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....