What's another week?

We woke up to another grey and miserable day, in which the mercury would only climb to a measly 1°C, on Sunday 22 January. I could have happily stayed in bed or have wrapped myself in a blanket on the sofa with a book if we wouldn't have had the January edition of our favourite indoor flea market to go to.

As we know from experience that it tends to be freezing cold in the flea market venue, dressing up warmly was of the essence. In order not to lose too much time in the morning, I'd assembled the components of my outfit the night before. This included dragging this gorgeous but rather neglected fur collared and cuffed vintage Tweed jacket from the depths of my coats wardrobe. It's actually part of a suit found at Think Twice many years ago, and which I last wore to go the same flea market in January 2020.

I thought its mustard colour speckled with red and brown was the perfect companion for the flannel skirt, which I fell in love with when I spied it in the shop window at Uniqlo back in October. It's from the shop's collaboration with the French model and fashion designer Inès de La Fressange and I was initially told it was sold out. Imagine my delight when, a couple of weeks later, I happened to walk into the shop to shelter from the rain, and found it waiting for me after all!

With my days of hot flashes seemingly over I've been starting to feel the cold lately, so I'd recently unearthed a bag of polo neck jumpers which hadn't seen the light of day for many years. Among these was the purple one I wore with the Arola skirt the day before, and this turquoise one, its sleeves adorned with a row of tiny buttons.

In spite of the t-shirt I'd layered underneath, I was still worried I'd be cold. I got my thinking cap on and, a rummage through my warmest woollens later, came up with this traditional cream cardigan embroidered with blue and red flowers and tied with red braided drawstring. As in years past, just looking at it was enough to make me break out in a sweat, I wasn't at all amazed that I'd last worn it in February 2018, when it featured in a twin post with the fabulous Beate! 

Just like I did five years ago, I pinned a red-hearted brooch to its plunging neckline, then added more red with my necklace.  My perspex ring, part of a haul from the flea market's previous edition, echoed the shade of my skirt almost exactly. 

To complete my outfit, I wore a yellow knitted beret, my turquoise raggedy scarf which wasn't too bulky on top of my jacket's generous fur collar, and a pair of gold leather gloves.

Upon entering the venue, it immediately became apparent that we needn't have dressed so warmly, as they'd switched on the heating. Before too long, my scarf disappeared into my bag, and I wore my jacket open throughout our trawl.

It did take us a while to get into our stride this time, and it wasn't until we came upon Tania's stall that we made our first purchase: a vintage Smiths Ringer kitchen timer for our collection. As it needed a bit of a clean, I cleanly forgot to take a photo (pun very much intended). Generous as ever, Tania gave me the orange flower corsage and the rather creepy hair clip - the eyes open and close - for free!

Our first serious purchases were only made after we'd taken a break for lunch. At Rita's treasure trove of a stall I was happy to see she still had some perspex rings for sale, from which I selected the caramel and sparkly green one on the top left. Jos fell hard for the kaleidoscope (bottom left and centre), which has joined our modest collection. Three IS a collection, right?

Rita's stall also had a wonderful display of vintage brooches, from which the two faces in profile and the sailor with the ginormous fish came home with me.

The four other brooches came from an older lady we've been buying from for many years but whom we only recently found out lives in the next village to ours. My favourite of these is the blue ceramic Brutalist brooch in the middle of the bottom row.

We were getting a bit tired by now and our eyes were starting to have problems focusing on aisle after aisle of goodies on offer. This usually happens to us towards the end of this particular flea market, and it isn't at all helped by the eye-confusing lighting at this venue.

Nevertheless, my eyes briefly re-found their focus when I spotted the Twiggy mannequin head at the back of a stall. As she was quite different from the one who came to live at Dove Cottage in July 2016, and the seller offered her at a more than reasonable price, she really was a no-brainer.

Obviously, this meant that I had to do a reshuffle of the mantelpiece in our spare room, but here she is, having joined her sisters Twiggy I and 1930s Idina!

