Great looks and a great heritage – the 1946 Vespa Headlight Clock.
The clock is based on the headlight of the first Vespa model, introduced, as the name suggests, in 1946. It features the original green metal casing and chrome bezel, but the lens replaced by an an analogue (and battery-powered) clock.
You can pick one up online for $178 (around £90).
Cram Cream designs are wonderfully childlike and often retro too – best summed up by these Cram Cream retro tote bags.
Featuring typically cute vintage/US-styled advertisements, you’d expect them to be an American company. Oh no, they come out of Japan (the spelling mistakes give it away), but can be found fairly regularly in stores in the US and Europe.
However, I’ve not seen these bags in a European store so far, but you can pick them up at Modcloth for a bargain $8.99 (around £4.50) and they do ship worldwide.
Every generation has its minor celebrities – famous for 15 minutes, then off back to obscurity. In the 1940s, that was Ruby Sparks – and Burglar To The Nobility was his story.
Ruby Sparks was a villain, pure and simple. From the earlist days as a child thief, through to robbery with a horse and cart and later widespread notoriety – Ruby was the first man to do a "smash and grab" in Britain and the first to use a getaway car. And while we’re onto his achievements. he was also the first man to escape from Dartmoor prison (he also started the infamous riot there and escaped from Strangeways in a suit made out of an old mail bag).
Played out like an Ealing Comedy with added violence, Burglar To The Nobility is a cracking read. Gritty realism, amusing anecdotes, some pictures of the time and a "crime doesn’t pay" mesaage at the end. Not to mention a great period cover.
Cost £1 and worth every penny.
Yes, it’s not up there with the sharper home design we usually feature, but we couldn’t resist highlighting this target pouffe stool.
Serving two purposes – a comfy place to sit and a nice piece of pop art design for your living room, they measure 41cm x 49cm and come in two colour schemes – red, white and blue and black white and blue. it also comes with its own bag for storing away.
Available now, you can buy one for £59.99.
Retro cycling tops always go down well on Retro To Go, so here’s another one to consider – the Endura Halcyon retro cycling top.
It’s made of 100 per cent Merino wool, with double knitted elasticated cuffs with Lycra for an improved fit and the retro-styled logo on the front. And if yellow isn’t your colour, don’t worry, as other colours are available and the tops are also available in a choice of long or short sleeve.
Available now, you can pick one up for £59.99 (short sleeve) or £64.99 (long sleeve)
Find out more at the Endura website
And thanks to Julian for the tip off!
This is a request for help from one of our regular readers – and hopefully you can help out, as we’re stumped. The request is below, if you can help out, please leave your comment below this post:
I met an Italian today who had the coolest sneakers on. They were serafini 1960. I think they were serafini or something similar (serafino serefini ???) and they are reproductions of 1960 shoe design. He said they were sold only in Italy? They were VERY cool but I can’t find them on the web.
They were brown with the Italian flag colors forming a stripe on the side and on the tongue of the shoe was serafino 1960 with olympic rings in the Italian colors.
Daniela.
Can you help? Please let us know below.
