Tatiana Takes A Trip

At Grandma’s in Surrey Hills :: Watts // Big Up // No flash

I hadn’t been to Sydney for years, particularly with leisure time to go vintage shopping. I had a friend who knew her way about Surrey Hills, but I had a stroke of luck at the airport the morning I left: I purchased the latest issue of Grazia for a pleasant hour’s plane reading material. Serendipitously there was a story on vintage shopping in it. Perfect!

Already familiar with the Melbourne boutiques listed, I was looking forward to checking out some of these legendary names: The Vintage Clothing Shop (very expensive I decided, at least compared with online vintage shopping, as well as with Melbourne prices), Zoo Emporium, Grandma Takes A Trip …

A Beguiling Trip :: Watts // Big Up // No flash

A Visit to the Zoo :: Watts // Big Up // No flash

The prices at the latter pair, as well as a few others I visited in the area, were much more reasonable, and on a par with shops at home. Zoo Emporium had a basement store that had slashed prices storewide by 50% – gotta love that. And at Grandma Takes A Trip I fell in love with an utterly frivolous white and black polka-dotted, ruched 80s party dress. But I already own a black and white polka-dotted tiered 80s party dress, and I really didn’t need to own its polar opposite. I dared not even try it on for fear I would be tempted. (It reminded me of Audrey Hepburn’s race dress in My Fair Lady – enough temptation.) My friend bought a gorgeous pair of impeccable vintage navy leather heels – 60s I think. Lucky, she with her tiny vintage-sized feet.

But I did not come away empty-handed: I scored an enormous hat at Zoo Emporium that I could foresee was going to cause me considerable trouble at the airport … but that’s a tale for another day.

Australian Grazia magazine, (first week of) March 2012 issue. Click image for larger version.