Vintage Vixen: Annabelinda - The Forgotten Dress

Saturday, 22 November 2025

Annabelinda - The Forgotten Dress

Tidying up my wardrobe last week I came across this vintage Annabelinda, Oxford pinafore dress I'd completely forgotten about and, with it being 100% wool, it felt like the perfect choice to wear on a chilly day like today.

I found it in a charity shop back in 2021 and nearly died of excitement. For anyone interested in the British boutique fashion movement, Annabelinda, Oxford is one of the must-have labels. These pinafore dresses, handmade using Liberty fabric, command prices upwards of £200!

Holding it up against the tops hanging in my wardrobe, this aubergine cotton blouse from Neatawear, London (a chain of boutiques which closed down in 1966) sprung out at me and these incredible 1960s suede boots, sent to me by Gisela, finished the outfit off perfectly. The vintage navy felted wool hat with the purple band was a charity shop buy back in 2011.

So, who or what, was Annabelinda?

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Annabelinda was a boutique on Gloucester Street, Oxford, in business from 1971 until 2012. The name was an amalgimation of the names of the founders, Anita Woodhead (who left soon after to live abroad) and Belinda O’Hanlon, who left her studies at Oxford University to set up the sewing partnership. Originally located within a converted public toilet in Park End street, Belinda described the early days of the business, we had a sign saying Annabelinda makes clothes in a day. We put velvet on the walls to hide the tiles and people would come in with material to be made up into dresses.

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Annabelinda's heyday was the 1970s, becoming famous for its quality, hand-finished garments often made from Liberty fabrics and with designs inspired by a pre-industrial, rural England. Annabelinda featured in several exhibitions showcasing British Boutique fashion including Liberty in Fashion (2015-2016) at the Fashion & Textile Museum in London and the 2018 the Liberty Art Fabrics Fashion retrospective at Edinburgh’s Dovecot Gallery. In 1975 Annabelinda was one of three labels chosen to design a dress to commemorate Liberty's 100th anniversary.

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Their dresses were popular with Oxford undergraduates, one notable customer being Benazir Bhutto, the future Prime Minister of Pakistan, who studied at the university from 1973. Other famous fans included Judi Dench and Prunella Scales. The label expanded beyond Oxford with outlets at Liberty & Harrods and stores in Nantucket, Padua and Oslo.

The advertisements from the time, published in The Observer and Vogue, were designed by Belinda’s husband, Redmond, who had also studied at Oxford University. They were slightly risque and aimed at a well-educated audience; William Harvey of Oxford: discoverer of the circulation of the blood. Annabelinda of Oxford: discoverer of ways to make it circulate a little faster. Another advert stated, For the greater delight of your paramour, Annabelinda will make you a pinafore; a reference to the pinafore dresses (like mine!) for which Annabelinda was best known. A 1979 advert from Country Life speaks to their well-connected and cultured clientele; Annabelinda. Dress designers of genius for formal receptions in Royal Societies; for clandestine meetings in unmentionable places; for gala performances at the opera (and at later hours elsewhere)….

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The boutique hit the national headlines in 1981 when the late, great Howard Marks, former Oxford undergraduate and international cannabis smuggler, stated in his autobiography that he had planned to use Annabelinda as a front for his work with MI6. He also claimed to have funded the move from small premises on Park End Street to 6 Gloucester Street to provide a respectable front for the wealth gained from his drug dealing. I was lucky enough to attend several audiences with Howard Marks over the years, he was a fascinating character and Mr Nice is well worth a read if you haven't already (HERE).