Half Price Sale - til Saturday 1pm!!!!

OOOPS - so long since I posted on here!
Today is the fourth day of our BIG FABULOUS HALF PRICE SALE!
We dream of clearing all the rails for our new, exciting venture.... Rummage Co-Op opening on the 1 August.
Our Co-Op will consist of five lovely women, all of whom make or source recycled, upcycled, handmade items/clothes/jewels/bric a brac of gorgeousness...
The shop will get a whole new look/
So excited!
Meanwhile, get there quick to snatch up some Serious Bargains!
Half price means dresses are around R40, jeans R30 etc - cheap as chips! And there are some TREASURES there!

1st Birthday Sale!

We have been open a year! (or a little more, in fact... We opened in March 2011)...
And so... we're having a big, beautiful sale day in our shop and garden!
20% off everything in the shop.
On Thursday and Friday
That's THIS WEEK - 26 and 27 April. From 10am - 3pm.
Hope you can come!


Last year's sale:

Our ad for this year's sale

An historical (!) ad for the opening of Rummage last March...

Hello again... we are still open!

Goodness me! How long it is since I last wrote a little blog snippet.
Much has happened in some ways, and not enough in others.
Much in the way of comings and goings amongst ourselves, but that's not interesting to a vintage shopper like yourself.
Not enough in the way of NOT ENOUGH new customers discovering the wonders of our tiny emporium on the farm.
The latter is probably because we are so very out of the way and off the main shopping route, but let me preach to you converted and say: it will be worth the journey!
Sold this weekend was a genuine pair of printed leather Emilio Pucci court shoes with fabulously long ankle ties, in his signature swirly op art print. Those were a mere R300: eat your heart out!
Still in the shop are some absolute winners: 60's frocks, 50's mohair tweed coat, evening frocks, cheomsangs in various shades, gold sandals, straw hats, vintage jewellery.....
Come on  - make the journey out to Kommetjie!
And we may even be serving great coffee and cake when you get here...

60's op art frock... R80

some patterns to whet your appetite...

So you recognise us when you get to Imhoff's Farm - we're on the hill...

Shop interior

50's swing coat... R100 I think

Vintage Diesel cotton printed flares...

See you soon...

Some new vintage lovelies (oxymoron?)

This has been a good week for old things! First I wandered into an antique shop and got chatting to the lovely Mary there. And she told me she had taken possession of a load of old clothes and only wanted the evening dresses and would I like to look through the others? Yes, yes I cried! And did. But they were froma dealer so the price was not a bargain, but nevertheless I invested in these two beauties:

 The one above is by Jane Milano and is a size 36 and features a fab 70's swirly peacock fabric. It is maxi length and has groovy, adjustable ruched sleeves... Very stylish - would suit a gal with long flippy 70's hair!

 And this one is a great 60's design, a size 36/38, also maxi length and the label is Rosella. Thought it was rather splendid and can imagine it being worked with a good platform or wedge and big plastic earrings?

And then a lovely lady, who had bought clothes from Belinda and I in the days of the now-defunct Noordhoek Country Fair, came wandering into the shop with a bag full of clothes from the church bazaar which she knew were just too splendid to put on the white elephant, so, for a donation to the church's outreach project, they were safely brought home to Rummage! Here is one of them (one other requires some tender laundering and the few more were nice but more modern, so they are on the racks...).

Isn't it lovely? It is a cotton floral fabric (and florals are all the rage, darlin); full length, wide almost circular skirt and fitted bodice. It is a size 36/38, label Kemp Modes, Arnhem (see? imported Dutch vintage - and you know how stylish the Dutch are? They are! I went there in the late 80's, fresh from lefty, grungy UCT, in my dodgy jeans and tekkies - and boy, I felt like a no hoper!)
Aanyway!
Just letting you know there are some beauties lurking on them Rummage rails so hope to see you there soon.
Really hope to - because today we had NO sales... boring as hell!

Vintage - 60's vs 80's

I am so old that I was alive and actually wearing clothes in the 80s (and even buying vintage in the charity shops of Pietermaritzburg as a teenager), so I can't get my head around the fact that the HIDEOUS frocks that my mother wore, are now considered "vintage" and even stylish. Eeek. They certainly weren't stylish then and even now, they just look seriously BAD to me! So here are some gorgeous pieces that I (in my great age!) feel are seriously vintage - and stylish! (And they all cost R120 or under!)

Plastic frocks for the rain...

