Delft!

My travels brought me back to the Dutch city of Delft, which on a Saturday is abuzz with activity. After finding a copy of "Elle" from 1966 (photos to come) at the antiques market, my husband Remko and I had our usual cup of tea at the Beesten Markt. We looked for a shirt for him at a shop that sells major European brands, and found nothing of interest. However, on the Beesten Markt, there is a "recycle" shop that sells furniture, house wears and clothes. And there, for a few Euros each, there were two shirts of the same brand that we had just seen a few streets away. No photos of the shirts in question, but photos of the shop which also had some wonderful chandeliers that I wish I could put up somewhere in my imaginary urban cool house.

Of vintage in the 3 ème and belts in particular

I checked out several vintage and consignment shops in the 3ème, and found them to be very pricey. Gilda's place stands out as the most fairly priced of them. They are bunched along the rue de Poitou, while Gilda is on rue du Temple.

I found my belt, navy blue and cream, apparently dating back to the 1970s. So, in other words, it might be an old belt from my teenage years for all I know. I resigned myself to the reality that belts are going to cost twenty euros at the bottom of the price scale if bought used. There was another belt made out of crocodile skin that was really beautiful, but I passed it up because I knew that I didn't really need it. There was also a lovely warm tweed blazer with a fur collar. It might have been seal skin fur, which is quite upsetting -- and so is crocodile skin for that matter. Both are rare now because hunting those animals for their skin has been outlawed. I've hit upon the morality of buying objects that are no longer allowed to be made, hence their rarity, hence their value but also their unique beauty. The morality in beauty. The morality in being unique.

Paris consignment shops, Montparnasse

Last night, it rained hard after I came out of the movie theater where I saw, for those retro, nostalgia enthusiasts, yet another movie that minutely reconstitutes the 1980s, "Camille redouble."

I stumbled upon a small consignment shop located on rue Delambre called Juliette Chic with a nice selection of upscale clothes at reasonable prices. A very chic older woman walked in with a pair of wedge ballerina style shoes that, according to her, she was pressured into buying by her daughters who were encouraging her to look more "tendance." She could not wear them, time to consign a brand new pair of shoes.

If you're looking for an Hermès Birkin bag, this store is for you. Otherwise, there are two other consignment shops that I stumbled upon. "Le Grenier d'Anaïs" on rue de Fleurus (a popular name for a consignment shop, there was one in Toulouse as I recall; rue de Fleurus btw is where Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas held court) had all their clothes wired together, to prevent theft, which made it difficult to really have a look. "Misantroc" on rue Notre-Dame des Champs was more my kind of place. Lots of coats, pants, dresses,skirts ranging from fifty to one hundred euros. The owner claims that 1. she is seventy years old (I hope to look that good when I get to be her age) and 2. to be the first consignment shop in Paris. Today, I head to the 3ème arrondissement for a fashion students' show of their designs. I will make time for a little wandering around in search of that district's abundance of consignment shops.

From New York to Paris

Here I am again in France, poor poor me. Seriously, it’s for work (I teach French at an American university that runs its own off-campus programs.) Before heading to Paris, I stopped in New York City to check in on my parents and daughter Clara who is a freshman at the New School. She has decided to wear lipstick, and incarnate a 1920s persona. Wearing an old hat of mine and a pair of shoes that were custom made for me in Lyon back in the 1990s, she greeted me with her usual thrifted assemblage.

We met up with her friend Ada who also wears funky thrifted things. I don’t have a photo of her from NY, but I do have one from Edinburgh where Clara and she became friends, at the Fringe Festival. In New York, she was carrying a beautiful leather briefcaselike bag that she had found in Italy. I wish I had a photo of it.

After a couple of days in New York City, I flew to Paris where I met up with my friend Elsa who had herself just flown back from Los Angeles where she had been doing research on a Fullbright grant. And done plenty of thrifting herself. Yesterday in Paris, she was wearing clothes she had found in LA thrift stores.

We met at the store Antoine et Lili Déco, which sells home decoration items made from recycled materials and fair trade. Her friend Sonia was there too, furnishing her apartment. She too likes thrifting, and she was wearing an Hermès scarf that was given to her by her mom who had herself found it in a thrift store.

