a very inspiring documentary about older women in the UK

fabulous fashionistas

what is vintage?

Here is somebody who wrote a nice piece on that very question. Well worth a read...

http://sociallifeof2ndhandclothes.com/2013/05/27/is-it-vintage-retro-or-secondhand-identify-that-retrorama-dress/

Guys like used clothes too

I have not deliberately excluded men from this blog. Men who take their time shopping for clothes have only just recently surfaced into my life. One is my office neighbor Scott who one day was wearing this lovely tweed jacket.

The lining on the jacket is a wonderful golden silk, and the pink tie goes beautifully well with the sylvan green.
Another male friend who enjoys shopping for clothes in second hand shops is Davide from Italy. On a recent trip to Montreal, he ended up in the exact same shop as I had, in Outremont, where he purchased this coat, made at the Woonsocket woolen mills in  Rhode Island.

On his final day of his visit to New Hampshire, I asked him if he would be interested in my old Barbour raincoat. I loved that raincoat, but because it was a man's size, the arms were too long and I always had to roll up the sleeves.  He tried it on, and it fit him to a tee. I was so pleased to pass that Barbour on to somebody who clearly was very excited to become its next owner!

People travel, clothes travel too. I wish people would place a map inside the pocket of a coat that they have traveled with and are leaving at a consignment shop, just to keep the story going. Woonsocket to Montreal to Italy. England to New Hampshire to Italy. To...….?

 Finally, there is my new "coinquilino" and colleague Jonathan, in a Filson jacket he found on sale in Italy. Not used, but still a classic find that he will likely wear for a long time. 

Young New York City feminists

I spent a quick weekend in New York City with my daughter Clara and her friend Jasmine who introduced me to the young feminist scene at a book reading on Prince Street. I had never heard of Chris Kraus, but now I am intrigued. I would like to unearth the rivalry between the two Simones she refers to in her book, Simone de Beauvoir and Simone Veil.

This blog began with pseudo feminist musings on clothing as merchandise that could be exchanged outside the normal monetary circuit. But thinking about the two Simones, and what they would say about our clothes obsessed culture, I have to assume that the recent fire in a clothes factory in Bangladesh that killed over one thousand workers would outrage the left leaning blue collar sympathizing Veil. Meanwhile, de Beauvoir would just shrug it off as another excess from the decadent capitalists, while readjusting her turbaned head.
We must stop buying clothes at dirt cheap prices. I don't want to put Bangladeshis out of work, and there lies the conundrum, I know.  There will always be cheap labor. And there will always be narcissism. And there will always be a desire to escape one's identity and adopt one seen in a photograph somewhere.

Kindred spirit

Over the summer, I met new people who moved into my town. Laura was wearing this incredible necklace made from zippers at an event celebrating the centennial of a "masque" or informal performance that was written and performed by members of the Cornish artists' colony at the beginning of the twentieth century. Glad to have met a new soul mate!

Montreal!

The crossing of Saint-Laurent and Duluth is quite the vintage clothing hub

I just spent five days in Montreal, the city I call the "mistress that never disappoints." I don't know why I don't say "lover." Perhaps it's because I think of Montreal as female, all cities are female in French (LA ville). I go to Montreal about once a year, since it's not that far away from where I live geographically, but it's quite another world from rural New Hampshire.

I rented a studio on the Plateau this time, because I wanted to be very independent and to become a part of the neighborhood. At Fromentin on rue Laurier I did chat quite a bit with the cheese sellers, who were both from France originally, and sampled some exquisite cow's milk and goat's milk (locally produced) wonders.

The tiny restaurant "La Sardine" on rue Fairmount, the heart of Mile End

rue Laurier on the Plateau

Montreal is also bicycling heaven, with the bike share system known as BIXI scattered everywhere. I took full advantage of the BIXI hub located just outside my apartment, and biked all over, enjoying the safety of the dedicated lanes.

One afternoon, as I was plopping my credit card into the slot of the BIXI machine in order to release a bike, I noticed to my horror that someone had forgotten theirs. Knowing that Montrealers love to help each other out, I simply asked a passer by for advice. He advised me to look for the nearest bank, which meant heading west to Saint-Denis. While waiting for the "lumière" to change (the French say "feu" or fire, the Québécois use the anglicized "light"), I asked another bicyclist where the nearest "Desjardin" bank branch was located. She sent me to Saint-Laurent, but there was no teller service, just the machines. Again I asked someone using the machines where the nearest branch was, and he sent me to Outremont. 

With my trusty BIXI bike in tow, I zipped over to rue Bernard, the main shopping artery of Outremont, but also the most ethnically diverse street in North America, where tatooed hipsters share the sidewalk with Hasidic mothers and their tots, Hasidic men in their archaic garb, regular folks like you and me, beggars, not to mention the bourgeoisie that make up a big part of this very mixed neighborhood. My Montreal friend Sylvie told me that there are three Outremont, "Outremont ma chère, Outremont cachère et Outremont pas cher" (the translation loses the pun but here it goes: "Outremont my dear, as in expensive, kosher Outremont, and cheap Outremont). After dropping off the abandoned credit card at the Desjardin branch on rue Bernard, I also left the Bixi bike at the nearest hub, and began the long walk back to the apartment. 

A vintage store grabbed my attention immediately, and I thought that perhaps this whole ordeal with the abandoned credit card was some greater power's way of leading me inside this lovely place where everything was on sale.

I picked up a yellow and grey striped shirt and a red cotton wrap dress, nice comfortable clothes to finish out the summer.

*****

For good measure, I photographed the line of vintage shops on Saint-Laurent, but honestly, the atmosphere in that neighborhood has become a bit too studenty/ honky tonk. I much prefer the quieter, more subdued atmosphere of the Mile End district, adjoining Outremont and the Plateau. 

Summer day trips

Two friends and I traveled to Williamstown and North Adams, MA to visit the Clark Art Institute   and the Mass MOCA.


At the Clark, they have shawls for people who might be cold from the air conditioning, rather an unusual offering for a museum. At Mass MOCA we were treated to quite the maze of exhibits, including three floors of Sol LeWitt, and two gigantic birds made out of industrial waste.

It wasn't until I got home and downloaded this photo on my computer, taken in Wilmington, Vermont, on our way to Marlboro for the music festival, that I realized that I was wearing consignment clothing. I tried to dress comfortably, and once again consignment clothing came in quite handy. The shirt is from a consignment shop in Angoulême France, and is a "Comptoir des Cotonniers" brand. The linen skirt is from a new consignment shop on West Broadway in Soho, New York City. The sweater I bought on sale at the Gap years ago. I like the way it brightens up an otherwise darkish outfit.

Normally I would have worn my new bad assed Doc Martens sandals that I had brought back from Portland, Oregon. But somehow, they're like boa constrictors because they seem to progressively tighten up around the front of the foot. So I opted for sneakers instead.

We ended up having a light supper in Wilmington, Vermont, before finishing the day at the Marlboro Music Festival. While watching people file into the auditorium, I caught a glimpse of a tall older woman whom I had spotted back at the Clark earlier that day. I want to make a blog entry that consists of older women who know how to pull together an outfit that makes age look elegant. Her silver hair was cropped at the neck, she wore a loose linen blouse and white pants if I remember correctly. I think she also had a shawl. Bill Cunningham  remarks that air conditioning is dictating fashion. Hence my red sweater...