Sky of blue and sea of green

In spite of my last post’s orange theme, most of last weekend’s finds were inspired by my dress’s other colour: green. This was not intentional, I should add, although I've been having a thing for green lately. 

Maybe it’s a spring thing as suddenly, in the last couple of days, nature seems to have had a wakeup call and buds have started appearing on our garden’s shrubs almost overnight.  All those fresh new greens are masquerading the fact that our little patch of garden is looking very neglected and is badly in need of some serious pruning.  It’s a real jungle out there for our cat Phoebe to prowl around in and with lots of secret hiding places to watch the local wildlife from.  It’s even got a giant drinking bowl, in the form of a completely overgrown little pond.

Devil & Angel

But I digress. Back to the subject at hand which is last weekend’s vintage haul.

It all started on Saturday, when we visited one of our regular charity shops. They still had a few leftovers from last month’s “Retro Day”, and they were now seriously reduced in price.  It was only after we came home that we discovered the green theme though ...

So, here are the things we found: a cute little enamelware teapot, a vintage thermos flask (we already have the same one in red), a groovy mirror and brush set and a nice handbag for my collection.

Wait! You’re saying the handbag is not green? Well, you've got a point, but see: it has a green lining!

The background for some of these pictures is a vintage find from last year : a green vinyl covered swivel chair, for which we only paid a fraction of the usual price as it’s got some torn seams. 

It’s being used as my office chair which I'm sitting on when I'm blogging!

On Sunday, we had a touch of spring here, so it was a very pleasant drive for our monthly visit to Blender Vintage Shop.

Apart from a fabric fair, with a fabulous array of vintage fabrics and haberdashery, they had a clothes sale on, which was very hard to resist. In fact, I did not even attempt to resist it and bought two dresses featuring … yes, you guessed right: green! 

Here I am  posing in front of our potting shed in one of my purchases: a blue and green box-pleated dress with tie. And guess who wanted to be in the pictures as well?

This just leaves last weekend’s other, non-green, finds.

This little cream handbag, which is a little worse for wear, but which I couldn’t resist because of its Lucite closure. I already had a similar but slightly bigger black one, found at a vintage market last September. Don’t they make a great pair?

Finally, there’s this elegant navy jacket, shown here by Angelica. It’s got a French label no less! 













I love its unusual shawl collar and I think it will be perfect with the red pleated skirt I bought last month or paired with the 1950s style dress I bought at Easter. What do you think?

Orange Crush

I am not afraid of colour and can honestly say that there are few colours which I don't like at all, but I don't have a favourite one either. I'm just going through phases of liking a particular colour more than others. However, even the colours I usually tend to avoid, like pastels, beige or taupe, seem to end up in my wardrobe from time to time.
For me, it is a question of love at first sight when it comes to clothes, although over the years I have learned to try on things I would not normally go for, only to be pleasantly surprised when the mirror says that it's actually not too bad!

For some reason, orange is a colour which I have avoided for years. I cannot explain this as, having grown up in the 1960s and 1970s, it is a colour I have fond memories of. In my teens, my bedroom's wallpaper had an orange pattern, chosen by me when the time came to replace the "kittens" wallpaper of my childhood.

What's more, when having a look around our house, it seems there is quite a lot of orange in it.

Our sitting room even has orange wallpaper!

Last year, though, I fell for a sleeveless summer frock printed with huge orange flowers, after which orange started appearing on a more regular basis in my wardrobe.













Saturday was cloudy and still far too chilly to wear a summer dress. When going through my wardrobe for a transitional kind of dress, I stumbled upon this green and orange short-sleeved one, which I thought was quite right.
The fabric is Crimplene or similar, and the dress is fully lined, making it warm enough for the rather disappointing temperatures. The forecast promised spring weather, but we hardly saw the sun all day.

The dress's high-necked bodice and puffy sleeves feature glorious diagonal stripes in olive and dark green, brown, white, pink and, of course, lots of orange. In fact, the orange really pops out and draws the eye. Below the self-fabric belt, the dress's green skirt is box-pleated. Again, this dress has a back zip which you need help closing.

The orange stripes called for further orange details, so on went a bright orange cardigan, to which I pinned one of my "Bambi" brooches.
I also chose vintage orange beads (charity shopped last week) and a glittery orange ring as accessories.

I found the A-line coat I'm wearing at Oxfam in December. I love it and it has just the right kind of thickness for this time of year.

I'm wearing orangey-red tights and short suede boots with an elastic inset and buckle closure at the front. They are just the right height and very comfortable.

Saturday was filled with a shorter than usual visit to a charity shop followed by my niece's 14th birthday party which featured this season's first barbecue. It was far too chilly to dine outside though.

Hopefully, spring is just around the corner. It is April, after all ...

Dress: Think Twice
Coat, boots, beads: charity shopped
Brooch: flea market
Cardigan and tights: retail

I am looking forward to wearing my spring and summer frocks again. Are you as bored of your winter clothes as I am?

