Upstairs, in a Crouch End semi, is a room where the curtains are permanently closed. No heat nor light is allowed to enter, and instead, the air is filled with hundreds of near-invisible wasps, patrolling for moths. Every so often, the door opens, and a series of hulking trunks will be prised apart – for Madonna, say, or a British Vogue editor – revealing a collection of early 20th-century fashion: Gabrielle Chanel slips, Madeleine Vionnet shawls and Paul Poiret coats of the most rare and elusive provenance. Collector Thomas Moreton’s spare room has, in the space of two short years, become the superlative, insider destination for London’s vintage-hunters. “I haven’t had any press until now,” he says. “In fact, Alexa Chung came by recently and said she wanted to be the first person to interview me.” (Sorry, Alexa.)
Moreton, a 34-year-old Dorian Gray-type, caught the Art Deco bug as a child, rifling through bin bags stuffed with Fortuny, Patricia and Charles Lester dresses that had once belonged to his socialite great-grandmother. He’d sit at his grandmother’s feet as she regaled him with stories about her mother’s life in the 1920s, and obsessed over the old Hollywood cinema that reflected them back in technicolour. “I think about those pieces every day,” he says. “What happened to them?” Morteon’s answer was, in part, to start Rockstar Boudoir: a shoppable museum of antique flapper dresses, boudoir robes and siren gowns originating from between 1900 and 1930. “Being a treasure hunter is escapist, and I suppose it’s an escape, too, to wear something from a world so different to our own,” he adds. “I’ll wear a gold lamé coat with an incredible patina, and suddenly become this louche man about town. Even the untrained eye picks up on it. ‘Where did you get that?!’ It’s a great way to get compliments.”