RAFTA Winner 2024 - Ben Wilkes

Back in 2021 we started the Revival Award For Terrific Attire (RAFTA) to reward our customers for showcasing our products on Instagram with a winners certificate & a £10 gift voucher to spend in our shop. At the end of the year we then hold the RAFTA grand finale where the overall winner would receive a massive £100 Revival gift voucher as well as one of our prestigious RAFTA medals.

Every year we are increasingly impressed with the fantastic entries from customers located all over the world. Please keep tagging us in your Instagram photos as we love to see how you style our clothing.

After much deliberation we crowned Ben Wilkes from England as our latest RAFTA champion! We were inundated with votes for Ben & we couldn't have picked a more deserving winner. He is a true dapper gentleman and even took the time to visit our Huddersfield showroom in person.

Before we have a chat with Ben, let's take a look at all the other entrants from 2024. Make sure to go follow them on Instagram for plenty of vintage outfit inspiration.

January - Deborah Lamb (@deborah_lamb3)
Deborah wowed us in a photo of her wearing a vintage style dress and bolero set at her son's 1940s themed wedding.

February - Ginger Best (@vintagemeginger)
Ginger sent us some fab photos of her wearing our Harmony dress in both green & black. Her choice of accessories is always on point.

March - Francis De Naeyer (@the_cheeky_gentleman)
We love Francis' timeless style and he looked smashing in our green Clubman suit!

April - Craigie Morrison (@craigiemoggy)
Craigie attended Kelham Hall Vintage Festival dressed in our Majestic skirt suit. This is one of the few events that we trade at & it's always a pleasure to spot our garments in person.

May - Joy Davies (@missjoysaphine)
We love to see women wearing more masculine forties attire and Joy looked truly fabulous in one of our classic white spearpoint collar shirts at the Salute To The 40s Weekend in Kent.

June - Betsy Bea (@betsybea33)
It's always a joy to see Betsy wearing our clothing. She has quite a few of our Socialite pieces now but we thought she looked especially beautiful in our Verity peplum skirt suit.

July - Ben Wilkes (@the_great_uncles)
Our eventual winner, Ben showcased his impeccable style at the Black Country Living Museum, dressed in our classic green herringbone Clubman suit and matching waistcoat.

August - Jack Knight (@international_man_of_history)
A long time Revival fan and Instagram friend, it was great to finally meet Jack in person when he visited our Huddersfield showroom to pick up a pair of our Brad blue denim jeans.

September - Zachary Saltsman Cooke (@classicsaltsman)
We've truly loved seeing Zachary's Instagram photos this year as he regularly posts his classic menswear looks. He's worn our cream linen Gadabout suit and Fair Isle knitwear, both with great panache.

October - Dmitriy Filimonov (@zenitquarz_1x8s2)
Dmitriy wore our brown Deliverance demob suit for a pancake breakfast on board the SS Red Oak Victory in Richmond, California. He was there working as a flash film photographer and our suit was the perfect choice for a historic wartime ship.

November - Norma Williams (@normawilliams1945)
Norma writes a fabulous fashion blog where she chronicles her love of vintage clothing. She has worn many of our garments but caught our eye in our replica CC41 Homefront skirt suit.

December - Eiley Beggs Miller (@littlemrsmiller90)
Our final RAFTA of the year went to Eiley who is a regular at remembrance events and looked incredible in our Camel Brown Promenade coat!

Now on to our interview with our RAFTA champion for 2024, Ben Wilkes! We asked him a few questions to find out a bit more about his interest in vintage fashion and personal sense of style.

Tell us a bit about yourself
I’m Ben, I'm retired. I was a policeman for 30 years and for the last 25/26 years, both my wife and I have been living and volunteering at a dog rescue. My working career has been pretty much police and dogs. Those are two things that I've loved doing and I've been very lucky to spend all my working life doing things that I enjoy.

How did you get into vintage fashion?
About 15 years ago, we went to North Yorkshire Moors Railway for a weekend away because we loved that part of the world. So we went and we thought, ‘Oh, we'll go on the railway on the Saturday’. When we got there, we wondered what the hell was going on, because there were all these people dressed in vintage clothing. We quickly learned that it was their 1940s weekend on the railway. So we spent all day on it. We'd never come across anything like this before. We had a fantastic day and enjoyed it so much that in fact, on the Sunday, we went back on the train again. We did nothing else that weekend and we came home thinking that was brilliant, we must go again. So the following year we went again and the year after we went again. And so on, and so our interest in vintage started to grow.

My wife Sue had started getting a few bits together, but for me, it was like, what can I wear? Because at that point I was in my mid-50s and too old to do all this stuff, and I quickly realised that if you get involved in that side of it, you've got to be spot on. And we were actually at the event, it was about 2015, and I had been looking through for lots of ideas and on eBay there was a vintage police uniform of the era with a closed neck collar in my size. Suddenly I thought, that'll do, because I can do that. So I won the item and had it altered a bit. Next year we go back to the event and I'm now in costume in character. And the funny thing is, I remember getting off the train in Pickering and walking out of the street and suddenly thought, ‘Should I be doing this?’ And then I saw all these other people and another chap who was dressed as a policeman, who I got to know very well, he came and spoke to me and after that it was just great.