There wasn't much improvement in the weather in the week that followed, with the temperature playing tag with freezing point and the sun the rarest of commodities.

In order to cheer myself up, I went and checked out the newly opened Think Twice shop near my office, where I promptly fell in love with this diamond patterned vintage blouse. Incredibly, though, I decided to leave it behind, and it wasn't until Thursday that I went back for it, counting my lucky stars that it was still on the rails.

With the kitchenette in our office finally completed, my colleague and I spent some time on Tuesday morning unpacking and putting away the office kitchen ware. We had only just finished doing so when in walked our bosses, paying us a surprise visit all the way from Miami. As we still had an apartment building of heavy archive boxes to shift, we immediately set them to work, while I went to get supplies at the supermarket and my colleague, who only works a half day on Tuesday, went home.

Then, at just after 4 pm, I managed to get myself locked into the loos! No matter how hard I put my weight against the door, it just wouldn't budge. Subsequently, I spent the next 5 minutes or so hammering on the door and shouting in order to try and catch my bosses' attention. Much to my relief, they eventually heard me and came running. They tried anything they could think of to release me from my temporary prison cell, unfortunately all to no avail.

Meanwhile Jos, who'd arrived in Antwerp to pick me up from work, had been trying to get hold of me and was starting to get worried, so I got one of my bosses to call him. Shortly afterwards, he too arrived at the office, where I was still locked inside the cubicle. To cut a long story short, it took the janitor and a grinding machine to finally set me free after about one hour!  I'm blaming my friend the landlord, who should have made sure that the renovation team he'd hired had done their job properly. 

Fortunately, the rest of the working week was uneventful in comparison!

And then it was Friday once more!

In order to combat the continuing cold this brown and beige dress with its eye-catching print came out to play. Bought from a long-gone vintage shop in Antwerp, its label proclaims its fabric is Crimplene, although in this case the inevitable polyester is joined by 20% wool, thus making it ideal for these colder days. Not nearly warm enough to go it alone though, it needed another layer, in the form of my trusty greyish green fluffy cardigan from Belgian Thelma & Louise label, last seen here a couple of posts ago.

I kept to all sorts of green for my accessories, which included a stretchy belt with faux tortoiseshell buckle, a beaded necklace and a glass ring. The jade brooch was a flea market find back in November.

I spent the morning rearranging my brooch drawers which had become a bit of a jumble, making outfit and other blog photos, and catching up with blogland. 

Having missed out on a charity shop rummage the previous week, we were now intent on making up for lost time after lunch. I struck lucky at both shops we visited, although the difference between the peacefulness of the first one and the soundtrack provided by overenthusiastic schoolchildren in the second couldn't have been greater.

Here's what I found. First up, a burnt orange King Louie cardigan with typical heart-shaped ajour pattern. I now own this type of cardigan in 9 different colours, all of them charity shopped at a fraction of their current retail price of € 74,95. This particular one was just € 5!

I thought it looked a treat with the sage green faux-button-down skirt in fine wale corduroy, which was also part of the catch of the day.

More € 5 cardigans! These shawl collared ones were new with tags from the defunct Belgian Wow To Go label. I have already worn the pink one in the meantime.

From Wow To Go's sister label Who's That Girl, a red and white striped jumper which also set me back € 5. I couldn't have been more pleased with my haul of woollens at a total of € 20, which works out to less than a 10th of their retail price.

The chevron patterned skirt is vintage but rather than the grey my camera insists it is, its colour is actual navy blue. 

Finally, there was this gorgeous beaded evening bag hidden among the tired and uninspired handbags in the quiet shop. It was only when we were on our way to the till that I noticed its € 0,50 price tag!

So, that was it. The rest of the weekend's adventures will follow in my next post. Don't get too excited, though ...

Hello yellow!

