Finding out when vintage clothing was made is no easy task. If you need help identifying the age of a garment it would be great if there was a big vintage clothing label database that you could refer to but unfortunately not many vintage brands are covered in the kind of detail that would provide useful dating information.
Identifying vintage clothing by their tags or labels adds context and provenance that can place a cherished garment directly into a narrow time-frame, provided that the data has been researched well enough to be of use to the collector. A vintage garment that has been properly identified as being of a certain age not only gains authority but gains in value too.
Rather than have a simple broad database of vintage labels with very little actionable value we decided to take a different approach and make separate studies of individual brands - in our case lingerie brands - using data taken directly from company records and advertising archives where exact dates are known and indisputable. This data is being constantly updated and more vintage lingerie brands are in the process of being researched and these will be added to this hub page as they become available.
The 1940, 1950s and 60s were a busy time for the UK lingerie industry, but now lots of vintage underwear brands are all but forgotten. This ever-growing label dating resource can help you identify your vintage British lingerie finds.