taking along - including the below 40s Whirlaway Swing skirt that we have made especially for the event. Designed with dancing in mind - this skirt has a sweeping skirt, handy front pocket and 4 shell button fastening.

Outfit ideas for Twinwood

If you havent been to Twinwood before - check out the website here: http://www.twinwoodevents.com. There are still tickets available.

The quest to find the ultimate tea dress!

We all love a 40s style tea dress - and i think this is because they make the best of almost every figure. 

A well cut tea dress is very flattering for curvy ladies and yet enhancing for those less well endowed. It is certainly my favourite style of dress and i have several in my ever growing vintage collection (blushes).

I think a tea dress needs to be good for dancing in! As a swing dancer myself and knowing many of our customers enjoy a parade round the tea dance floor, I often consider a dancers' needs in designing some of our frocks. A swirling skirt and easy sleeves are a must - plus fabric must be appropriate.

So for years I have been trying to find the best cut. Waist or empire? High neck, tie neck, sweetheart?or a simple darted bodice? I have come to the conclusion that one must have several styles in our wardrobe as there are just too many gorgeous features that simple cant all be included in one ;-)

I have been collecting images and researching, buying originals where possible and have come up with the following definitive list of features that every tea dress from The House of Foxy MUST have:-

1. A demure neckline - never too much cleavage or too low cut. Leave that for the wiggle dresses! 

a 40s original example neckline

2. Gathers/ruching above or under the bust.
There may be a yoke at the shoulder with gathers above the bust, or an under-bust seam with gathers making a more empire shape at the top of the bodice.
I have found a few more simple styles that gather simply into the waist seam.

original example: pleats below bust and into shoulder yokes

3. Fabric MUST be rayon or silk.
Synthetics or cottons don't drape or ruche the same and just dont look right. Prints are important - not too busy as this with disguise the styles lines too much which would be a shame.

Love this original - looks like silk

4. A swing skirt.

Lovely in panels but must skim the hip and create a decent amount of swing (but not a full skirt).

5. A short or cap sleeve.
\We know many of our customers love to dance so we often bear this in mind when designing many of our dresses - we like to be able to raise our arms and then there's the perspiration to think of ;-) So, a small cap, flutter or petal sleeve is perfect for this style of dress

petal sleeve - allows arm to raise 

In our opinion, a tea dress is more demure than wiggle styles - but is the most feminine whether worn Land Girl style with wellies or with a pair of killer heels ;-)

**To see our current tea dress styles - please click here

Our Autumn Tea Dress Styles - coming soon

A new design...

This is a new design we are working on - which adheres to all the above rules.

It is gathered above and below the bust to create a flattering silhouette and gently skims the waist and hip into a 7 panel swing skirt.

It has a higher neckline which is very authentic for the late 30s/early 40s fans amongst you and is in our own exclusive  vintage repro print.

This dress was inspired by this little vintage beauty: http://tinyurl.com/owhrktc 











Also coming soon are shown below:-

Production news! The Jezebel Dress

The Jezebel Dress - so named because it's complete indulgence. 
And because this stunning dress has caused a bit of a stir, I decided that a little post about it might be interesting ;-)I always had it in my mind that i wanted to add more 'high end' and perhaps 'indulgent' designs into the collection. We all love something that little bit special and because we make here in the UK, i sometimes allow myself to pursue a few of my fantasies (of the dress kind i assure you of course!)

The lace fabric I found inspired me to design this. It comes in several great colours but i love it most in the canary yellow.

There are 5 metres of lace in each dress - this is because there is so much wastage. We use the scalloped edge of the fabric across the back, the front, the hem and the sleeves.

But i think it's worth it and im sure we will be able to use the odds and ends for other garments in the future.

We showcased this dress for the first time at York Vintage Fair at the end of April and we were pretty surprised that it got such a reaction. Many ladies thought it was an original as our model Ellie strutted her stuff throughout the day. In fact, i was pretty relieved to get the sample back off her ;-)

Ellie in the Jezebel at York Vintage Fair

So - we are frantically working on this dress because we are getting lots of requests for it. Currently we are grading it into the sizes and getting it ready for production. We have redone the under bodice to include some boning for structure and even more fullness to the skirt.

So - herewith the Jezebel dress...ready to order in canary: 

I expect we will do the dress in blue, black and natural in the future as well.

In blue!

C'est fini - for now xx

Spring Photoshoot

So we did a shoot last week for high summer and autumn but this post is about our previous photo-shoot back in Feb because we need to catch up on our posts (eek)

Usual suspects included Clare from HoF to style and Bethany Jane Davies from The Vintage Beauty Parlour in Manchester who we often have for our shoots. We at Foxy have worked with Bethany for several years and she is a good friend and has recently been nominated in the National Vintage Awards - good luck Bethany.

New faces for us are Tanya, our model, and Chris Lord photographer.

Tanya is a professional model and part-time student. She was just what we were looking for - strawberry blonde and freckly. But even better - she is a quirky, free spirit who isn't afraid of anything new! Not a diva in sight ;-)

We wanted a studio shoot that was beautiful and vintage inspired - but not pin up. Chris is an inspirational photographer who brought many new ideas to the shoot including a rotating set which ties our collection together whilst not detracting from the garments.

