Heck in a dress

In my last post I mentioned a five hundred dollar dress at a op shop (or thrift store if you will) I was rootling through over the weekend. Sheila, a reader with whom I am certain I share an op-shopping gene, asked what the heck kind of dress could it have been?

I would love to report that it was an original mint condition Fortuny in a pale custard coloured silk, or the wild red frothy hip-clinging number from La Dolce Vita. It was nothing as exciting, but it was elegant, quite practical and looked a lot like this. Not exactly, but by the same designer (Betty Jackson), and in a very similar shape and shade. In short, it was a great work dress and in very good if not new condition.

And I was in a rather posh part of Sydney, miles away from my usual stamping ground. I had no doubt the local charity shops would be pricey.

Perhaps I should offer a case for the defence here? I have been doing the rounds of op shops since I was a little girl for my mother was also a champion op-shopper. I grew up wearing second clothes; some of my favourite, best loved items have been found on the racks and shelves of op shops. I love the process, I love the results: things are donated, they are priced reasonably, the money goes to a good cause and I get a great dress. I'm also happy to pay a fair price for an item - $30 to me is a good price for a clean, practical garment that I know I will wear. I would have handed over $50 for this dress.

In fact, I was certain the tag on the dress was a mistake, that they had meant to price it as $50. I asked the lady in the apron behind the counter. "Is this meant to be $500?"

She creased her brow and shook her head. "I don't think so, but I'll check."

I followed her out to the back where she had a hushed conversation with other apron ladies of the shop. About as much as I could glean is that the dress had come in with a particularly impressive load of designer clothes and they had all been priced very high. "It's $500 dollars," the boss apron lady said.

$500? It wouldn't have cost that much new.

I put it back on the rack. I have a lot of respect and admiration for the Salvation Army but I feel their pricing policies, and indeed a little bit of the fun of op shopping, jumped the shark on Saturday.

But it wasn't a complete loss. There were brooches, a lovely old hair clip and some very hard-to-find Liberty bangles.

I washed the Liberty bangles in a lingerie bag on the gentle cycle in my rather snarky washing machine. I thought they came up rather nicely. The bangles, I should add, were much more in line with op-shop pricing at fifty cents each. The jewellery was eight dollars a piece. I wore the blue bangle with this dress today.

Perfectly valid, up in smoke and so forth

Now you know why I haven't been able to blog for more than a week. There was a very bad fire in our street. Two houses and two factories were destroyed. No one was injured but two sets of neighbours lost everything, although I am happy to report firemen saved a pet rat and pet cat, both of whom were found huddled together in the old stone laundry at the back of one of the houses. No one could save the the Internet though, at least not the tendrils that reach my house and that melted in the heat.

The upside is that I have many posts prepared for the coming the week. The lesser downside (that is, as opposed to the greater downside of the damage and the loss) is that I did get a little over enthusiastic when my Internet connection was restored and I made rather a nuisance of myself on eBay. But I need a bottle of Cabochard, I reasoned. I witnessed a horrible fire. I need another handbag. It makes my inevitable mortality seem less important.

There are no other upsides or downsides, but there is this tangent:

How does Kate do this? I don't know. My only conclusion is that her spine can actually turn like a curtain rail. It has been hot today and she has adopted this pose three times in three different locations. Every time she does, I stand over her and stare. It's becoming a bit of a habit for both of us.

If you're around this week - and I hope most fervently that you will be - I will explain to you how recognising this this ...
...helped me accumulate these:
And I'll tell you what I bought at the thrift shop where they had tagged a dress $500. Yes, five hundred. Here is a clue: I didn't buy that dress.

Before I go, let's ponder it once again:


She must have ball bearings somewhere near her shoulder blades.

Talking the right language

Here is a face that says gidday if ever I've seen one (and obviously I've seen lots around here). I snapped this gentleman in the Blue Mountains a few weeks ago. He was quite amiable about the first photo but when I moved tad closer he turned his face and dropped his smile. I admired his communication skills.

Today I had to talk to our finance guy. I'm sure you have a finance guy too, the senior management guy in the company who runs all the corporate affairs. I dreaded this call because I never feel that I can make myself understood in our conversations. I don't think he enjoys the calls any more than I do but today we struck a happy medium and the conversation was crystal clear: He had shortened some text I needed for a document and explained this edit as producing an "eloquent sufficiency".

I was mightily impressed.

Later this afternoon I had call to email a brave friend some Mary Oliver -

clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.

and he understood exactly what was meant.

It interesting how we can make ourselves understood, I thought tonight as I pounded away on the treadmill, sweating away the last traces of poisonous cottage cheese. We wrinkle up our nose, use single syllable words, adopt an accent - all kinds of things to get our message across. Clothes are language, I decided. Suits are full sentences, skirts are verbs, blouses are adjectives and these, part of my staples for the Spring I'm assured will be here any minute, are my semi colon:


And this, an old friend with lovely manners...
is an a-line Tara Jarmon dress that I've cropped to emphasis the buttons, which must be fullstops.

Do you have any language in your wardrobe? Are your earrings apostrophes? Do you have a full palette of exclamation marks? Tell me - I'd love to improve my language skills!

