Tales From A Vintage Wardrobe

Urban Vintage Bazaar~~It's Today!!!

Date:  Saturday 5 November 2011
Time:  Noon - 4:00pm
Where: Faunce Hall ~ Intersection of Brown & Waterman Streets ~
(Use 75 Waterman Street for GPS)
Brown  University ~ East Side ~ Providence, RI
Admission:  Free!
Who:  Open to students & the public

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See you there!!!

 

 

Fall Sale

October 5-31, 2011
Announcing our first ever Semi~Annual Fall Sale
at The Red Velvet Shoe!

All Items marked 50% Off in
our Etsy Shop as well.

Happy Sale Shopping!

 

 
 

Kimono Craze

I've had a bit of a "Kimono" thing going on lately.  It started when I found a great polished cotton cherry red one while out thrifting one day and decided it would be the perfect thing to wear when I am "beautifying"~~you know: masking, waxing, coloring, & painting myself in an effort to fend off the damages of time.  Considering it cost less than a Stella at my favorite watering hole, I can justify the chance of "ruining" it~~and it looks much more elegant than an oversized t~shirt & boxers.

 
 

A few weeks later, I scored this amazing vintage Haori and I was hooked.  You can, literally, wear it with just about anything from lingerie to jeans and it looks amazing.  I was in love.

 
When I saw this image from Dries Van Noten's Spring 2011 collection it caught my eye...not quite Haori or Kimono, but there was just something about it...

 

Then in March, I came across this little beauty: a vintage Pomare Hawaii Kimono style top with a keyhole neck & frog closure and just like the little piggy I carried it all the way home...because it reminded me of something I had seen but just could not seem to recall what or where...

 

Until I was flipping through my March issue of US Vogue and there it was:  an ad for the very same Dries Van Noten top!  

 
(photo source: Hollister Hovey)

To wrap it up, today I visited one of my favorite blogs of all time: Hollister Hovey.  And there she was, with her sister Porter, showing us exactly how to wear a Kimono perfectly. 

 

This one is for the shop and will have to feed your Kimono craze and not mine as we were not made for each other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Day at The Market

 

Coco sporting another one of my grandmother's fabulous vintage dresses. 

 

 

 

The Red Velvet Shoe's booth at The Top Shelf Flea III.

Christine of Carmen and Ginger.
 

Giuseppe of An Affordable Wardrobe, James of 10 Engines, Giuseppe once again and Zachary of Newton Street Vintage.
 

 

A collage of some fun & fashionable shoppers who visited our booth:  Starting at the top left and working clockwise:  Miss Sara, in her lovely cat eye glasses, scored two great 1950s dresses and an adorable pink cardigan, Laura searches through piles of vintage gloves, Remma & Laura leaving with bags full of goodies, including a hot pink & red caftan from Hawaii, one of the most adorable visitors of the day~~this tiny tot left with a lovely multi~colored pastel floral brooch pinned to her little sweater, my two nieces clowning around with some of our vintage hats, their Mom above them modeling a gorgeous hot pink silk dress from Peck & Peck, and a young lady with fire red hair checking out her look in a vintage straw hat.  

Thanks to everyone who came out to attend The Top Shelf Flea Market yesterday (it was most heartwarming to be reunited with some high school friends I haven't seen in over 25 years and to meet one friend's three beautiful daughters...), and especially those who visited my booth, shopped and spent some time chatting with me about our common love for vintage fashions & style.  This marked the third bi~annual Top Shelf Flea Market venue and I think it's safe to say it's on it's way to becoming another fine Boston tradition...

 
(Photo courtesy of Carmen & Ginger~thank you!)

 

Bags & Bananas at The Market

 
I finally received my new camera, but the week of the bi-annual Top Shelf Flea Market III was not exactly the best time to get a new gadget to figure out, as I'm up to my ear lobes tagging items & treasures to bring to Boston on Sunday.  I read through about half of the online manual (I thought someone said this is a very simple camera to use?!) and snapped a few photos from my studio of what I've been working on.  The jewelry photos were snapped prior to reading anything and the quality is terrible, so my apologies ahead of time. 

 

 

 

I'll be debuting a very small portion of a trunk full of vintage Banana Bob jewelry.  The company went out of business in the late 1990s, but in it's day made some lovely art deco & victorian inspired pieces with vintage and antique facets and findings.  Swarvovski crystals were used in many of the pieces, and most were hand crafted and hand painted, with many limited editions. The assortment I'm bringing to Boston Sunday are on the more casual side, but I am hoping to create a Vintage Jewelry floor in The Red Velvet Shoe and offering this gorgeous jewelry, as it has become highly collected & coveted.  If you are looking for a specific Banana Bob piece, please email me and I will gladly check my inventory for you. 

 
(Here is a sample of some of the more glamorous Banana Bob line that I found online...I'm quite certain I have this set, or something very similar.) 

Here is a collage of some of the purses I just packed up to bring along....I love the Etienne Aigner in the top left, it has such an equine look to it, and I won't be sad if it doesn't sell because, as you know, a girl can never have too many purses...The top right is a lovely paisley Margaret Smith / Gardiner Maine purse and the label, I believe, dates it to one of her earliest pieces from the 1940s. 