My wardrobe is a rainbow of colour! No need to tell you that really. There isn't a colour under the sun which isn't represented in one way or another, although some colours are more plentiful than others. Take yellow, for instance. Although I have a couple of predominantly yellow frocks and am the proud owner of a mostly yellow 1960s suit, more often than not yellow is just part of a print, often clinching the deal when I'm in doubt whether or not to buy a garment.

And I'm sure that you've seen my yellow cardigans and opaques enough times for them to incite a little yawn here and there.

There's a substantial amount of yellow jewellery ...

... and even a pair of much cherished yellow vintage 1970s shoes!

The only thing that was missing was a yellow handbag. Envious of the little handbag belonging to my Twiggy doll, I'd been looking for something similar for many a year.

Here I was strolling back to work after a visit to my hairdresser's in the week before last when, passing one of the not-so-very-exciting second hand shops lining this particular street, I detected a flash of yellow out of the corner of my eye. Lo and behold, it was a yellow handbag, and exactly the model I was looking for. Its strap can be adjusted in length, so that it can be worn either as a handbag or a shoulder bag, like Twiggy's!

Sitting next to it was a shiny red vinyl bag, which the yellow bag seemed to be friends with. Not wanting to leave it orphaned, I bought them both.

I am now swiftly moving on to the Sunday before last.

It was another sun-drenched day and there was no way the cold I'd developed was going to keep me inside. There's nothing like a breath or two of fresh air to clear those blocked sinuses!

We did, however, ditch our original plans to go further afield, and drove down to De Schorre, which is only a 15 minute or so drive away.

Well known the world over because of  the legendary EDM festival Tomorrowland, people tend to forget that it is also a nature reserve, which was established on the site of a former clay pit.

As promised, I was wearing both the vintage blouse and the blazer I'd scored on Saturday, both contributing to the amount of yellow in my wardrobe.

Ah, that blouse! It's easy to fall in love with its busy floral print in pink, green, white and yellow, reminiscent of a Summer garden.

My yellow blazer was adorned with a pink and green flower brooch, a perfect match for the blouse's print.

I wore my new-to-me acquisitions with one of my wardrobe staples, an A-line skirt in light grey tweed criss-crossed with red, green, white and yellow stripes. My vintage snakeskin belt came out to play as well.

You can just catch a glimpse of my green cardigan - peeking out from under the blazer - and my jewellery consisting of green beads and a red plastic ring. More green was added by carrying my green handbag, the floral scarf I was initially wearing tied to its handles.

Yellow opaques were the obvious choice, and  my feet were happy I was wearing my old brown boots.  They are slowly but surely falling apart, but they are so comfy and just perfect for walking. Whatever shall I do when they eventually give up the ghost?

We hadn't been to De Schorre for a while, and took a different route than usual, taking a path sloping down to the deepest part of the reserve, where an old clay dredger majestically reigns over a deep  green pool, a water-filled former clay pit.

The water was reflecting the blue of the sky and the rusty red of the derelict dredger, its body almost swallowed up by the rampant reeds edging the pool.

From there, we followed a boardwalk path meandering through the domain.

Once or twice, we veered off this path and explored some of the barefoot paths which have been laid out. Not on our bare feet, obviously!

I particularly loved this path, consisting of higgledy-piggledy half-rotten planks of wood floating mere centimeters above the marshy ground. Dwarfed by giant grasses, I walked until the path ended, drowned completely by the swollen waters.

Apparently, new barefoot paths are being introduced shortly, but these were strictly forbidden until the 1st of April, when they are officially opened to the public.

After skirting the main part of the domain, we walked over the 537-metre-long One World bridge, which is actually an art installation created especially for the Tomorrowland festival.

Symbolizing the connection between people and bridging their differences, the bridge has a total of 210.000 inscriptions, based on messages left by the festival visitors, etched on its wooden floorboards, railings, and even on the benches placed at regular intervals.

What goes down must come up!

Having taken the gentle descent down into the former clay pit, we now had to climb these steps all the way up again.

