I went up to the Bondi Junction shop “After A Fashion” which is one of several charity shops of the Presbyterian Church in Australia. They have a really clean and well organized shop with all their clothes in categories ie skirts, tops, jackets, coats and dresses. A really good feature is the large sizes section, after Australia was named yesterday by a study as the fattest nation on earth this seems like a good idea! Of course there is the problem of larger sizes being so hard to find that they are in limited supply in second hand shops because unless you outgrow them, or lose weight, they are very rarely disposed of in this fashion.
There were a lot of size 26 and a lot of size 14 and in my size [16] several knee length coats of the type that were in fashion several years ago. I did not buy them however as I would have to take them up to modernise them and also they were more appropriate for office workers than for my slightly bohemian take on classics. I am now wary of buying anything new from stores that is the height of fashion as it really does date an item…all those handkerchief hemmed skirts I bought a few years ago are now a dead giveaway of that period, same with the peasant skirts that were everywhere last winter….though I am happy to store all these against the eventual return of the style in ten or twenty years! Although I have to say that they do look good dressed up with strappy heels and jewellery…..thing is to have variety I guess. I also think that velvets and silks and mixtures of those never really date as long as you keep the rest of your outfit current.
So this week I found a couch cover…[$49 new still had label] for $12 in a colour I would actually use and a vase to go with my oriental collection [new] $3, also another little hand embroidered doily for 50cents and a simply divine little dessert or fruit dish for $3, it is Royal Tudor Ware by Barker Bros Ltd England. The pattern is lilactime…so far I have only been able to find information about chintzware in lilactime but it seems to have been from around 1940. Also found out something I did not know about Royal Kent china….a lot of the original molds were made by Jewish internees in Walbrzych, Poland from concentration camps…it does focus the mind somewhat, doesn’t it?
So anyway the haul this week was $18.50
I have decided to feature a previous spectacular buy each time I do a thrifting post….this time it is my all time favourite find ever! A handcrafted by a tailor no less cotton velvet fitted yet flowing jacket in my favorite shade of purple. This little beauty was purchased along with a navy silk shantung pant suit with a teal silk chiffon camisole and a white linen camisole with hand finished embellishments and a white swiss voile shirt with pintucks. All by the same tailor and all the most exquisitely worked and fitted that I have ever seen. The jacket fits as if it were made for me, last winter when I wore it to little bistros in the city I had waiters in their twenties who were Oscar Wilde lookalikes swooning …..all the more when I said it was from Vinnies and I paid $12 for it!! Thank goodness it is winter now and cold enough to wear it…think I will take it into the city next week…its nice to have gorgeous twenty something young men swooning over me…even if it is only for my purple beauty.