You'll find that (and much, much more!) Sunday at The Top Shelf Flea Market in Somerville/Boston, MA ~~ doors open at high noon.  See you there!
 

 

The Top Shelf Flea Market III Sunday 22 May 2011

 

 

It's that time of year, again....RSVP here. and save the date!

 

Sybil Connolly Sneak Peak

 
 

Now available at The Red Velvet Shoe....find it here. 

American Beauty

Meet Alyssa.  A California gal for most of her life until her New England genes kicked in and she headed East.  The iconic American Beauty.  And just as, if not more, beautiful on the inside.

I had this Henry Rosenfeld dress in my inventory for years.  As usual, a night of entertaining landed us downstairs in my "atelier/studio/workshop" and when she stepped out from behind the dressing room in this dress, I knew it had found a new home.  I don't know who was more excited~her for finding her dream vintage dress or me for helping them find each other. 

Just call me the "Emma" of vintage.

 

The Tortoise and The Hare

 

The Tortoise and The Hare
 
There once was a speedy hare who bragged about how fast he could run. Tired of hearing him boast, Slow and Steady, the tortoise, challenged him to a race. All the animals in the forest gathered to watch.
Hare ran down the road for a while and then and paused to rest. He looked back at Slow and Steady and cried out, "How do you expect to win this race when you are walking along at your slow, slow pace?"
Hare stretched himself out alongside the road and fell asleep, thinking, "There is plenty of time to relax."
Slow and Steady walked and walked. He never, ever stopped until he came to the finish line.
The animals who were watching cheered so loudly for Tortoise, they woke up Hare.
Hare stretched and yawned and began to run again, but it was too late. Tortoise was over the line.
After that, Hare always reminded himself,
"Don't brag about your lightning pace, for Slow and Steady won the race!"

I read an interesting blog post at Circa Vintage this morning and it got me to thinking about this beloved Aesop fable.  Circa Vintage resides in Australia and is the brain child of vintage clothing extraordinaire Nicole Jenkins.  She runs a brick & mortar vintage clothing shop in Melbourne, an online shop , has written a fabulous book "Love Vintage" , and she has also worked in costume hire, film, television, theatre and fashion in Australia and in the UK after studying costume design and construction at Perth Technical College and the WA Academy of Performing Arts. 

 

It was her list of what is involved in adding new items to her website that got me thinking:

"It’s quite a process – I’ll take you through it…the item is….

1 – Mended.
2 – Hand washed or dry cleaned.
3 – Checked for damage and mended again if needed.
4 – Measured and the particulars written up on a product sheet (if it’s a pattern we also check all the pieces are there)
5 – Photographed.
6 – The photo may be edited if needed, and is also renamed.
7 – The photos are loaded online.
8 – The content is added to the photos.
9 – More photos may be taken if details or damage have been overlooked.
11 – The item is published!
12 – If I really love it, I may post it to Facebook or Twitter too.

This process takes around 2 hours for each item and all four of us who work at Circa will handle it at some point as we all have different roles. Not surprisingly, there are currently lots of items that are at some point in the process so not all 1100 are published but quite a few are – if you’re looking for something and you can’t see it yet, stay tuned because every week more are being published."  (source: Circa Vintage)

Whenever I read posts such as this one, I have one of two reactions, depending how things are going for me.  I either:

1.) Feel vindicated and understood.  At least someone out there realizes the work involved in running an online vintage clothing store~~which is far different than simply an online store, where merchandise is brand new, wrapped in plastic or boxes and there are probably 500 of a particular item available, but only has to be listed once.  Not with vintage~~every item is unique and almost always needs TLC before any of the work can really begin.  If you want to be a respectable seller, that is.  We won't even go there today.

or

2.)  Feel completely overwhelmed & discouraged.  I look at the long list of steps involved~~and she's right, it is about 2 hours per item, whether the item is worth $12.00 or $1200.00~~and wonder how I will ever get it all done.  With the obligations of running a household (properly), being a parent, community & spiritual obligations, health & exercise, and making time for family & friends it is no wonder days will go by without even one single photo being snapped in my workshop.  Not one hem mended.  Not one dress brought to the dry cleaners.  Not one pair of shoes polished.  Nothing. None. Nada. 

When I read her post today, I felt a little of both.  My little one is home with a fever, a thick coating of ice gave us a 2 hour delay for school, so even if she were well, the morning is shot as far as getting any work done.  With her little pink cheeks and glassy eyes brimming with tears because she knows if the fever doesn't leave she won't be able to sing her solo perfomance in the school talent show this weekend, I submit to the ache in my heart for her and silently switch from Work mode to Mommy mode.....what's another day. 

"Slow and Steady won the race...."  even if we are down to a very slow crawl.

 

 

 

A New Facebook Page or Pass The Bottle, Please...

I will not bore you with the details of my day sitting at this keyboard frantically trying to figure out why my Facebook Business Page was gone.  I will simply inform you of the new page I created and remind you that washing down ibuprofen with Cabernet is not the worse thing that I could be doing right now . . .

The Red Velvet Shoe on Facebook