Needless to say, my bad knee didn't thank me for this, but I did make it to the top in one piece.

Senses working overtime

Life has been quite a rollercoaster of emotions of late. With nerve-ends still raw from the impact of my father's death, which I had somehow underestimated, I've been feeling on edge and slightly overwhelmed by things.

Back at the office, it's been an effort to concentrate, as I'm constantly diverted by my racing thoughts. This is not my usual state of mind: I may be a natural worrywart, but a scatterbrain I'm not.

Meanwhile, a start has been made with sorting out my dad's estate, which promises to become a long and winding road.

In order to distract myself from too many negative thoughts, I try to carry on as normal as possible, which means that my charity shopping adventures continue regardless. And so does this blog, in which I find so much solace. 

Last week, I cashed in my friend's gift voucher.

Vintage, velvet, versatile, not to mention very colourful: this suit has got it all!

Vaguely reminiscent of a vintage Barbie outfit I own, I dressed up one of my dolls in it. The outfit, consisting of a sleeveless vest and culottes, rather than a jacket and skirt, dates from 1971 and is called "Groovin' Gauchos".

Not owning a fuchsia top, I combined my suit with a pink charity shopped Karen Millen jumper. I think I came up trumps on the boots, though!

The weather was mainly sunny for Saturday's charity shopping trip, but an autumn chill was definitely in the air.

I wore a short sleeved textured polyester mod dress in olive green, accented with two buttons at the dropped waist.

It has a rather tattered "Joan Curtis" label.














Racking my brains for a suitable colour to combine it with, I came up with pink accessories and a mustard three-quarter sleeve cardigan, to which I clipped a fuchsia fabric hair flower.

The coat, which is perfect for this time of year, is Finnish, and I love its label which proclaims that it's "for ladies of fashion"!

Outfit details:
Dress, coat and scarf: Think Twice
Shoes: Vintage Styling
Cardigan, ring and hair flower: retail
Handbag and brooch: flea market
Pearls: my great-aunt Josephine

Between shops, we stopped for a picnic at the art deco water tower in the neighbouring village of Reet.

Climb it and you have a bird's eye view of the surrounding countryside as well as of one of the few remaining working clay pits in the area.

The heels of my vintage shoes did not allow for a climb this time, as the outside stairs are made of perforated metal. It's just manageable, what with my vertigo, but dainty shoes are a no-no!

As for the charity shopping itself, expectations weren't high, but we still managed to find a couple of things, spending a total of € 11,50, which proves that retail therapy doesn't have to be expensive.

The first thing that caught my eye was this cheeky ceramic poodle decanter, with six hooks on his back for hanging cups.

I almost left him behind as the cups were missing, when Jos found four of them on another shelf.

A quick trawl on the Internet dates him from the 1950s or early 1960s.

This Lourdes thermometer was next.

Surely, miracles must start happening soon with all the Lourdes memorabilia we have accumulated!

I will keep you informed on that one ...














The red wicker basket with polka dot lining will come in handy for storing little bits and bobs.

We were succesful at the next shop as well, where this pretty flowery coffee pot was waiting for us.

A good rummage unearthed a 1920s style cloche hat and a slim scarf, which are shown here on the as yet nameless new addition to our collection of "heads".

She is currently keeping Twiggy company on the mantelpiece in our spare room.

Let's end this post with a fitting quote for this time of year:

"Then summer fades and passes, and October comes. Will smell smoke then, and feel an unsuspected sharpness, a thrill of nervous, swift elation, a sense of sadness and departure."
~Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again

Trying to blend in with nature's autumn colours

She's a dedicated follower of fashion

Last Thursday, the 21st of July, was Belgium's national holiday and so we had a welcome day off.  The majority of people in Belgium (me included) couldn't care less about what the holiday is actually for. Patriotism isn't exactly strong in Belgium: only the odd Belgian flag is being spotted in the streets, and some of those are leftovers from Belgium's passage in EURO 2016!