Colour therapy

A long time between drinks - not intentional, more the result of a busy job and a bout of self-inflicted illness. I did the Dukan diet for a week and truly believe I poisoned myself with cottage cheese. To redeem myself and restore order to my world I present a small presentation called Primary Colours. It stars three necklaces:


This wonderful bold piece is from an op shop on the NSW south coast. I was on a road trip with an old treasured friend who indulged me with stops at all the little towns where there were op shops. She was driving (I can't) and sang Kookaburra Kookaburra What's So Funny from Sydney to the edge of the Great Ocean Road and back again. The beads are glass and the clasp is silver and marcasites. The beads work wonders with a plain white shirt and black skirt and cost me a dollar.


These subtle cloudy beads are from the farmer's market in Bayeux. Among the stalls filled with eggs, breads of every colour and texture, vegetables, live chickens and fruits was a man who seemed to know the location and contents of every basement and shed in France. He had a wonderful array of things - most of which were broken and charming - and in amongst his clutter were these. I love the clasp, I love their cool weight. And yes, I definitely saw the tapestry. I had studied it at University and argued an hour with my tutor that the tapestry was made by women. When I saw it close up I knew straight away I'd been wrong: it was definitely made by men. I wondered if I should write my old tutor a letter. Anyway, a wonderful glass necklace with a beautiful sterling silver clasp. Five euros. I wear these with grey and purple dresses and am always delighted by how they wake up a plain white white jumper.

These are the second last last thing I bought in New York. They are as heavy as a bag of bears and are unmatched for juicy citrus cheer when the sun hits them. I assume they are citrine quartz but when I wear them I am convinced they are citrines, the rarest and most precious of gems. They're from the Sloane Kettering Thrift Store on Third Avenue, a thrift store that changed my view of op-shopping for all time. They were expensive - $120 - but I was flying back to Sydney that afternoon and very sad to be leaving the city that looked after us so well for eighteen days. The last thing I bought in New York was a bowl of oatmeal and coffee in EJ's diner. (Just the thought makes me want a cup of diner coffee with some half and half.) I love wearing these beads - they look perfect with floral dresses, silk blouses and tweed jackets - every time I wear them I remember something else I love about New York.

We don't always know the reasons

Last Sunday I went to the local community fair. It was raining and extremely cold, so the walk - and the fact I was meeting my partner who was manning an anti-development stall - were the main reasons I was exercising my boots.

On may way I stopped at the local thrift shops but there was nothing there for me.

The fair, I figured, would not offer more than fried food and incense, so imagine my squealing pleasure when I walked past a community information store that had a table of jumble for sale. The two older ladies who ran the store were having sausage sandwiches and a cup of tea.

And then I spotted her.


She's leather and some kind of indescribable fuzzy but remarkably soft acrylic.

For four dollars.

The Bag Lady's Breakfast: a tragedy in four acts

Act one - The Choice. It's 7.35am. A nifty a-frame hand bag is chosen by the baglady. (Black leather Oroton, circa 1985, purchased last year for $6.00 at a local op shop)



Act two - The Breakfast. 7.37am. The bag lady pre-packages her start to the day, to be eaten in the office over the morning papers and the early morning emails. It's a mix of three commercial cereals - little cinnamon flavoured bran pillows, toasted muesli made by a colony of Seventh Day Adventists on the north coast & some bran flakes studded with little jewels of dried cranberry, all contained in a minimalist glossy black container that once held won ton soup.



Act three - The Lock Out. 7.39am. The bag will not accept the breakfast. Tears are shed, the next bus is in seven minutes. A decision must be made.



Act four - The Ride. 7.50am. Another bus trip but the bag lady sits on the other side of the bus, pointedly ignoring any great handbag statements that might be uttered on the bus stops outside. Her large bag smirks to itself as it forms a bruise on the bag lady's thigh.

It's in the bag with everything else

That there is my brown silk '40s handbag with the Lucite clasp. It can hold with quiet grace my phone, some lippies, a hankie, a biro, my ipod. wallet, sunglasses and maybe some jellybeans if necessary.
This is the most recent addition to my vintage bag collection. Many of you will recognise it for what it is - a Coach saddlebag from the early 80s. It can hold roughly the same quantity of stuff as the brown bag.

These bags indicate roughly what I carry around on the weekend. Basic stuff.

You've seen my work bag. Here is the edited content's of said bag's stomach.

I say edited because frequently there will also be a couple of newspapers, a magazine, some shoes if I've changed from my heels, spare pantyhose, a piece of fruit, teabags, a cardigan, a bottle of water, several biros of dubious heritage and probably some more lippies in amongst the partly digested contents.

This morning I sat mooching on the bus, crushed under the weight of my handbag, admiring all the women I could see standing at the bus stop down in Annandale. And then I saw her, a tall woman wearing a wonderful combination of black, grey and cream, artfully fossicking for her bus ticket in a handbag. A plain black vintage handbag of modest dimensions, a bag like any number of bags I have stashed on shelves and in cupboards. Ms Black-Greycream was carrying a regular sized bag as her handbag.

After all these years of lugging my giant bags, it occured to me right there that I want what she's having. I want to carry a regular sized bag to work. A smallish bag with the basic necessities. No newspapers, no pantyhose, no freakishly large apples, no extraneous lippies.

I plan to do it tomorrow. I will be the unencumbered cool drink of water up the back of the bus, neat handbag on her knee, travelling on her bare necessities. What could possibly go wrong?