Was a bit reluctant to open shop this morning without my feline friend to greet me. And it was raining. But the way to let go and get happy and liven up is to get BUSY. I cut out some funny "paper doll" type frocks from plastic tablecloth fabric to dress the "gals" outside. Don't like to see them bare to the elements! Here are today's outfits...

A sad day at the shop

Today is a very sad day for us. Our darling cat, pictured in the previous post, instead of meeting me at the gate as he did every morning, was lying dead on the lawn next to the gate. I think the cat flu, or maybe even feline aids, was too much for his frail little frame. What a sweet chap he was, and how we will miss him. We have buried him at the gate so that he will be with us always. Poor little thing.

Our cat and Kamersvol...

There he is, our stray cat, Kitty.
Sleeping on the Malawi craft, but he looked so dear, will just give it a wipe when he moves...
Just returned from Kamersvol Geskenke - as a customer, not a stallholder. Wow - that was inspiring! Full of beautiful images now. It was a visual feast. A creative explosion. And a bit of an exercise in humility - kept thinking "Why couldn't I have thought of that?" or "Why don't we decorate our shop so exquisitely?" or "I am so un-creative!" - but feel totally inspired to get into Rummage and curate the stuff.
Hope it's possible.
Onward and upward to better shop display!

Rummage Cat and Chubby Chic

Oops - not sure how I managed to let a whole month lapse without writing this blog - sadly it is not because of the queues of desperate customers banging down our door...
But our shop is a little bit magical, because, somehow, it just keeps a trickle of money coming in and a few new faces discovering it with delight every few days. And that keeps us hopeful and happy.
And while we wait for the queues and stampedes, it is a lovely peaceful spot to spend time. We have a resident cat now - a small black and white chap called Kitty who lives with Minnie and Mervin, the Rasta family who live next door to the shop when we aren't there, but greets us every morning at the gate. We feed him now and I was pleased to feel his fat little belly this morning instead of the jutting hip bones he featured before.
Sadly, fat little bellies are a feature of this particular shop keeper too. The rush to get slender for summer seems to have rushed past me on the other side of the highway this time around and I am cruising in chubby neutral without a care. I am channeling chubby chic this summer. This means clothes with enough personality to stand on their own merits without a fabulous figure to rely on. (Well, this is my new theory anyway, and I'm sticking to it!)
Onward and upward to the rounded stylish woman!
(That's me wearing my Great Aunt Dorothy's lace blouse - see, it's beautiful enough to distract attention from whatever lies beneath it, I hope!

Market Day coming up!

We are going to have one of our outside market days on school break up day - Friday 23 Sept. All winter stock will be 20% off and lots of new summer stock will be out.
So if anyone ever reads this blog - do come! Or send your friends....

Rummage was so busy today - what a delightful change it made! Perhaps it was the whirl of patterns outside? or just that it was such a lovely sunny day...

Rummage was so busy today - what a delightful change it made! Perhaps it was the whirl of patterns outside? or just that it was such a lovely sunny day...

Alifeofsundays

Some of the best sellers in Rummage are the fabulous brooches made by Karen Strachan of Alifeofsundays. Karen was a fashion designer who is now making her own mark with her amazing textile art. I found one of her brooches at the beautiful Rosehurst shop in Pietermaritzburg and got my glam friend, Pamela to track down Karen's contact details. I then asked her to send me her things to sell in Rummage - and they sell like hot cakes! So get to Rummage soon - we are Alifeofsundays only Cape Town outlet!

Romance in Rummage

This fab young couple came to visit today and bought two bone rings from Malawi - which they then exchanged so sweetly in the shop. How dear!
Good luck Matt and Tam - here's to lasting lurve!

Jolandi - welcome to our new partner!

We are very thrilled to have Jolandi join Belinda and I as a partner in Rummage!
She is new to Cape Town from Pretoria and wandered into the shop on her way to drop her daughter at school - and felt immediately at home.
After buying half the shop, she asked whether we'd like her to work there in the afternoons. But we went one better and asked her whether she'd like to come in as a partner - since her ideas and love of vintage clothes and sense of style fit so completely with ours.
So now there are three of us sourcing fabulous things for the shop and our hours are far more friendly since Jolandi does the afternoon shift.
It all seems meant to be!

Last day of Sale and New things are in...