All these young women who are shopping at second hand stores. They go there because it’s fun, you can find something unique to wear, it’s environmentally correct … and it’s cheap. It’s really odd the contrast between those obsessive new store shoppers, crowding the sidewalks of Soho in New York and rue de Rennes in Paris, and the more trendy ones who tend to migrate to more working class districts to shop, which results in gentrifying the neighborhood really. Because they not only shop for clothes, they also stop at a café for a drink or a meal. The all male working class bars are fast becoming trendy as well. Having a waiter rudely tell you that they only have croque monsieur and a couple of beers on tap (not artisanal, please) makes the experience even more authentic.

What I found today as I headed to the department store Le Bon Marché to look at the windows that Persepolis author and illustrator Marjane Satrapi had designed was a street taken over by little TJ Maxxes. A very chic and bourgeois street was turning into a bargain place to shop. The irony is that Emile Zola, in The Ladies’ Paradise, a novel based on the founding of Le Bon Marché, had predicted the demise of the small shops. Instead, department stores are now closing their doors and being replaced by multi floored Zaras and H and Ms, or the FNAC, the record and electronics store that also happens to sell books (for how much longer, lord only knows). And small shops are thriving, getting rid of last year's unwanted models. *** The streets of Paris are filled with androgynous looking males and females, nannies and young student aged women pushing strollers and entertaining the children of the bourgeoisie, bourgeois women fighting boredom.

I was on a halfhearted quest. To go with my new mustard corduroy Gap pants, my only purchase so far this trip, I needed a belt. I was looking for a cheap leather belt that was in good condition. I didn’t find one, but I did have a nice chat with a woman who runs a vintage store on rue Sainte Placide.

This trip, I feel like I have all the clothes I need. It’s about time I reached the feeling of saturation.

Bill Cunningham's NY

Just watched the movie, yes, I'm probably a bit late seeing THE film about snapping street fashion and the love of clothes. The film also brought me back to my New York days, when I worked in a very grueling world of film and photography, so grueling that I couldn't imagine staying in it all of my adult life. Cunningham loved his work so much that he made is his life. I admire that in people who are so driven and so passionate, that they do that and only that. His family became the people he photographed and worked with. A big family indeed.

Elsa the mechanic

My friend Elsa who is living in LA this summer: vintage car (well, used) and the little white purse she purchased at a vintage store in Lyon. I hope she doesn't accidentally splatter car grease all over it!

The House of Eliott

       My husband has introduced me to a BBC series from the 1990s entitled "The House of Eliott." I am hooked. A bit too sentimental at times, this series does capture very nicely an era -- the 1920s -- during which women entered the workplace and played a larger role in the general economy. I especially appreciate the scenes showing women's work relationships, from their extreme cattiness to a more sisterly approach.

       Of course, the owners of the business are literally sisters. And in its slightly feminocentric way, we see the whole patriarchal establishment cut to pieces. The portrayal of the banker as figure of manipulation and corruption, the force behind the entire enterprise, is right on.

       One also gains an appreciation for all the work that goes into making an item of clothing, from the design, to the cutting of the fabric, the sewing, the decorating (beading was very big in those days), the fitting, the refitting. Clearly, those were the days when a woman spent as much time preparing the garment and preparing for the garment than actually wearing it. For those of us who love clothes, this show is for us: the clothes, the accessories, the jewelry, the fabrics, the hairstyles.

      I noticed that recent collar styles, like this sweater that I bought at the Gap (the dress is from a consignment shop in Paris) must be borrowing from that era. I am borrowing the baby from a Dutch relative.

But what I have also loved in this series is the language. I love the way the characters address touchy subjects very carefully. The use of the pause, or silence, when it is best not to say anything. The beginnings of sentences that cushion the blow of the latter part of the sentence. Here are some examples:

"Forgive me but..."
"I'm afraid that..."
"I hope that"
 "I hope that..." can "cushion" more when you add "you won't mind that..." as in "I hope you won't mind that..."
"I'm sorry that..."
"I suppose that ..."
 It also makes an impression when you use multiple syllable words that allow you to accentuate a syllable and slow down your delivery. Words like "disgraceful," "unpleasantness," "intransigent," "unsuitable," and my favorite, "subterfuge."
 And if all else fails, give that cognac glass a double bing with your fingers.