Bringing a bra back to life

'If it fastens, Newey's make it' says the card

I bought these vintage hooks and eyes (or 'bar loops' as the card says) a few months ago. Not just because I like vintage haberdashery, but with a particular make-do-and-mend project in mind.

Made by Newey's, these vintage hooks and eyes date back to the 1940s, I believe. There's a 'size 2' card of them in the Imperial War Museum collection. Newey's was founded in the West Midlands in the 1790s as a producer of pins and haberdashery, gaining a royal warrant.

I love the idea that I'm doing 'make do and mend' with haberdashery from the period when making do and mending was an everyday necessity.

Amourette, from £30, sizes 32-42, A-K, matching knickers

On to the project I bought them for… three years ago I was fitted for a Triumph Amourette bra (left) at a press event. As I said in my blog on the website where I was working at the time:
  'It's been a couple of years since I was last fitted - and things appear to have changed. I was fitted with the gorgeous bra on the left (mine is a vibrant fuchsia shade), and it's four inches and two cup sizes different from the bra I was wearing when I arrived!'

In need of repair

Now, I know three years is a long time in an underwear drawer, but shortly after I got the bra I managed to destroy a couple of the hooks and eyes (left) or maybe it was a prototype, I'm not sure).

But I loved this soft, comfy, lacy bra and kept meaning to get round to fixing it.

As I opened my sewing box, I saw my pins, made by... Newey's!

And now I have: I simply sewed the two wayward eyes back in place, and added a new (or rather, old) hook, and sewed that in, using the two metal loops to push the needle through. Now I have a good-as-new bra that I can actually wear again.