The sale went like a a bomb and the rails are looking much emptier. So much so that I have started to hang the new groovy things from Monkey Bay market.
Silk nightdresses and kimonos from Victoria's Secret, strange low-crotch pants (there is probably a proper name for them but it escapes me!), a few fab 60's vintage frocks, a few beautiful vintage lace dresses, a hand-made lace collar, a beaded net evening shawl, a Marimekko top..... the list goes on.
Better get there soon before it's all gone!
And today was the first day that we had a little vege stall in the garden run by Lee, who sold lovely things like celeriac and fenugreek and all the usual suspects like leeks and broccoli and lettuce and whatnot. (And a few wet suits on the side - this is Kommetjie after all!)
I love the way things are evolving - almost with their own momentum!

The models in chitenje gear - guess who "dressed" them. (And look at our view!)

SALE!

Our sale happens tomorrow!! We excitedly said 20% off everything - which with our prices means things will be dirt cheap! Hoping to clear the rails of things which have lurked about a while so that we can fill them up again with new finds! (Lots from Malawi which dear Yites is ironing as we speak - amazing how a good pressing revitalises a garment. Am thinking of keeping lots more for myself now that they are so spruced up!)
I love to think of the history of the clothes we sell - how they have been discarded and have travelled and been rediscovered and loved and rehung in Rummage - ready for a whole new life, instead of rotting away in a landfill in Europe or the States.
You see - by shopping at Rummage, you are a part of that whole beautiful recycling process - and can look jolly stylish doing it!

Friday in the Shop

Friday in the shop was a happy day. Belinda began it by putting the cane chair in the sun outside and stylishly sat in her turquise sunnies doing a bit of her daughter's weaving - very chic: home crafts ARE chic these days you know!

Then our lovely loyal and equally chic friend Simona brought in her grandmother's original 60's Pucci frock (which she'd worn to Simona's mother's wedding). We hung it on our door and oohed and ahhed - it is such an object of beauty and 50 years later it is still so stylish you could wear it anywhere.
Here it is:

Gorgeous, hey? Sadly it is an heirloom and not for sale!

My dear dad hung up our open sign and it seems to be working - today is Saturday and it is blowing a HOWLING MAD gale outside - too windy to hang anything up at all - but still some dear and hardy customers popped in to shop - thanks honeys!

Back from Aahfricah bearing treasures!

I shall paste a little excerpt here from the emails I regale friends with when I am on my travels - so you can feel the thrill of the hunt for gorgeous garments in dusty piles under baobab trees...
"Stopped off at the village of Makawa for the market
under the big tree. Obviously this is the only reason I piggy backed
onto the shopping trip! This is usually a fantastic market, but what
with all our Mangochi errands, I made it there a bit too late and it
was packed to the gills with local shoppers and I couldn't elbow my
way into the cheap piles. But managed nevertheless to spend a happy
hour there finding a fab fake fur cerise jacket and a red Levi jacket
and various other little tidbits. So not entirely a waste of a day but
rather tiring. And it all ended badly, because, though I should have
known better, I ate some dodgy roadside slap chips for lunch out of
desperation - it's that or skewered mice for padkos in these parts,
well for the purposes of a good tale that is! The consequences were
predictable. I did suffer." Yes - all for a good garment!
"Had a fabulous Tuesday as I spent the morning lying in the hammock
reading an old Ken Follet page turner to recover from the
afarementioned ill-effects. Then ate a light lunch and gathered my
wits and chitenje bags about my person and headed off to the Monkey
Bay market for the afternoon - early this time. And that was time
well-spent! The cheap piles were accessible this time and I went
through them speedily and greedily and filled two loads of chitenje
bags with treasures. The best pile was the Victoria's Secret silk
slips and camis - oh what a joy! Will be keeping those that fit for
myself I fear. Have become a sleepwear snob as a result of the Monkey
Bay market and now only wear bias cut silk slips (which have cost me
less than R5 each). I am now a label and fabric snob but only if I can
find them cheaper than a loaf of bread."

Main road, Chembe Village

Laundry lady, Mabel, taking a break amongst the pattern overload.

The spoils all washed and folded and ready to come home to Rummage.

More labels, dahlins!

First a Habits red trench and Diesel jeans...

Then a vintage green shirt from Italy with Escada Sport black pants...

Then these gorgeous sparkly tweed trews by Byblos (!) and a Laura Biagiotti (Rome) denim jacket with yellow skinnies behind them...

Finishing off with these no name lurid skinnies topped by a Soviet denim jacket...

BUT... no - the populace prefer to stroll by without a glance, down the long muddy road to... nirvana: the paint ball zone!

Cretins! Style-less, brain dead, badly dressed cheap thrill seekers.
I give up!
(No, I don't - I shall persevere.)