Creating the set

It was a lot of fun (although messy too) getting it ready.


There's a lot of yellow in this SS15 collection - I think this could be because I have been frustrated by the lack of sunshine (certainly in Yorkshire) and wanted to add some extra brightness in the stock room.

But there is plenty of variety in print and texture in this collection and we are pleased to see the entrance of some styles that are influenced by the 20s - something that I personally, am very excited about. I especially love the late 20s/early 30s when staggered & asymmetric hemlines started coming through and the waistline started to move up to its natural position.

the hem of our new 20s inspired 'Sheba' dress

Anyway - thanks again to Chris, Bethany and the gorgeous Tanya for helping us create this great collection of images.

A New Direction

So this post is about our recent rebrand and why it marks a new move for us.

Customers will have noticed our subtle rebrand at the beginning of the year.

We wanted to keep the 'Foxy' element of our name but we felt we had grown out of the play on words that marked our initial brand. 

We are different because we make everything in the UK, in a dedicated factory. And here we can create a number of new products throughout the year and are not restricted by seasonal collections that are mass produced in the far east. 

It also means that we can produce short runs of 25 or less easily. Our customers tell us that these limited edition garments are possibly the next best thing to original vintage because they yearn for something different...

This prompted us to look at what we could do to use this better - more detail, more limited editions, better quality and more higher end garments that are made to order. 

With all the above in mind together with the fact that we are/were all fans of national treasure TV series ' The House of Elliot' - The House of Foxy felt like a natural progression for us ;-)

We hope you like it too!

1940s spring collection - part 1

This year, we really wanted to get our 40s collection 'sorted'. I always struggle with the compromise between creating garments that are faithful to original styles and making sure that we cater for as many people and sizes as possible. Then there is production costs - in the 40s, fabric was at a premium and time was less expensive. The opposite is true nowadays - every seam has a cost and 7 gore dresses, shirring and gathers typical in the early 40s are not cheap to produce now. Fabrics are also of less quality in general and dont always behave as vintage fabrics do.

So our challenge was to create a collection that was affordable, faithful as much as possible to vintage styles, different and using quality fabrics.

The 40s Wardrobe

I always recall a lovely neighbour telling me about what she remembered of the 40s - she lived near to an american base and used to steal herself away for the dances during the war. She had one dress for dances, a classic shirt dress for the day, a few skirts and blouses and was one of the first young ladies to wear trousers!

I have researched SO much, i have collected many vintage garments and talked to many people about clothing in the 40s. Suffice to say - we certainly have a rose tinted view of this era - but it probably doesnt matter. Despite utility and war restrictions, there was something sweet and demure about it. I regret that i do prefer american 40s fashions - and this has influenced our collection.

Seperates are always in demand and we decided we needed to make a collection of interchangeable seperates. We are pleased with our 1940s swing trousers (or pants!) and pussy bow blouse. The swing twousers are extremely popular and now that we offer custom lengths, we often have customers returning after their initial purchase to take all colours available. We added the swing skirt this year, a lovely design based on a photo i saw, the key elements are a fitted band around the hip with a free skirt flaring beneath. This means its great for dancing but retains modesty at the same time.

I am in love with our pussy bow blouse! I love the gathers at the shoulder and back and the slight puff in the top of the sleeve. I wear mine a lot! With swing pants, pencil skirts and even a circular skirt. I have maybe gone overboard with 3 different fabrics and more to come - but Im so confident that people will love this as much as i do!

We are about to launch our shirt dress - which in my opinion every woman should have one of if they love the 40s! Practical, demure and very vintage. This pattern will also provide us with the classic shirt blouse - an alternative to the pussy bow version.

Anyway - more in part 2. here is a pic of Slinky Sparkles in our pussy bow blouse and swing skirt from a recent shoot! Thanks to Bethany for the hair - which is so fab and also to Kim from Madame Boudoir.

till next time...

Twinwood 2012

We have totally neglected this blog - so my mid year resolution is to start posting again. Im afraid a premises move together with the process of getting our own range of garments manufactured has taken prescidence! I have several posts lined up including our fabulous shoot with Leyla Rose modelling our 'So Foxy' collection and a preview of our new wiggle dresses! So watch this space!

Nikki and friends from The Swingbytes - the ladies are wearing our fever dress. (perfect for dancing in apparantly!)

However, just over a week ago, we had the pleasure of having a stall at Twinwood Festival nr Bedford. As a dancer myself, i adore this event which has several dance floors and live bands - dance lessons during the day (which sadly we couldnt go to because of the stall) and live music from the likes of Lola Lamour. Everyone is so friendly and the majority of punters really go the extra mile with their outfits - great to see so many people in vintage!

So below are some of our customers - existing and new - and when it was quiet enough, i managed to take a few pics.

Lovely Carly and friend!

there is a car - must have picture taken with car...note the wellies

This lady was so lovely, hope to meet her again. Her fella sported a rather impressive tash!

We have already booked for 2013, the same spot - hope i get a bit more chance to dance next year. Thanks to all the lovely visitors and the great comments about our new stock!