Vintage hand-me-downs

Since I began collecting/wearing vintage in my early/mid-teens I have had a lot of enthusiasm and support from those around me. My Mum often comes home from a day out with a wonderful dress she spotted at a country op-shop or a vintage store she just happened to duck into and my friends even have a few pieces in their wardrobes now from shopping trips with me. Something I have noticed a lot more since more people notice my style is the wonderful things that come out of the woodwork.

Clothes, jewelry, bags, shoes, hats it doesn’t matter… Some people have vintage pieces in the back of their wardrobe, hidden in their spare room or even in a box in their garage just collecting dust. Often it is something they have forgotten, and seeing vintage style simply jolts it back into their memory. It suddenly occurs to them that something that they no longer use, had forgotten about or wouldn’t have considered is sitting in garage when it could be bring joy to someone who cherishes that kind of thing.

People who know me often mention things they have at home that were passed onto them that I would probably like or even things they have picked up at op-shops for a fancy dress once. I have received many a glomesh purse from Family and Friends. It occurred to me that while I’m always over-joyed when I am given a new vintage goodie, the people who are giving are also happy that something perhaps their Nan or Mother once used it being used again and often comment on how “that’s what they would’ve wanted”.

I think vintage hand-me-downs is a win win situation, where something seemingly worthless to one can be a treasure to someone else. It does make me wonder though, how many people have wonderful vintage goodies stashed in their wardrobes, spare rooms, garages, attics etc that are just waiting for a new lease on life?

Have you ever been gifted any vintage goodies? Do people often tell you about things they have collecting dust at home and get shocked by your enthusiastic reaction?

Well, I was lucky enough to be on the receiving end of some vintage goodies just the other night…I was at a family friend’s house for dinner and she gestured to a pile of stuff she had been going through on the table. Her Mother had recently passed and she was sorting through her belongings… Everything had sticky notes on it saying who it had belonged to as some of it had belonged to her Mothers Mother.

She directed me to a pile that was kindly sticky noted “Nanny’s this” and “Nanny’s that” etc and said to have a look and I could keep anything I liked as she and her family had already sorted through everything and taken all the things they wanted. As she put it “I can’t keep everything and I would rather it go to someone who will use it or wear it and Mum would’ve preferred it that way”.

There was some lovely gold jewelry that her grandmother had painted and some other bits and pieces in zip lock bags. They were pretty but as I wear silver, white gold of costume jewelry I turned my attention to the rest of the pile…

I then came across a old Remington shaver box filled with costume jewelry that had belonged to her Nanny. It had several brooches, some screw on earrings (which is handy since my ear piercings closed years ago) and the odd necklace. All of it beautiful and well looked after…here are few pics of some of them:

-

Again, please excuse photo quality... these were taken on my mobile as my non-quality-photo-taking-anyway camera was flat...

There is also very cute marcasite brooch and screw on earrings, but the photos did not come up very well at all...

A week or so earlier this lovely Family Friend had come to my house for dinner and had kindly given me two other lovely vintage pieces. A cute little glomesh coin purse and a glomesh compact that has never been used. Oh and a cat statue! :)

-

-

-

I should be off to burlesque tonight and have a new installment of “Diary of Burlesque Beginner” for you sometime later this week, however I have been up since 5:30am this morning (thanks to the trains being stopped I have to be up that early to be at work by 9am!) so if I make it till the end of the day I will be even more uncoordinated lol. Perhaps I should invest in a bejeweled crash helmet to wear? hehe