Fashion designers love foraging through the antique markets of Clignancourt in Paris and Portobello Road and Alfie’s Antiques markets in London snuffling out vintage pieces for inspiration. The flurry of romantic Victoriana on the catwalks for autumn can clearly be blamed on this obsession.

There has been an undercurrent of reserved, covered-up fashion ever since Pierpaolo Piccioli and his former co-designer Maria Grazia Chiuri introduced a more demure aesthetic to Valentino five years ago. Longer skirts, prim higher necklines and covered arms have become the slow trend of recent seasons creating a hyper-feminine look.

Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy and Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen have long been beguiled by the Gothic romanticism of Victorian fashion with their use of corsetry and dark dramatic lace and velvet for eveningwear.

In fact, London-based vintage fashion dealer Virginia Bates admits she doesn’t remember there ever being a time when Gothic Victoriana didn’t feature in at least one designer’s collection. “The fascination with the romantics, poets, artists and even horror [classics and films] give designers a great source of inspiration,” she says. “It’s an irresistible era.”

Certainly a lot of it has appeared on the catwalks this season at McQueen, Marc Jacobs, Burberry (shown only a month ago in the see-now, buy-now collection), Simone Rocha, Preen, Bora Aksu and Temperley London, as well as at smaller brands such as Alessandra Rich, Three Floor created by Yvonne Hoang and A.W.A.K.E.

There were dark distressed Linton tweeds, unravelling knits and black tulle in Simone Rocha’s autumn collection. Rocha was pregnant when she started designing it and was inspired by Victorian dress and motherhood, in particular the nightgowns and matrons.

“All the wrapping and swaddling of babies,” she says, before elaborating on how “the Victorian ideals of properness were made perverse with the conservative and covered-up pieces contrasted by the sheer and embroidered fabrics.”These gauzy vaporous fabrics succeeded in making her eerily romantic silhouette look rather contemporary and daring.

Subversion is key to making such a prim and proper period in fashion history modern and relevant for women today. Marc Jacobs, for instance mixed long Victorian coats, ballooning crinolines and crochet doily collars with sweatshirt tops and laser-cut leather for skirts and jackets together with some scary Goth horror make-up. Nothing is, or should be literal.

As Justin Thornton of Preen says “we love the Victorians, the laces and the white shirts, but it is the vintage pieces rather than the era that inspire us”. His partner Thea Bregazzi has collected aristocratic laces and ruffly vintage shirts from Portobello Road market for as long as he has known her and these frequently find their way into their collections, “but linings would be ripped, garments will have holes in them – it is a deconstructed look”.Virginia Bates once owned a famous vintage fashion emporium in Holland Park with a client list including the biggest names in fashion from John Galliano to Donna Karan and Naomi Campbell. Now she only works with private clients and designers and they, especially, she says were looking for genuine Victorian pieces when planning their autumn collections.

“A black fitted jacket with inserts of handmade lace [that is] embellished with crystal and jet beads, ***** and silk lined ... How exciting and inspiring is that? Silk and fine lawn shirts, soft and flowing with ruffles. Don’t we all want to wear one and live the dream?”

Thankfully a few designers do right now, and there were lots of heavenly creatures in fragile asymmetric lace dresses toughened up with leather corsetry at Alexander McQueen, and richly coloured swishy dresses at Bora Aksu. While Christopher Bailey cherry-picked the centuries in his Burberry collection, lighting upon frilled white cotton shirts, nipped in jackets and military capes from the Victorian era. Given that Victoria reigned for more than 60 years there is a lot of history for designers to plunder, so this will not be the last we will see it.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses

It's not until I don't have you around that I realize how much you mean to me

Every day went by wasted telling each other lies.

Trust me, you are not all fine and dandy every day, so you don't have to say that you're doing well if you're not
because I'm probably not fine ether

I really don't like how you kept things to yourself because I don't have a lot to look back on

But I guess that means I cherish every tidbit of your life that you've told me
Every sentence about your past is another puzzle piece you have given me

But I have begun to realize that this puzzle will always have some missing pieces

I used to be part of your future and in that singular moment I was a part of your present, but then I quickly became part of your past

I wanted so badly to become your friend-your partner in crime

You were hesitant, a little on the shy side

But now all we have to do is look at each other to understand each other's thoughts and feelings

I used to hide behind an imaginary shield because I thought there is no way someone like you would be friends with me
But then you slowly peeled away my shell and left me bare for you to take care of and I thank you for that

When you strutted into my life, your poise and properness took me by surprise because there aren't too many people in this society who still say yes mam and no sir to their parents

You taught me that it's not what's on the outside that counts
It's what's buried deep within your  heart that only shows it's true colors every once in a while
Before a race
After a long practice
Or maybe in the middle when all you want to do is laugh

It's these irrelevant moments when your true self shows

You signed onto osu today
I have been secretly wishing for this moment ever since you were applying to colleges
I am now reassured that our relationship won't end when states roll around this season
You promised to come to my meets at osu and I promised to visit whenever I see my sister

Your name means blessed and it fits your personality perfectly
You never take anything for granted

But don't ever be afraid because no matter what happens we will always be cheering you on from behind

I will always be here to cheer you up when you're down

When you leave and have to place to go I will welcome you into my home

I want hold onto your sunshines and save some for later and give them back to you when the rain falls hard
Because I've seen the best of you and the worst of you and I choose both

When we grow old and you are gone and the only memories I can remember are your smiles
I will always keep them in my heart forever

Because it's not until you're gone that I realize how much you mean to me

Some might say my head's always in the gutter,
but what do they know of such pleasures,
those sensuous treasures denied
for prim & properness.
And to deny the sacred,
to lie in chastity,
when you'd rather
lay in the clover,
is against the very nature of love,
given to us
by the glories in Heaven above.

