Why a Booktrail?
1980s: A child’s coat becomes a symbol of hope bringing two very different women together.
A Vintage Affair
What you need to know before your trail
Phoebe Swift has a dream – to open her own vintage clothing shop. So much to the surprise of her family and friends, that’s what she does, leaving behind a top at Sotheby’s auction house in the process.
Village Vintage is more than just a clothes shop – it sells pieces of history and of someone’s story. One day she comes across the collection of an elderly French woman who is reluctant to part with one item in particular – a child’s coat.
The two woman soon become friends and Phoebe learns the tale of that little blue coat and feels the impact that it will soon have on both of their lives – a thread of fabric uniting them in the most unexpected of ways.
Locations
ResetTravel Guide
London
The vintage clothes scene is brought to vivid and colourful life in the London scenes. Village Vintage is located in Blackheath, but the real sense of place is the world of vintage clothing described in such vivid detail –
“When you buy a piece of vintage clothing , you’re not just buying fabric and thread – you’re buying a piece of someone’s past”
Provence
Therese Bell is an elderly French woman who wishes to sell her designer suits and gowns.When Phoebe finds a well-preserved child’s coat in her new friend’s wardrobe, she unwittingly unlocks a secret that Therese has held close since her youth in Nazi-occupied France. The depiction of the chapters in Nazi occupied France are heartbreaking. The story of the blue coat and its owners revealw some interesting facts about France during its occupation in WWII.
The old woman’s story takes you back to a childhood in France and Germany which provides the heartbreaking history of the past and deeper insights into the history of the coat. Poignant and shocking as you know it was based on true fact. The clothes provide a pretty front but the person beneath them is the real story and Auschwitz and the story of occupied France was moving and raw. The research into this camps and what went on must have been heartbreaking to do and the story takes you there inorder to understand the present.
Where Next?
