Shrimpton Couture is the world’s premiere online source for curated vintage and vintage couture

 

From its humble beginnings in 2006 with just a dozen or so vintage pieces, Shrimpton Couture has grown to be one of the most respected online shopping destinations for vintage lovers world-wide. We pride ourselves in sourcing vintage that is still relevant and wearable. It is our mission to find the timeless and special pieces that are cherished and coveted by designers, museums, celebrities and and countless fabulous women all over the globe. 

We search high and low all over the globe and collaborate with some of the top dealers in the world to bring you only the best of the best. Our finds are all personally curated and approved by our founder, Cherie and nothing escapes her eagle eye and high standards. We have everything cleaned the minute it enters our studios so that our clients know that it will hold up to wear and that there are no unpleasant surprises to anyone. We have built our reputation on pristine, beautiful vintage and plan to stay that way! 

Watch our What’s New pages for almost daily additions to our stock, and connect with us directly on Instagram. We are one of the worlds only online, one-stop destinations for all things vintage, but we are also small and intimate - when you ask a question it’s Cherie that answers and she answers right away! Only two things really count around here - the vintage and our clients!

 

A Letter from Cherie:

Shrimpton Couture was born as a result of being an obsessive girl who wanted it all and wanted everything to be beautiful and perfect and found by trial and error that the best way to find that was through vintage.

From as far back as I can remember clothes have held a fascination for me. Innately I knew that given the right wardrobe a girl could lead the life she wanted. People always laugh when I tell them all the success I have had in my life was born out of the need to have a closet full of Yves Saint Laurent and Dior, sprinkled in amongst pristine Ossie Clark’s and a row of beaded silk flapper dresses. They don’t really believe me and assume I am saying it to amuse, but the truth is that, well that is the truth. Clothes are not just clothes. Clothes, and especially vintage clothing, represent to me the countless women who have led extraordinary lives and I want to follow their examples. When you pick up an exquisite bias cut silk floral chiffon gown from the 1930s, with each of it’s stitches painstakingly, and perfectly, done by hand; one cannot help but wonder about the girl that once dreamed of her future life while wearing that dress.

Clothes are magic...they can transport you from an ordinary girl to the belle of the ball. From an innocent girl to a femme fatale. That is a powerful seduction.

Modern clothes are wonderful things and everyone who knows me knows I also buy from the vast selection of our present designers, but vintage is different. Once you discover vintage it is actually quite hard to shop regular retail anymore. There is something about the cut.... the fabrication.... and the attention to detail that is addictive. Modern clothing can offer these things as well, but to truly get a comparable garment you are often restricted to the very upper echelons of the fashion hierarchy. Maybe vintage is so different because often each stitch on a garment was finished by hand, or that the fabrics just feel “truer”, more attention was paid and less mass production was done. The cut on a vintage garment is different - more in line with the individual body rather then a mass-market pattern. But I am an open-minded girl - you need a bit of both really - old & new. To have a truly fabulous closet that will allow you to live a truly fabulous life, you need to fill it with clothes that tell the story of you, whether that means clothes that are vintage or just off the runway. But they have to shout to the world that those clothes are you and you have to feel like you when wearing them - not like they are wearing you. And then you have to wear them with a dash of disdain and dollop of wit.

I am a shopper and for the longest of times way back at the beginning of my journey, that is all it was about - shopping for my closet and me. Then one day I found a dress by a designer or two that I particularly liked and would pick up a piece here and a piece there, just to have examples of their work. Then the day came when I came home with a dress that was not even in my size but that was OK cause I just-had-to-have-it. That is when you are officially a collector (which is a nice name for someone who has gone a bit bonkers). What happens next is pretty easy to guess - once you have a room (or two-ish) full of vintage dresses in all sort of sizes and a few girlfriends who discover you have all these lovely dresses - well, it’s all over. I became 'the girl to call if someone wanted a dress no one else would have' and ironically I found out that I was also the 'girl who could match up a dress with a girl and it would be just right'. I was suddenly the equivalent of the Goldilocks dress matchmaking service by default. And I liked it.

I adore vintage.

I can get lost in the beauty of a fabric and certain dresses will never, ever leave my closet because they belong there - whether they are wearable by me or not. When my burgeoning rooms filled to the bursting with my 'collection' just got to be too much and I had total strangers suddenly calling me from referrals from friends to 'please help them find them a dress'; when everyone I knew said to me 'why don’t you open a shop?' ...that is when I decided to launch Shrimpton Couture.

I am really proud of where Shrimpton Couture is going these days. My first re-designed of the site was in 2008, another refresh in 2013 and in October of 2020 I had a complete overhaul done and launched a brand new shop. The new site is fully mobile compatible and it is like a breath of fresh air for me. We made the photos bigger, the shopping process easier and gave everything a sleek, easy to use feel. I hope you loved the changes too. It’s still me, completely and totally, but it is also now bits and pieces of feedback from all the fabulous girls out there who have bought their vintage frocks from me since it’s very humble beginning and who were generous enough to share their ideas and suggestions to make the site what it is now. So yes, it is still me, but it also has little bits of all my gorgeous wonderful clients world-wide mixed into it! And it is, and always will be, a work in progress - I may deal with frocks of the past but baby, it’s a technical world out there and I hope to always push the site forward technically so that it gets better, easier and more exciting to shop on.

You will find the best of the best name and label-wise, side by side with unlabeled treasures. I am a snob when it comes to quality and cut, and after those two criteria are met - that is when the name on the label comes into play. I personally OK each garment that you will find on this site. Garments make the cut based on their beauty, relevance and whether they will still work now. Occasionally you will find a piece that is only offered on a collectible basis because it is just too good to pass by and quite frankly, sometimes garments that may not be wearable anymore deserve their place too. Very early pieces are almost like art and occasionally I will offer them up for the collector or museum acquisition. The site now allows me to add tons of stock but I have enhanced the search options so it does not get overwhelming. I personally don’t like having to go through pages and pages of mundane stock so try to only find the most beautiful, unique and mouth watering of pieces for you. My inventory is added to almost daily and only the best pieces I can get my hands on will be offered for you.

Cleaned, pristine, as good as it gets, vintage pieces. I won’t send it any other way. When you get a dress from me - you can wear it that night. We don’t tumbled it in a dryer with Febreze or just look it over and deem it good enough to 'pass' for being cleaned. It is cleaned. Properly. By my cleaners who I trust even with my Haute Couture garments. By my cleaners who have developed a special deodorizer just for me - it took the girl who owns my local cleaners over a year to source and create her secret blend, but she did it, and it eliminates that renowned 'vintage smell' amazingly. Things are sent pressed or steamed. It’s sent with its buttons gone over and poppers tightened and seams checked. It’s sent in pretty packaging with a pretty tag with our logo on it and it is wrapped carefully in crisp tissue. It is as important that you love to open my packages as you love what is inside it. My team and I are human and sometimes we may miss something but if we do we work with you to make it right. In return for your assumption and trust that we are the good guys, we also think that of you. So if you are unhappy we try to fix that the best we can. I want happy, repeat clients that know they can trust what I say and what I send. Shrimpton Couture is a happy place to shop and I won’t have it any other way. That will never change no matter how much we grow!

Check back at least once a week, if not daily - I post a dozen to two dozen pieces every single week. If you don’t have time to check back often, follow me on Instagram or add yourself to the email list and you will get our weekly newsletter.

My goal is to have Shrimpton Couture be the BEST place you have ever shopped at. Period.

Yours in vintage

xxx Cherie