What a day for a daydream

Last Saturday, there was a special event at Belgium’s charity shops. As they do every year, they held a  so-called “Retro Day”.

First of all, I need to explain about charity shops in Belgium. Although we have a few charity shops which can be compared with UK ones, like Oxfam, the majority of the shops which for convenience’s sake I will call charity shops, are called “Kringloopwinkels” in Belgium which for want of a better word translates as “recycling shops”.


What’s the same is that what they are selling are donations. What’s different is that they do not support any charity as such: with their proceeds they employ people who are otherwise difficult to employ. Most shops are situated on the outskirts of towns and are generally larger than the average UK charity shop, selling everything including the kitchen sink.

Although some die-hard vintage fans might disagree, there is some reasonably priced vintage to be found in the shops all year round, for those who make the effort to visit regularly. In the run-up to the “Retro Day”, it’s quite another kettle of fish, as every item which can be remotely labeled as vintage is being kept behind.  This is the cause of a lot of frustration, especially since the shops sell these items for a higher than usual price at the day of the event.  There are still a few bargains to be found, though.

By the time we arrived at our first shop of choice (which is spread out over three floors, no less) there were  roughly about a hundred people waiting for the shop to open at 10 am, pushing and shoving to get inside as soon as the doors opened. We had decided to remain in a “zen” state of mind, and this has actually paid off.

This is some of our haul, after a whole day of shopping and visiting three different shops. On the bottom right is our cat Phoebe, who immediately claimed the volume of 1932 magazines we found.

A set of dinner plates and an original box of soup plates from a dinner service we are collecting. It’s from a Belgian pottery called “Boch”, and was issued in 1966 to celebrate their 125^th birthday. The pattern is called “Rambouillet” and has become very collectable in the last couple of years.

 A set of bowls from an older blue and white “Boch” pattern  (on the left in the overview picture), which we’ve recently started collecting. My husband’s parents had these when he was growing up.  We started collecting this last summer, when we were actually given some plates at a local flea market.

A Bakelite radio (as seen above), made in Belgium, dating from the early 1950s. It is still in working order, but needed some TLC.

Another Lourdes souvenir for our little collection. This one is super kitsch and still in its original box, and it’s got full working coloured lights.  We’ve also found a Lourdes barometer to join our collection.

A 1970s orange party set to join the slightly different one I already have. I use them to store jewellery. This one is English and marked "Dialene Better-Maid".

A wonderful handbag, which just needed a good cleaning.

Last but not least, some vintage dresses!  In one of the shops there was a whole rail of them. At € 5 per item, it would have been rude not to let myself go, so I bought 5 dresses, including – wait for it – a maxi!

These are just a few teasers

Now, where am I going to put it all?

Oh, and I already wore one of the dresses to work this week ...