A new exhibitor to the Saltaire Vintage Home & Fashion Fair is Birmingham-based We are Reloved, which specialises in vintage menswear. Here a buyer is examining some headgear possibilities at a past fair.
The Saltaire Vintage Home & Fashion Fair held near Bradford has become so popular that next year’s editions will all become two-dayers.
Caroline Brown of Rose and Brown Vintage is now in the 18th year of running these fairs held five times a year in the Grade II-Listed Victoria Hall. The next is on Saturday, November 15.
She says of the move to two days: “We’ve been getting fully booked in advance all this year so it opens up bookings to more traders as not everyone wants to book both days.”
Brown adds: “We have 45 stallholders including specialists selling vintage knitwear, American costume jewellery, menswear from all eras and 1940s and ’50s handbags, with nothing later than 1989. As it’s coming up to the festive season there’ll be plenty of vintage Christmas decorations, toys and party frocks too.”
According to the firm, it “burst onto the vintage scene in 2007, with The House of Rose & Brown Vintage Boutique and later with Rose & Brown Vintage Home, both in Saltaire.
“Both shops have come and gone, but our events, including the Saltaire Vintage Home & Fashion Fair, established in 2007, are still going strong.”
Rose & Brown also runs events in Saltburn (since 2023) and Guisborough (launched last year), both North Yorkshire.
Alan Bennett fame
Victoria Hall was the Saltaire Club and Institute opened in 1871 for Sir Titus Salt, who founded the model village of Saltaire to allow his workers to live in better conditions than Bradford slums.
The building originally contained a main hall seating 800, a lecture room, two art rooms, a laboratory, a gymnasium, a library of 8500 books and a reading room.
The Choral, a First World War film drama written by Alan Bennett, starring Ralph Fiennes as a “socially scandalous” choirmaster, was released earlier this month and features scenes in Victoria Hall and nearby Salt’s Mill.
The latter, a former textile mill opened in 1853 as “a gigantic Victorian palace of industry”, is now a thriving centre for art galleries, retail businesses and exhibition spaces.
Up on the second floor the Carlton Fine Art & Antiques Centre is packed with 80 mainly local traders who deal in everything that an antiques and vintage buyer might want including Victorian and Mid-century furniture, movie ephemera, antique clocks, militaria and glass – and “we’ve added Star Wars collectables” says the centre’s managing director Andrew Howden.
A selection of glass at Carlton Fine Art & Antiques Centre, Salt’s Mill.
“We have such a wide range of stock here, with decorative items that might catch buyers’ attention to people wanting to furnish period homes in the area.”
Howden adds: “We’ve recently expanded into an unused part of the mill and now have a vintage vinyl section which is very popular.”
Terrier trail
Fifteen miles from Saltaire is Hebden Bridge, also featured recently on screen (this time on TV) thanks to Riot Women, which was filmed for BBC1 entirely in the market town. If you fancy a West Yorkshire day out combining both places, then maybe try Terrier Antiques, a small shop owned by Sally and Pete Robbins since 2017 in Hebden Bridge.
This cast-iron music stand with a lyre-shaped top costs £159, collection only, with Terrier Antiques in Hebden Bridge.
Pete says business is brisk with plenty of buyers from Salford and Manchester as well as customers from the US, Canada and Ireland, particularly for hotel refurbishments.
“Traditional oil paintings are doing well, especially those with big gilt frames,” he says, adding that maritime scenes are a hit with buyers, such as a recent sale of a pair of oils by British marine artist William Calcott Knell (1830-80).