Utter clutter

I live in a small terraced house built in the 1930s, which we call “Dove Cottage” as the street we live in translates as “Dove Street”.

Dove cottage was originally a two up two down, which was later extended with a kitchen and bathroom downstairs.

Although the house is big enough for the two of us, it is the accumulated clutter which at times makes it feel a little cramped.

We do have a big basement, as well as a built-in cupboard over the stairs, both of which we’ve been promising ourselves to sort out for years. But although once in a while we bag up some things for the charity shop, we have only been making small dents in the job at hand.

As I am quite orderly and organized, things are not looking too cluttered, but minimalist it certainly isn't!

The Easter weekend would have been a great opportunity for a clear out, but what did we do? Yes, that's right: we succumbed to the lure of two charity shops and one flea market and came home with yet more stuff ...

This was what we got at the charity shop on Friday.

This jam pot in a brown plastic holder with pretty flower decoration is from Emsa, a German company who have produced plastic tableware since the 1940s.




This one dates from the 1970s and as we already have several items of the same design and the price was right, it would have been quite foolish to leave it behind.






I also found several vintage strings of beads, shown here by the lovely Angelica, a brown felted hat and a handmade 1950s style dress which is a perfect fit.

The charity shop we went to is one of the few that have a coffee corner, where you can get a free cup of coffee. Nice, isn’t it? And what do you think of that wall decoration, shown in the top right picture?

Saturday's charity shopping trip yielded these two boxes, which originally held cutlery. I am using them to store my ever-expanding collection of brooches.

There was a red and white Karelia dress waiting for me on the clothing rail and as it was only € 4 I just had to snap it up.

On Sunday, we were at a bit of a loose end, as our original plans for the day were cancelled.
As luck would have it, there was an indoor flea market in a nearby town, so that is what we did instead.

This particular flea market is held every month from September to June, and here’s a small impression:

So, what did we find? In spite of the myriad of things on offer, we restrained ourselves and only came away with a few bits and pieces.

A volume of 1963 magazines, which is covering the murder of John F. Kennedy in its November issue.

A pretty sewing basket and some more vintage brooches, and last but not least, these cute little deer!




















To finish this picture-heavy post, I would like to share the inspiration for its title: an "utterly" divine shop in Leominster, Herefordshire!

So, what will the next weekend bring?

Who knows where the time goes?

In our house, with its many ticking clocks, you can literally hear time pass ...

For a full-time working girl like me, time is at a premium, so the Easter weekend is a godsend.

Four days of not getting up at the crack of dawn to join the rat race. Time for leisurely breakfasts. Time to tackle some of the never-ending mending pile every wearer of vintage eventually accumulates, for some pottering around the house and for reading a bit more than the 10 minutes in bed every night before nodding off mid-sentence.

Oh, and maybe time to put away the warmest winter clothes and bring out some of the lighter stuff, which has been hibernating in our linen chest since October. It is spring after all, isn't it?

But you know how it is with the best-laid plans ... On Friday, only the leisurely breakfast part was achieved. I'd just taken out my sewing basket when one of us uttered the words "charity shop" and off we went. After all, that is what the Easter break is for as well: time to visit some charity shops which are a bit further away, and which we only visit a few times a year!

Whether we struck gold or not will be the subject of a later post, but this is what I wore to go charity shopping.

A purple psychedelically patterned crimplene A-line dress with slim fitting bodice and sleeves, which mean you either have to be a contortionist to close the back zip, or need a helping hand.














I accessorized it with vintage olive green plastic beads, as well as a ring which reminds me of those Venetian glass paperweights ... Both charity shopped, of course!

Another one of my cardies came out: olive green with a round collar and three quarter length sleeves. This one is retail and I've had it for many years. The brooch I've pinned to it was bought in a charity shop in Cardigan while on holiday last year.

Out came some old tan boots, which are very comfortable, but which I can only wear in dry weather as they are letting the rain in. They are made of some cheap material which has a distinct smell and which drives Phoebe, our cat, crazy. Nevertheless, I'm not ready to throw them out.

While I was thinking about which coat to wear, I suddenly remembered this lime green swing jacket. I'm ashamed to say that although I've had it for more than a year, this is the first time I've actually worn it.

I combined it with a prettily embroidered velvet scarf, which I found at a flea market for next to nothing.

Dress and swing jacket: Think Twice
Bag, beads, brooch and ring: charity shopped
Scarf: flea market
Boots and cardigan: retail

Although the weather was unpredictable, at least it stayed dry and sunny for long enough to go for a short walk in the park and to let us have a taste of spring!

So what did you make time fore this Easter weekend?

Angelica

I met Angelica at the tail-end of a flea market last Sunday. It was love at first sight. She's from Paris and quite elegant. We hit it off from the start so, as she was about my size, she came home with me. Her real name is Cléo, but she'd always been Angelica to me, even when she was still just a twinkle in my eye.

