I feel like it was only about two days ago I was bemoaning the start of the new semester. Like most of my colleagues (and profs in solidarity worldwide), I felt burnt out before it even began. And suddenly I blinked and found myself on the threshold to October. I guess if there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that time chuggs steadily and relentlessly forward to the next station, whether we like it or not.
One of the reasons why I love vintage so much is because I feel like, in many ways, it finds me. Although I am always on the hunt, finding the perfect dress in the perfect moment never feels like an accident. Rather, it always seems fated that we would meet. Like I was somehow cherry picked from the crowd to be her temporary guardian, before she gently passes to the next chapter of her story.
Have you ever noticed that a certain degree of frenzied madness is almost always followed by what I will affectionately call The Blob Phase. I’m sure you know what I mean… Where you push yourself to the limit, shocked at what you are able to accomplish, only to subsequently devolve into a pile of goo. On such occasions, I find myself with my head in the clouds more often than not, where even the thought of writing an email feels like too much.
I’ve definitely had the sewing bug this past year. While I’ve been sewing for many years now, COVID has absolutely reignited something in me that has me cranking out more and more challenging projects. While I might have been a bit intimidated to tackle something before, there is definitely a “what have I got to lose?” mentality when I start to research a new piece.
In this day and age, I think it’s pretty important to make the most out of our wardrobes. If the pandemic has taught me anything, it’s how quickly our “normal” can switch on a dime…and how much less I truly need. Over the last year, I’ve been making a concerted effort to resist the temptation to acquire. Of course, buying vintage doesn’t come with quite the same footprint as buying new, but I still have noticed a small voice that got a lot louder this year telling me to slow down and appreciate the things that I have.
We all pull inspiration from a variety of sources and for a variety of reasons – either an outfit that you spied while walking down the street who’s vibe you want to emulate, to a perfect pristine flower bursting from the rosebush, to someone’s approach towards life – we all have our muses. The things you can point to that inspired a new part of yourself to come into being.
I remember watching Grease as a kid. I was always a huge fan of musicals (what can I say? People bursting into song really does it for me) and the poodle skirts had me at hello. As your quintessential “girl next door,” you might imagine I would dream of one day snagging the role of Sandy. But, I never liked the way she changed herself for a guy. Even at 15, I had the wherewithal to know that spandex and a boyfriend didn’t happiness make…
More often than not these days, I’m taking a bit of a hybrid approach to my dressing (and no, I’m not just talking about pairing a cute top that can be seen in my Zoom meetings with some snazzy pajama bottoms). We’re at that magical time of year when Mother Nature is refusing to commit to one temperature, criss-crossing between rain and drizzle and dazzling sun. Truth be told, this is my favorite time of year, because all of my velvet and felt Juli Lynne Charlot circle skirts can come out to play.
This is always the part of the semester where the exhaustion kicks in and you start counting down to fall break, visions of sloth-like movie watching and catching up on sewing projects dancing in my head. However, given this is no normal semester, I pretty much started the academic year already exhausted and, with fall break cancelled, there is no end in sight. The sloth-like movie watching and sewing, however, I still hope to fit in….
In a discussion awhile back with my fellow vintage maven Mimosa, we came to realize that we immediately associate certain prints or design details with certain people in our community. Almost as if they don’t have a name. Cat prints = Blue Wren Vintage. Floral = Jamie. Cactus prints = Rose. And (no shocker here), I am synonymous with trompe l’oeil. I’m not sure I even need to justify that one, as my heart literally faints when I see prints that trick the eye into thinking they’re actually leaping off the fabric…