A NEW social enterprise opened in Chepstow to the fashions and sounds of by-gone years.

Vintage Vision, which is centred on a vintage clothes shop, opened in St Mary's Arcade on Saturday afternoon with help from the Chepstow Singing Club.

The singers formed a "flashmob" in St Mary Street dressed in vintage clothes – although they were bang up-to-date compared to the medieval costumes they sported the week before at the Chepstow Castle screening of the 1913 film Ivanhoe.

Co-founder Amanda Peters said: "Vintage Vision is a social enterprise which means it is not-for-profit and it aims to give people experience and to stop clothes going to landfill.

"We source clothes from the 1980s and back, teach women to sew, fix and remodel vintage clothes and run workshops.

"The people who give us the clothes really love them, that is why they have held onto them for so long and there is a story with every donation."

The group is also working with Chepstow and Abergavenny museums on a project called What is Fashion which will see work displayed in the museums.

Ms Peters said the shop in Chepstow was the third branch to open after Abergavenny and Blaenavon and would attract people from the area and from Bristol.

Volunteers are needed for a range of activities connected with the shop and five signed up on Saturday afternoon.