She was named Angelica after my paternal great-grandmother. Angelica, or "Zeleke" as she was popularly known, was an accomplished seamstress whom people came to from far and wide to have the latest fashions made.

She died in 1945 at 62 years of age, so all I know about her is what I was told by my dad. She had a son and two daughters, the eldest of which was my grandmother.

This is Angelica with her family. The little girl is my grandmother, who was born in 1910, and this photo must have been taken just before the First World War.

I had been looking for a vintage dressmaker's dummy for ages, but the ones I came across until now were frightfully expensive. So, to finally have found one this late in the day at an otherwise not very exciting flea market and at a more than reasonable price, is nothing short of a miracle.

She's a bit older than me, probably dating from the 1950s, and she came with her own original metal stand. She is in perfect condition apart from some wear and tear in keeping with her age. The only thing she was missing was the wooden finial at her neck, but my handy husband has already arranged a replacement (though not yet when these photos were taken).

Here she is modelling the suit (or as Angelica herself would say, the "deux-pièces") I found at the charity shop last Saturday.  As you can see, we have another thing in common: she does not like ironing either!

What else did we find at the flea market? Well, surprisingly, we did find quite a few little things.

There seems to be a French theme going on here, as I found a small stack of French magazines dating from the early 1950s (the oldest is from December 1951 while the most recent one is from July 1954). They don't really do magazine covers (signed, no less!) like this anymore, do they?

I also found some vintage buttons to add to my every-growing stash. This is being delved into regularly whenever I don't very much like the buttons on a vintage item, or whenever buttons are damaged or missing.

What else? A dark brown vinyl beauty case, which will join the others I have. They live on top of my wardrobe and are being put to good use storing socks, underwear, belts and the like.

There are also some cute vintage purses, two of them with Lucite closures, which I simply couldn't resist.

And finally, thee brooches, bought from an nice old lady who is selling her entire collection. I don't know how she can part with them, but at least some of them are going to a good home, where they will be cherished and worn. I usually buy a couple of brooches from her whenever I visit this particular flea market.

I'm ending this post with another picture featuring my great-grandmother Angelica. This one is helpfully labeled May 1930. Angelica is second from left, with her two daughters and (presumably) a neighbour. My grandmother is the girl on the right. Notice how the two girls are wearing identical dresses, probably made by Angelica herself.

Wishing you all a great Easter weekend!

Could life ever be sane again?

I was going to do this post yesterday, but I was thrown off-balance by yesterday's terrible events in Brussels, and somehow it didn't feel right to be blogging about something as frivolous as vintage clothing ...

Still, life goes on, as they say, and we mustn't, no we mustn't admit defeat! 

On Saturday, after a leisurely breakfast, we decided to pay a visit to one of the charity shops we hadn’t done last weekend, to see if they had any vintage stuff left.

I managed to take some pictures this time to give you an idea of what a Belgian charity shop looks like. This is one of the bigger shops. The pictures aren’t top quality though, as I used my old Sony Cybershot, which is not very good for inside pictures.

As you can probably see, they still had quite a lot of things left, although some of the prices were simply outrageous. This shop seemed to be more expensive than average. The things which remain unsold will go down in price as the weeks go by, so we might have another look in a couple of weeks’ time.

This is what I wore. A stripy brown-and-orange A-line skirt paired with a long-sleeved crimplene top with brown-and-orange flowery cotton cuffs and collar. It’s another Finnish concoction, labeled  “Merry Finn”, and I love its puffy sleeves and its neckline. It certainly made me feel quite “merry”, especially after I added some cheery orange details, like the necklace and chunky plastic ring.

It was quite cold, so I chose a lined tweed jacket, part of a suit which, worn together, makes me look and feel quite lady-like. I have a problem with the word “suit”, though, preferring the French words “deux-pièces” or “tailleur”, which - even though I live in the country's Flemish speaking part - we use here in Belgium too. Or rather: used. I think that the words, together with the items themselves, have gone out of fashion. After all, who still buys these things? Well, me, that’s for sure!

At the very last minute, I pulled this furry hat from our hall stand. It’s actually the first time I’ve worn it, but it made me feel great, so it certainly won’t be the last.

To finish this post’s outfit pictures, here’s me in the suit ...

I love the jacket's buttons, which somehow remind me of chocolates!

Skirt, top and scarf worn with suit: Think Twice

Suit and necklace: Blender Vintage Shop

Boots and hat: charity shop

Brooch and brown and orange scarf: flea market

Ring and tights: retail (tights from local market stall)

And now the big question is: were we tempted to buy anything? 

Well, we found a cute little vintage thermos for our picnic basket, a couple of vintage hangers, which I actually bought to display items on this blog, and some 78 rpm records.

I also had a half-hearted browse through the rails of clothes, as I'd already bought so many wonderful things last week, but couldn’t resist this green – dare I say it – suit.

On Sunday we went to a flea market, where we did a great find, deserving a post all of its (or her) own …

Now, aren't you intrigued?

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 ...