Dawn O'Porter (née Porter: she famously acquired the O from her Irish film-star husband Chris O'Dowd) adores vintage clothes, so much so that she is on a mission to convert the high street-loving masses to vintage in her new Channel 4 show, This Old Thing. Starting on Wednesday June 25, O'Porter will introduce women who have never worn second-hand clothes before to the thrill of the vintage hunt. We sat down with the presenter and author in London recently to talk about vintage wedding dresses, musty smells and not being able to afford fancy shoes for film premieres.

What’s your favourite vintage shop?
I love Vintage to Vogue in Bath. I love Beyond Retro. Yes a lot of the stuff is creased but I can spend hours there and come out with really cool stuff for under £30, which is always satisfying. I love Peekaboo too. 

Vintage shopping is more time-consuming than regular shopping, isn't it?
That’s the first hurdle, yes. We had that when we were filming the show: people saying ‘But it takes so much effort.’ And we were like, it does but it completely transforms your wardrobe. And you only buy stuff that you really love because you have to put the effort in. When you go shopping on the high street it’s very easy to buy a lot in your size because it’s there. 

"When you go into a vintage shop and the owner and the buyer knows who the dress belonged to, that’s just total porn to me."

How much of your wardrobe is vintage?
Probably about 98 per cent. Almost everything besides jeans and shoes. 

Have you always been interested in vintage? 
For about ten years. I never got clothes right at all, I’m not naturally stylish, I’m not brilliant at putting outfits together … I just used to get it really wrong. I think back to when I was a student and I know everyone gets it wrong when they’re a student but I look back at the photos and I don’t know what I was doing. I was trying to be adventurous but getting it all wrong and as a result not being at all stylish. I never wanted to follow trends so I’d try and go slightly offbeat. But then if you try and go offbeat on the high street, you’re not left with an awful lot. But with vintage, you can find really cool stuff. It doesn’t matter about being on-trend.

"I knew I wanted a vintage dress for my wedding. I can’t bear wedding dresses, they're so awful."

Did you start buying vintage at university?
Probably just after. I was up in Liverpool so it wasn’t very vintage. It was very Miss Selfridge. I had all the store cards, racked up loads of debt. And I got down to London and that’s when I started looking at vintage shops. I don’t think charity shopping is vintage shopping but there’s a huge Oxfam in Dalston, and I used to live right behind it. I used to go in there and it suddenly changes the way you shop. That was the beginning. Although I don’t really buy second-hand anymore. I’m quite specific. Everything has to be from a vintage era: from the 1920 to the ’80s. 

Do you consider the 1980s vintage? 
As a kid it was what my Mum and aunties were wearing so you just sort of think, that’s what I’ll look like as a lady. So I just love the 1980s. There’s a way to get it wrong but I think some of it is awesome. I love the drama of it all.

What’s your most beloved piece of vintage?
There’s a difference between my favourite and my most beloved. My most beloved would be an Ossie Clark maxi shirt dress that I found in my auntie’s wardrobe. I put it on and it fitted so perfectly, I cried. So she said, ‘You can have it, I know you’ll look after it now.’

And then my favourite is a green Courreges 1965-ish dress I got from William [Banks-Blaney of WilliamVintage]. I wore it to the Glamour Awards in 2012. To me it’s just the perfect 1960s dress. It’s perfectly A-line and bright green. It was the first red carpet moment where I felt like I got it right. Ever.  So I feel quite passionately about the dress. I loved it so much that when I got married, my friend married us and she wore it. So it’s in all of our wedding photos. 

I imagine it must be really hard to dress for the red carpet.
It’s so hard. I feel like now I’m good at it. Now I know what photographs well and what doesn’t but that first time, I didn’t have a stylist, I didn’t know what I was doing. I’d never had to dress up like that before and have all those photos taken. You need to pay attention to your hair, which I didn’t do. I didn’t get my hair cut. It was just a disaster. 

How did you get to know William? 
Chris [O’Dowd] had just done Bridesmaids and I had never done a red carpet before but we were going to the premiere in LA. And I was broke and I had no idea what to wear. And I asked Grace [Woodward, stylist] what to do and she put me in touch with William. And he loaned me this Ossie Clark dress, which I loved, but I was so skint that I couldn’t afford to buy shoes. I borrowed a pair of Louboutins off a friend but they were all wrong with the dress and they were a size too big so I had tissue paper stuffed in them to keep them on. And my hair was really wrong and I did my own make-up. I wore red lipstick, which I hate. I just got it all wrong but the dress was amazing.

Some people might be put off when they go into a vintage store and there’s a whack of that vintage smell. 
You see, I love that smell. It’s not a dirt smell, it’s a musty smell. It’s like opening an old book. I’m not turned off by the fact that someone else has worn it, that’s what I love about vintage clothing. When you go into a vintage shop and the owner knows who the dress belonged to, that’s just total porn to me. A good back story can make a dress a hundred times more amazing. 

And what about your wedding dress? Was that vintage?
My wedding dress belonged to Princess Liliane of Belgium. It’s pale blue with little white daisies with crystals on it, so it’s quite sparkly but it’s not froufrou at all. It’s not a wedding dress, it’s just a gorgeous dress. I found it at William’s. I knew I wanted a vintage dress. I can’t bear wedding dresses, they’re so awful. I knew it was going to be really hot and I just didn’t want to be a stiff bride. It was ankle-length, I could move in it, I could dance in it.

This Old Thing: The Vintage Clothes Show is on Channel 4 on Wednesdays at 8pm for six weeks 

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