Christine Fisher-Lathwell – Inspiration for Miss Pack

Christine: there’s a kind of Bohemian Boutique down in Ryde which belonged to Johnny and Colin.

Simon: Ok. Is that where the Velvet Pig is now?

Christine: That’s it, Velvet Pig. I couldn’t think of the name of it. Johnny and Colin were the first basically out gays that people knew about in Ryde. They lived together over the shop and they had fantastic taste. They bought the most fabulous outrageous things that people would love to wear.

Definitely very hippy, and so you could always rely on them to have something in that line. So, thankfully Miss Pack also sort of went into the hippy trend, and by the time I got back there, there was still quite a lot of hippy clothes around, and it really wasn’t … I mean I say I wasn’t in the punk era but I don’t remember them selling ‘punky’ clothes.

They did sell ripped jeans and I’m sure that came … when Madonna came in, ripped jeans, denim jackets with lots of rips in then and patches on them. And as I say, the layout of it, was that you walked into the shop as you’re looking at it on the right-hand side and it stretched right back until I think there was a dividing wall that you could go through either side, and at the back were boutique clothes as well and the most recent clothes were in the front, laid out on I think I remember them as roundelay type …

Simon: Ok.

Christine: … hanging garments so you would spin it round. And then of course I think we had alcoves that you had to put displays in as well. I know it was very, very busy a lot of the time, even during the week. School children would come in at lunch time so I really had to get the window dressed and finished as quickly as possible because if I didn’t they’d play around with the models and try and put their arms in and you know, get them stuck up there. So yes, it was normally finished by lunch time and then it was back down to do a Millinery window.