As it's a holiday in the middle of summer, when the weather is fine people tend to flock to our country's meagre 67 km of coastline, resulting in endless queues on the motorways. 

No visit to the seaside for us, though. No, we had much more important things to do.  We drove to Blender Vintage Shop, which sadly is currently holding its final sales before closing down altogether, to collect an eagerly awaited new addition to our household.

Meet Twiggy!

Although there seem to be quite a few of these so-called Twiggy mannequin heads for sale (and a lot of them at crazy prices!), I wasn't able to find much actual information about them online.

It seems that in spite of their 1960s look, they date from the 1970s. They were supposedly produced by a French company called Huard, and were used by upmarket French boutiques to display headpieces and scarves. In spite of clearly being based on the iconic and quintessentially British Twiggy, I do indeed detect a certain French "je-ne-sais-quoi" about her.

I'd spent the morning rearranging the mantlepiece in our second bedroom-cum-office-cum-boudoir to make space for her and here she is, happily sharing the space with my other bits and bobs!

She isn't, however, the only Twiggy I own. 

In 1968, Mattel (of Barbie fame) produced a Twiggy doll,  the first Mattel doll fashioned after a celebrity.

She had the same body size as Francie and Casey, dolls introduced by Mattel in 1966 and 1967. 
These dolls were smaller and less buxom than Barbie in order to wear the Mod fashions which were all the rage back then.

Twiggy's namesake was sold in a yellow, blue and green striped mini dress and yellow go-go boots.

Although Twiggy could already choose from the extensive wardrobe produced for Francie and Casey, four tagged outfits were created exclusively for her.

During the time I was collecting Mattel dolls, I was lucky to be able to acquire all four of the outfits, although only two of them are complete with all their little accessories. All of them are quite hard to find.

I got my Twiggy doll to earn her keep and made her model all the outfits for you. 

First up is Twiggy-Do's, which is one of my complete sets: a ribbed knit sleeveless dress accented with green and white bands. 

Accessories included green and white beads, a yellow vinyl shoulder bag and yellow knee socks and shoes.

The next outfit is called Twiggy Turnouts, a mad mini dress in a metallic fabric, with a multicolour striped bodice and silvertone skirt, accented with a wide silver belt at the hip. 











She is supposed to wear silver go-go boots, which alas are missing, but I think the short grey boots she is wearing aren't too bad either. The outfit also came with a swimsuit, of which unfortunately I only have the bottoms.

Twigster consists of a wild yellow and orange print knitted dress combined with a scarf. As it was a hot day, Twiggy begged me to take it off quickly, though. 

Again, the short orange boots she is wearing are a substitute, and the plastic case, which is supposed to contain her make-up kit, is empty.

Finally there is the outfit named Twiggy Gear, which is the second one I was able to buy complete. Twiggy loves wearing this jumpsuit, which has a striped knitted bodice and white vinyl trousers. It closes at the back with a real zip, and is accented at the dropped waist by a blue vinyl belt.

But that's not all! Look at her pink hat with blue vinyl trim, and her cute blue shoes!

The outfit also came with a plastic camera, which I attached to Twiggy's hand with a small clear rubber band. 

Now why didn't Mattel think of providing it with a strap? Nobody just has their camera in their hands, have they? Especially not a camera of that size ...

Finally, I'll show you what I wore to collect Twiggy on Thursday: a sleeveless brown on white box-pleated Tricel dress, accompanied by a white vinyl belt. The dress does have a self fabric belt, but I didn't think it looked right.

The brooch I'm wearing is a vintage ceramic one.

I also wore vintage light blue plastic beads, a white plastic ring and my Miz Mooz sandals which I bought in the sales a couple of years ago.  I paid a silly price for them as there was a difference in colour between the two, which was easily rectified by putting the darkest one out in the sun for a couple of days.

For some reason I think that my dress wouldn't have gone amiss in Mattel's Twiggy collection, although I'm sure Twiggy would have worn it a lot shorter!