On thrifting

The haunted wedding dress.

Once in a while I'll check out eBay to lust over danish teak furniture, kitschy avocado green fondue pots and other mid-century modern wares. Last night I had the brilliant idea of trying to find the ugliest framed needlepoint owl I could from the 1960s to hang somewhere in my new house (all we're waiting on is final loan approval!). But there was not one needlepoint owl to be found on eBay.

So today I decided to try my hand at "thrifting" -- specifically for an ugly framed 1960s needlepoint owl or other fowl, but also any other delightfully tacky items I could find. In my neck of the woods, there's a large thrift store that contracts with a major hospital here to accept donations from patients. This thrift store sells these estate-sale-esque items and gives the proceeds back to the hospital. As far as I know, this translates to: A giant store full of dead people's things. Creepy.

I went to said store anyway looking for fun, retro items, but right when I stepped inside I knew I'd made a mistake. Instead of kitsch, there were a lot of sad wares likely once owned by old people. Things like horribly outdated teacups sitting tired in their equally outdated saucers. Once-clear glass figurines of things like little girls, sheep and acorns now tinted to a pale yellow with age. I passed a wall covered in old shoes that were never cool even in the decades they were from. "One dollar a pair," a sign read above the shelves. 

Though I wasn't there for clothing, I passed the "vintage" section and hesitated before pushing a couple hangers apart out of curiosity. Someone's wedding dress "from the 1950s," the tag read, hung in front of me. It was a beautiful dress, the style very in mode for that time period but now passe unless used for some kind of period party or photo shoot. It was the type of dress Elizabeth Taylor wore in Father of the Bride. The price? Fifteen dollars. For some reason the whole thing just made me really sad, that a long, long time ago, some woman's whole dreams probably culminated in wearing this exquisite white brocade dress that's now sitting in a smelly thrift store unable to sell for even $15. The woman who once owned it, I'm sure, had passed away already at the hospital. 

After that it was too hard to shop any longer in the store. Mostly because it just felt so wrong to be pilfering through dead peoples' things. Like all those things were haunted or something. Plus, anything I bought would remind me of that Godforsaken wedding dress I saw the same day. And yeah, I know, all antiques once belonged to people who are probably dead, but in times like this ignorance is bliss. Mama doesn't like dead people, and she especially doesn't like potentially haunted goods wreaking havoc in her house.

So I think today was the beginning and end of my thrifting journey. Ebay may need to suffice.

Gather 'round children, it's vintage time with Auntie C

So last week The Nana and I went to this Parisian flea market. It wasn't really a "flea market" per se, nor was it Parisian in that it was set in Paris, but it was basically a couple small warehouse rooms crammed full of antique French things like ceramic poodles, dainty pillbox hats, little Eiffel towers, jewelry boxes, lace everything, rings, bracelets, framed art, the list goes on and on. Imagine a Francophile having an orgasm and it would look like the innards of this warehouse. 

A group of ladies runs this "Parisian flea market" and they only open it to the public once a month after they've scoured the land for new trinkets and baubles and restocked their warehouse. As you can imagine it's a Big Deal with the antique crowd when this place opens its doors. (And of course, needing to be in on every Big Deal, I was there.)

I bought a few things, most notably this (prepare to be jealous):

And was ready to drop serious bread on a tiny empty glass perfume bottle, when Nana stopped me saying she had "a bunch" at home she could give me. "I didn't know you were into those kind of things," she said. "You can have mine." 

Um, okay. Since when do I not seem like I'd be "into those kind of things?" I die over vintage anything, even hideous carved wood wall art circa the Witco movement. She of all people knows this. Anyway, I was stoked about these alleged perfume bottles she owned, but also took her offer with a grain of salt. After all a few months ago I mentioned that I loooved vintage fur, especially mink stoles, and lo and behold, turned out The Nana owned a mink stole that she'd kept wrapped in the back of her closet for the last 60 years. 

She took it out and let me try it on and then said "no one could have it" (meaning my younger cousin had first dibs on it).

Concerning the perfume bottles Nana actually came through with her promise. She picked me up for lunch on Friday afternoon and handed me a little bag with these four perfume bottles:

These two specifically are my great grandmother's (her mother's) perfume bottles that were bought in the early 1940s and never opened:

The brand is Sortilege by La Galion and my great grandmother gave them to Nana as a going away present when Nana moved out to California with her husband and children in 1962. Since 1962 they have sat in the same house, in the same room, on the same bureau, until now. It's amazing to think that in the last 70 years or so of two womens' lives, these perfume bottles have been a constant. And now they enter my life and hopefully, when we have kids and they're grown, I'll pass them down and they'll be a constant in one of my daughter's lives.

But the best thing of all? After she handed me the perfumes, she pulled a little bag from her purse and said that she also wanted me to have her pearls from high school. Real pre-WWII pearls set on a swatch of satin with a little tag underneath that says Made in Japan. I just about died. They're exquisite and I can't wait to wear them:

Highs and lows, Oct. 17th edition

High:

I visited a used bookstore over the weekend and found a first-edition printing of "Sons and Lovers" by D.H. Lawrence. SCORE. For an antique-obsessed girl, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when I spied its cracked leather binding near the end of a dusty old bookshelf. The first thing I did when I pulled it off the shelf? Opened to somewhere in the middle, buried my nose into the pages and took one long, slow inhale. It smelled delightful, like time (if time had a smell):

Even better, when I opened to the first page (above) it had been signed by one of its many owners, with a date of 1923. Someone, about 90 years ago, read this exact copy and left her mark on it. Amazing! I wonder who she was? How old was she when she wrote her name on the title page? What ever happened to her? What compelled her to sign this copy on that December 21st? How was her Christmas spent a few days later? With family and friends, or all alone? All unanswerable questions, but the possibilities are endless and fascinating. I've tried Googling her, but nothing...

Low: 

We're not anywhere near purchasing our first home (whenever that may be), but I did have my eye on one I noticed was for sale a few weeks ago. It's an original 1959 Eichler that I grew somewhat obsessed with, driving by and marveling at its mid-century mod lines even though I knew it wasn't a reality for us anytime soon. But still, I tortured myself and went on coveting until the other day when I coasted by and saw that the "For Sale" out front was gone. The house was officially off the market. It's not the end of the world but I'm a little bummed out. Yet what did I expect? That the house would still be for sale in about two years when we'd be ready to buy? Perhaps. It would have been oh-so-cool to live in an Eichler abode: 

I'll just have to wait till another goes on sale in my area. Hopefully I'll be ready next time!