Sewing was a skill that many years ago was included in education for every girl taking home economics classes. Home economics classes were gradually dropped from the school syllabus perhaps due to changes in educational priorities, alongside slashes in budgets across the years. Many women used to learn these skills from their grandmother or mother, but the knowledge has been gradually disappearing. Traditionally, the make do and mend mentality, being able to repair items of clothing was an extremely valuable skill to possess. But with the increase in cheaper clothing being made in bulk and shipped in, we appear to be in a somewhat throwaway society, where you can replace clothing for a few pounds rather than replace buttons, repairs tears, take up hems, and maybe the most common washing mistake - laundering a piece of clothing incorrectly or placing that white shirt in with a pair of red socks! The same has happened with basic cooking and baking skills; busy family life, tight schedules, working parents (a whole host of extra pressures added into modern life) can now understandably mean that millions of people favour ready meals, fast food and takeaways. The Great British Bake off has certainly helped home baking come back in a big way. See our previous blog post about the vintage kitchen and the bake off!

Many celebrities such as Fearne Cotton are strong advocates of vintage clothing, and regularly post their vintage fashion outfits and finds on Instagram. It's a style revolution! Using vintage clothing to express originality and individual style is incredibly on trend right now, and because of the huge variety of vintage clothing in circulation, it's really easy to remain original. It shows that it is entirely possible to mix the old with the new, as with vintage and antique furniture in modern interiors. As well as celebrity vintage fashion icons boosting vintage sales, it's helped to create a whole new raft of people who use vintage sewing patterns to create their own clothing. Many popular pattern brands have begun to reissue vintage designs to cater for this new interest, as vintage sewing patterns were made of paper and cardboard and often suffered damage during their use.