And it all began
with a childish glance
a type of mattering
a sense of silly faces
and caring
and playing
and able to find a balance
between the properness of age
and the fun of not acting like it.

and then it begins again
with wide open conversations
and sorting out feelings
and nervous but giddy meetings
and realizations upon handshakes and hugs,
and falling into you
the way I fell for you,
consciously, consensually, and close to immediately.

to begin the beginning
happens slowly,
and then all at once.

like the process of becoming real,
or falling in love.

and maybe that's because that's exactly what it is.

to begin again
is to become real
and to fall in love
all together.

Wait with me...
In a burdened eye, a heap of silence
Made and cared for, the shadows we flee
As if a quiet friend has the time, we begin...

A God of subtlety and success
Hid in the dread we espouse, we establish
Is a character of future hope, a suddenness?
To direct us to causes, that we saw make a wish...

Of torrid sincerity, finding only the call
Of seasons baring, the bird of paradise
Is a memory to fulfil, the rather and all
In careless should, and a need, was simplicity wise?

The fight of decency, in the driven rain...
Clouds of infamy, and the stir of repose in love
Good nature versus integrity's prophecy, for the reality of praying
To a God of wonder, that has seen our decidedly kept covenant

Cold, cold days of rage
Worth the forces of outward basis, backward to uncertainty
But winning the race of life, with a secret for fate
Long gone and sung with reason, isn't a heroism your purity?

Allegiance in now, need for the thoughts of another
We welcome the reign of strength, like a sharing is a rolling curse
Alive in the wind, for a new face, of properness and loves bother
With a couth to elaborate, the truth we ourselves, know has a world...

None of the above
Somewhere, nothing to due...
With apropos silence, a corner of love
The salt to an eye, somewhere back in couth?

Shadows of change, if not the chance
Of courage and its best, peace
Bless us with a soul, if you find the instance
Of a spirit charitable, with todays patience...

Babes will affirm the know...
The sigh's of comment to be found in cope
Asking, in a deeds voice, is a wish to openly owe?
The courtesy of vices on the tip of the tongue, hope

When will aspire return, to typicality's sense?
First in the gifts, than the kisses of choice
Simple liberty is for any who would let ends
Sake the guidance a marvel makes, when we're back to voice?

Good bye, and with a reach for more...
The taste of hello, to the world, is a strength of mine
Powers of properness, and the might we form
Is a skipping light, said for in a wholesome soon, the very hour of adding a dreads shine...

Prayers of a wishing God...
Let to seem, the ire's of clash and suppose
A character of sincerity saw the reasons of beauty in its ought
For a smile in the known, that has come to these, for you

Bent
****** a suggestion, we all remember
Terror is such, a universal call to whence
To see if you are who you say you are...

Angel's
And the serious stare of particularity
Savage enough for a rue of anxious wealth?
In these siring doors and amorphous rarity...

Hell
So sweet to a reaching friendship, is once if to be?
A secret, but is our finished repose, the austerity we find fell?
And will a charity of courage's woe, have the sense to anarchy?

Heaven
Silence realizes the world for us, beauty to claim?
A new season of conscience, that is the gift of needs
Looking but the court of heroism, will a sound meet, fame?

Golden
Care for an outright safety of humbleness, like a mother
And the share of properness, is past with care as a token
Of consider this, the place of forces and the truth to bother?

Gaits
So sour, the notion to deliver the resources of courtesy
Except; to remind a home of deliberate couth, we are many
And the crowd of won, is on our way to becoming fears irony

Siblings
Pain in each, an echo of what was a remorse on the move?
Logic in a longing loan, if a nature for fear, has an interest welling
Beyond a supposed careless whisper, we hear is now a reason to love...

Fresh and disciplined?
Focus and method, to serve an hour me?
Safety in a grossing halt of when, silence has come
Through an ironic storm and over the seasons, I see a lead keep

Long in the tooth, if not the use of truth
Suppose and fear, the counting we hold, to live
And let means be are's many, in hopes of youth
We give the news of courage, a new name to since

Properness
And the light of a lucre we afford with evidence
And its moment with love, to compare a wisdom
Of contrivance, to a welcome fury of what was our chances

With time, to till a question in the wind
Meaning a sorts and cohorts we make, in patience served
And patience looking for a nightmares kiss, mind
Us, we have screamed in vanity's ear, but know the price of a turn

Of conscience into a lover of our ideas
Our mystique and its offered job, joy costs an alienation
Priced exactly nothing of strength and cope, in these freedom's
Was a mindful seldom enough to consider any a prayer under our intention's?

God, and the voice of his angel's
Mated with atrophy incarnate, the taste of acceptance of sin
More than ought, and else to whether the silence we knew, fell
From history for a hand of sense and its idea, are we that we are, amends?

Confirmation of a star one night...
From the best and the blessed of meager vice anon
Sanity is a jaundiced hurry with a chastity to righten
Itself among the throng, when all have seen it, the charisma to look among