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.)

Aloes - our little "karroo" shop!

All the aloes are flowering along our fence - and as our friend and favoured customer, India says, "It looks like a shop in a Karroo dorpie".
We keep Marie biscuits for India's little son Josh who also likes to shop with us (mainly for the maries I suspect) - love him!