“I’ve got hundreds of hats, brooches, belts and T-shirts,” she says.
Bowden traces her particular passion for collecting vintage clothing back to her mum. “She’s a real collector of everything from fashion to interiors. She had all these amazing charity shop pieces and bits by Dior and Ossie Clark. I always used to wear this amazing green belted leather jumpsuit.” The interior designer’s interest is not limited to, say, a specific brand, piece, or decade. “Absolutely anything! I’ve got hundreds of hats, brooches, belts and T-shirts,” she says.
“I used to keep all my clothes in an apartment in De Beauvoir in north London. Things would be shoved and hanging everywhere,” Bowden chuckles. Luckily, Bowden’s partner is a carpenter. Her dressing room at home may currently be lined with metal clothing rails, but it will soon boast lightly lacquered wardrobes and shelf-lined cabinets. “I’m finally going to be able to look through my collection and see everything!” Bowden says. “That room is going to be a stylist’s dream.
Hollie in Milan during Salone del Mobile wearing a vintage Geoffrey Beene dress from 1stDibs and a bag from Paul Bert Serpette market in Paris. A by no means comprehensive list of some of the vintage pieces Bowden can recall owning, without an extensive physical rummage: a golden Chanel belt like the one worn by Linda Evangelista in the early ’90s, sourced on eBay; a pair of wide-legged leather Fendi trousers; a men’s tasselled Jean Paul Gaultier suit recently favoured for a London wedding; a black and silver striped Issey Miyake dress she “blew her rent on eight years ago”; a solid silver Noguchi brooch with a face carved into it;...
In her mid-twenties, Bowden – then living in Notting Hill – would cycle her Pashley bike to Portobello Road Market first thing on a Friday morning, intent on being the first to rustle through the wares of the vintage dealers. “Luckily my bike had a huge basket on the front!” she says. Thrifting turned into something of a competition between Bowden and Karen Clarkson, co-founder of Portobello Road’s Found and Vision, with both relishing the thrill of the hunt.
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