including one fifty-something man who showed an unhealthy interest in the corsets: he even wanted to try one on, but I wouldn’t let him. Then this woman phoned up offering me some furs that had belonged to her aunt, including – and this was meant to be the clincher – a hat made out of a leopard cub. I explained that I don’t sell fur, but the woman insisted that as these particular furs were vintage there shouldn’t be a problem. So I told her that I can’t bring myself to touch let alone deal in bits of dead baby leopard, however long it might have been since the poor creature had been murdered. Then a little later my patience was tested again when a woman came in with a Dior coat that she wanted to sell me. I could see at a glance that it was fake.
‘It is by Dior,’ she protested after I’d pointed this out to her. ‘And I’d call £100 a very reasonable price for a genuine Christian Dior coat of this quality.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But I’ve worked in vintage fashion for twelve years and I can assure you that this coat is not by Dior.’
‘But the label –’
‘The label is original. But it’s been sewn into a non-Dior garment. The interior construction of the coat is all wrong, the seams aren’t finished properly, and the lining, if you look a little more closely, is by Burberry.’ I pointed to the logo.
The woman went the colour of a Victoria plum. ‘I know what you’re trying to do,’ she sniffed. ‘You’re trying to get it at a knock-down price, so that you can sell it for £500 like that one you’ve got over there.’ She nodded at a mannequin on which I’d put a Dior dove grey grosgrain New Look winter coat from 1955 in pristine condition.
‘I’m not trying to “get” it at all,’ I explained pleasantly. ‘I don’t want it.’
The woman folded the coat back into the carrier bag, radioactive with affected indignation. ‘Then I shall have to take it elsewhere.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ I replied calmly, resisting the temptation to suggest Oxfam.
The woman turned on her heel, and as she stomped out, another customer, on his way in, politely held the door open for her. He was elegantly dressed in pale chinos and a navy blazer and was in his mid forties. I felt my heart lurch.
‘Good God!’ Mr Pin-Stripe’s face had lit up. ‘If it isn’t my bidding rival – Phoebe!’ So he’d remembered my name. ‘Don’t tell me – is this your shop?’
‘Yes.’ The euphoria I’d felt on seeing him suddenly evaporated as the door opened again and in came Mrs Pin-Stripe on a cloud of perfume. As I’d imagined she was tall and blonde – but so young that I had to fight the urge to call the police. She couldn’t
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