My pride and joy is my original vintage Eriba Pan caravan. Old cars and caravans have so much style, and so much history: the owners they’ve had and the trips they’ve been on. This collection is inspired by classic vehicles and their stories.
The prints
Each print is a little scene I imagined from a vintage road trip.
Dancing Night
All dressed up for a night of dancing with the girls, in a flared skirt, cat-eye glasses and heels. They pile into the Mini with a portable record player to get the party started.
Campfire Evenings
Lazy camping evenings in the Eriba Pan caravan. Toasting marshmallows on the campfire, sipping hot chocolate and gazing at the stars in the clear night sky.
Drive to the Country
Driving the Beetle through the rolling hills of the Lake District, for a relaxing picnic by the lake.
Beach Walks
All packed up in the VW campervan, parked next to the beach. Time to watch the sea with a cup of tea.
A family day out: an imagined story, based on real history
Time for a Sunday drive. The family piles into the Mini, made by the British Motor Corporation, for lunch in Preston. It’s their very first trip on a motorway: the Preston Bypass, Britain’s first, which opened in 1958. It’s just 8 miles long, and there’s no speed limit yet!
Next summer, the new motorway will make trips to Lytham St Annes quick and easy. They’ll camp in the family VW campervan, play in the sea, fly kites, visit the arcades and eat fish and chips on the way back to the campsite. Happy family memories in the making.
A short history of 1960s prints
Britain in the 1960s exploded into colour. Young people had more money and more jobs than ever before, and British music, art and fashion led the world: the Beatles, David Hockney and Mary Quant, whose Bazaar boutique on the King’s Road was the place to shop. Young women wore short skirts, PVC boots and shift dresses, perfect for dancing after a day at work.
1960s fabrics were bold: flower power, psychedelic swirls and repeating geometric shapes, from designers like Emilio Pucci and Zandra Rhodes. New man-made fabrics like nylon and polyester took bright dyes that didn’t fade in the wash.
Original 1960s fabrics are now collectable. Prints by Barbara Brown for Heal’s can be expensive, so reproduction fabrics are a good option if you’d like to sew your own shift dress.
Make it yourself
Fun prints make fun makes, perfect for packing for a trip away. Pick a fabric you love and make your own with my free sewing cards. Every make takes 2 hours or less.
These fabrics aren’t on sale right now, but I hope to bring them back. Subscribe below and I’ll let you know.
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