But I thought, I can't just do this one outfit all the time. What else can I do? A friend of mine was researching my family tree for me, and he found out that in the early 1900s, I had a relative in Manchester City Police that I knew nothing about. He was my great uncle and suddenly this idea came to me that I could have these characters as great uncles and they could all have a different persona. And crazily enough, it just went on from there. So on The Great Uncles website, that story is on there, but there's also a list of all the great uncles that we’ve got. At the moment there's 25 of them. Number 26 will be released this year and I've also got ideas for 27 and 28. So at some point I'll need to stop! From all that just came this love of that era, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and the love of vintage clothing. I spent 30 years as a policeman in uniform. In all that time, I think I had one pair of shoes, and a suit for weddings and funerals. But other than that, I had no desire for clothing whatsoever. And we now laugh because Sue reckons I've got more clothes than she does! But I just love the era. I love the clothes and the style, and it makes you feel good.

Did you do any character acting when you were younger?
A little bit. Funny enough, I did a few years with Rugeley Operatic Society in the chorus. And then that's another thing that all this has led on to. I was at a vintage event and a couple of photographers came up to me and said, ‘Can we take a photo?’. I was in some tweed outfit so said yeah of course. Then they said to me at the end, ‘Have you ever done a photo shoot? If we organized one, would you come?’. Because I’d told them this daft story about these characters. Okay, yeah, so I did it. I really enjoyed it. Got some incredible photos from it and that then led to doing photography modelling for individual photographers and camera clubs.

Then I saw an advert where they wanted extras for a film called The Last Witness, which is set in 1947. So I put my name forward for that, got into that as a policeman, would you believe? And now I've done a few films as well. I was in The Colour Room, which was about Clarice Cliff, the famous potter from the 20s and 30s. Another one was A Gentlemen In Moscow with Ewan McGregor, that was good. I've just been filming another series that's going to be on Netflix supposedly sometime this year, so it's all led to some crazy things. In 2020 I also joined the folks at 1940sradio.com where I present a fortnightly show called Victory Broadcasts.

In the 1940s reenactment scene, we're part of a group called Spirit Of The Homefront where we do all the civilian homefront stuff. So we've got some of the Anderson shelters, Sue’s got toys of the era. There’s a massive wedding dress display, somebody does nursing, somebody does rations. Gillian and Neil have got a very clever one which is called iForties. Their display is loads of period stuff, such as a wireless, a gramophone, maps, newspapers, everything you can think of, and the idea behind it is if you get your mobile phone in today's world, all that stuff that's in this living room setup, you can now do on your phone. So it sort of brings it home to particularly youngsters who are so used to their phone and doing everything on it that 80 years ago, they'd have needed all of that to do the same.

Where do you get inspiration for your looks?
Looking online a lot. My dad, he was not a natty dresser but he wore these kinds of clothes all through his life because he was from that era. A lot of period films and photographs. Seeing other people who dress in this style and thinking yeah, I quite like that. And you try to make it your own little style as well in certain respects. With all these different great uncles, each has got a little bit of their own style. Some are more posh than others. The outfit I’m wearing now could be any of them in their Sunday best because one's a milkman, one's a vicar, one's a school teacher and so on and so forth. They’ve all got their own easily recognisable styles. Then it's people like yourselves, the retailers. I just love all these styles and the stuff that you produce. It just gives you inspiration for other ideas as well.

What are some of your favourite vintage/vintage style pieces?
Well, it has to be in the police uniform. I've got three originals from the late 40s, early 50s so I particularly like those, because that was my life for so long. As time has gone on and I've got into this style, I mean, I never thought I'd love tweed. I thought tweed was something old chaps who lived in the country wore and suddenly I live in the country, I'm an old chap and I'm wearing tweed. So yeah, I've got quite a few bits of tweed, tweed jackets, tweed trousers. So I do like that style. I’ve got this beige Clubman suit and I've got the green one as well and they’re just so comfortable to wear. And they're practical to a certain extent, I mean, I wouldn't wanna go gardening or anything in it. But you can see why people wore them as they are practical. Some of the modern day clothes are just not. And I find that particularly in the cold weather, some of these outfits are fantastic. Much better than this so-called thermal clothing that we have where you need about five layers of them!

What drew you to the garments you've purchased from us?
The style and you’ve got my size. That's the problem in today's modern world, finding true vintage of the era that will fit you. Some of it is so rare and so delicate that even if you’d want to wear it, you’d rather preserve it. Sue’s got some vintage dresses that in places are very thin and it’s always a worry if they’ll get ripped or caught or snagged. Trying to find true vintage is so difficult but when you can find excellent reproductions that just epitomise everything about it and that's affordable as well in today's world, it’s brilliant.

What have you spent your Revival gift voucher on?
I’ve bought the new Edwin waistcoat and trousers, and the flax stripe Byram collar shirt. I’ve also got the Chuck peg trousers in Spice Orange. And Sue has got a new Majestic suit. So yeah, I’ve spent my voucher and a bit more! Well, if you're coming all the way here, it is great, you get to try on things and everything. I think there's something to be said for online shopping, but it's nice to just be able to come and actually look at stuff and and feel it, especially vintage stuff, you can't beat that.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?
No, just thank you for what you do and obviously a big thank you for the win. Every single one of the entrants was worthy of winning. Like everything in life, sometimes it can only be one so I'm glad it was me this time!

Thank you so much Ben for taking part, it was brilliant to learn more about your love of vintage and we hope you enjoy your prize! You can shop Ben's favourite Revival pieces here. If you would like to be in with a chance of winning your very own RAFTA & becoming the next RAFTA champion make sure you tag @revivalvintageuk in your pictures on Instagram.