The Assistant

Vintage 1950s robin's egg blue elbow-length nylon gloves, and pale blue wrist-length leather gloves.

I can’t believe I didn’t know it was International Cat Day this week, on Wednesday! How remiss of me. My little ginger Mimi loves to get involved when I am taking photos of clothing – like most cats she is extremely curious, and her antics are often very amusing.

Recently I decided that I needed to photograph all my vintage gloves, as my collection has been growing exponentially with all the vintage pairs I’ve been finding in thrift stores of late. I decided to enter them all into the cataloguing app I use for my hats, to make it easier to see exactly what I have when planning an outfit.

The iPhone app is called 'What’s in my Wardrobe' and has proven indispensable when I am trying to find a particular hat, as they are all stored in different hat boxes. There are various filters to enable quick selection and location of any given hat. The app is not designed specifically for hats; one can also use it for any type of item, as long as one has time to photograph and enter all the data.

Accordingly, I laid out a calico dropsheet and began the pleasurable task of photographing all my gloves. I was clearly having too much fun for Mimi though, and pointing the noisy glowing rectangle thing at something other than herself, so she thought she had better investigate this untoward occurrence immediately.

“What are these long things?” she sniffed curiously. “I don’t know, but I like them, and they are mine – and they will look better if I sit on top of them.”

She did the exact same thing a couple weeks later when I was photographing some new hats, and I could not get rid of my unwanted photographic assistant! At least I don’t have to pay her.

Call Me Ruth

It’s getting close to that time of year again: the turn of the seasons, when I face the daunting task of swapping my winter and summer wardrobes in and out of storage. That is the perfect time to do a wardrobe cull as well. However, my closet is currently bursting at the seams and I am pondering a mini-cull this weekend.

Seeing this picture, taken in March 2015 after a summer cull, of dozens of empty hangers is inspiring, but also daunting, as I suspect I won’t want to chuck so much this time.

Below are some even older photos, taken after a winter cull in December 2011. Winter garments hung in garment bags, ready for storage, and bags and bags of castoffs. Clearly I was particularly ruthless that weekend.

“If it doesn’t give you joy,
get rid of it.”

In the last year or so, I have found some amazing vintage items that have made my wardrobe explode, almost literally. I need to wrangle me some more room, and I just don’t know what I will be able to let go. I know all the rules: “If you haven’t worn it for six months, get rid of it …” bla bla bla. I prefer the newer injunction: “If it doesn’t give you joy, get rid of it.”

The problem with that is, it all gives me joy! I fear I shall be entirely ruth this time round.

Head in the Clouds

I often go about with my head in the clouds because I am usually daydreaming as I gaze about the world around me. But this morning I really had my head in the clouds because I was wearing a new 1930s marabou headscarf that had just arrived the day before. It is very fluffy, and light blue, and made me literally think of fluffy clouds.

Then as I walked out into the glorious sunshine of a crisp winter’s day, the beauty of the blue sky – covered all over with feathery white clouds, stunned me! How perfectly perfect, I thought. Here I am in Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens on my commute to work – the gardens as well as the sky make a lovely backdrop.

The scarf came from the aptly named shop A Flair for Drama on Etsy, and looks every better in real life than in photos. It is a delightful thing to wear (and very warm as well), and it’s just as pleasing to put a smile on other people’s faces too.

Life’s too short to wear a baseball cap! (Unless you’re going to the baseball.)

Photos: Today

That Thrilling Thrifting Feeling

I loved this grey silk blouse with a multitude of complicated pleating – but alas, it was a size or two too small.Who knows that heart-wrenching thrifting feeling when you find some fabulous item only to discover it doesn’t fit? Or it’s ruined somehow beyond repair? Or alternatively, that thrill when you stumble across some incredible, mind-boggling, once-in-a-lifetime find? I have been op-shopping for decades now, and I have hit both highs and lows.

Just look: HEART-SHAPED BUTTONS. (Sob.)A recent high was finding an antique Victorian pink wool cloak with cornelli embroidery and silk tasselled fringing, while a low was a gorgeous 50s dress and bolero set with a novelty London print (featuring the Buckingham Palace guardsmen in their bearskin hats) that was not only a little small for me but horribly ripped from some stupid person who had tried to squeeze themselves into it and torn the bodice asunder (not even on the seam). I could have wept! I was so overwrought in fact I forgot to photograph its wonderful print.

Here are some of my hits and misses of the past.

Periwinkle blue leather flats hardly worn? I won't say no!In fact, I also did not say no to the NEVER-worn black patent T-bar heels – they still had the original price sticker in them.I also took home this flocked cotton tee that charmed me in the store.I like matryoshka dolls, but I think I did not like the enormous size of this pendant (one time when I rejected exaggerated proportions!).So many shiny shoes! Remarkably I held my magpie tendencies in check and none came home with me.

A Tribute to Turquoise

I’ve often rhapsodised about one of my favourite colours, turquoise, on these pages; it is such a summery colour for me. Scrolling through my archives of fashionistamatics, I was amused to see quite a large number of items that had not yet seen the light of day: here are five of them, to celebrate the waning of the season.

First up is a picture of me on last Christmas Day, wearing a 1960s sequinned wool tank top (despite the how sunny the photo looks, it was not excessively hot that day in Melbourne) and a 1950s feather bandeau. I had decided to go full Christmas, and am wearing these with a red silk skirt, red heels, and candy-cane jewellery (my diamanté earrings are actually candy-canes!).

The woven straw bag I think is 50s or 60s and was a recent purchase in a thrift store, and the next snap is a detail of another beaded and sequinned 60s top, this time in a t-shirt shape. (I actually have a third as well, which has tassels, because why stop at one or two?)

The patent heels are a favourite pair of summer sandals that have that strange property of some hues that seem to change tone depending on what they are worn with. These, when paired with a slightly different shade of turquoise suddenly seem green – quite a magical effect! These shoes were bought on a sale website.

Finally, the little leather wallet was something I actually purchased retail. I loved the colour so much (unfortunately not captured very well on the iPhone 3S), and its convenient tiny size, I willingly paid quite a lot for it. I wore it out until the lovely turquoise turned grey – a bit like summer skies changing to autumn.

Photos: December 2017, February 2018, January 2018, May 2013, December 2011