As the fashion world is swept up by
nostalgia, we check out the best Retro places to stay and play
When the Turner Contemporary gallery opened
in Margate last year, it didn’t just entice a run of art-loving hipsters to
Tracey Emin’s childhood stomping ground. It also encouraged a clutch of
specialist vintage stores to spring up in this formerly neglected corner of
Kent.
Boutiques like Madam Popoff (enq
madampopoff.com), which sells ‘fabulous garments from the vaults of time for
the sassy guys and gals of the present’, and Etcetera (enq
etcetera-online.co.uk), which stocks 20th-century design classics
for the home, couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate setting.
the
Turner Contemporary gallery, in Margate
In its early-20th-century
heyday, Margate was one of the most fashionable resorts in England, before
becoming all but a ghost town after cheap package holidays opened up Europe’s
more reliably sun-soaked resorts to the great British public. But recent
regeneration, spurred on by the opening of the Turner, has hauled Margate back
into vogue as a seaside retreat, just in time to capitalize on the fashion for
nostalgic holidays.
Now there are 1930s-style tearooms, World
War II-themed festivals, decadent urban bars masquerading as speakeasies and
1950s rental homes so perfectly conserved they might almost have been pickled
in aspic. If you want your downtime to come with a delicate close of retro
style, you won’t have to travel far to holiday like it’s 1929, ‘49 or’ 69 this
summer.
With the economic climate leaving us Brits
clamouring for some post-austerity glamour, it’s little wonder that the biggest
travel trend of summer is one that was us all itching to recreate the days when
men were men and women were corsets.
But treat carefully in those Winklepickers
– the vintage vacation is all about sophistication. Forget the penchant for
colourul 1950s. Americana that took hold during spring, or the twee
teapots-and-trifle approach that swept our green and pleasant (and
bunting-strewn) land in the lead-up to the Queen’s Jubilee. If you want a truly
on-trend holiday, take a tip from next season’s fashion collections and opt for
grown-up glamour.
From old-school Hollywood elegance at
Marios Schwab to models channeling Marlene Dietrich’s 1940s brio at Donna Karan
come the autumn our wardrobes will be bowing under the weight of tailored
gowns, pinstripes and pillbox hats. Add to that Baz Luhrmann’s forthcoming The
Great Gatsby, in the manner of Ralph Lauren’s s/s 2012 collection, and the year
is going to end in a sea of retro glamour.
In the meantime, get a taste for the
nostalgic lifestyle first-hand. Or, as Louis Vuitton so elegantly demonstrated
at Paris Fashion Week, strike your best turn-of-the-last-century pose and climb
aboard a classic train. Your destination? Here’s our pick of the vintage crop.
Claridgies,
London
Home
store, Hastings
Burgh
Island Hotel, Devon
The
Savoy, London
