Things that make you go missing

Apologies for the gap in blogging. On Friday night the breaking news woke the ghosts of my career past and I was glued to television, watching news of the Japanese tsunami until I cold bear it no longer. Other things kept me at bay over the weekend, including some unexpected human drama on Sunday when one of my cats brought us home a rat. 


The rat was not especially pleased and ran down the hallway to hide under some shoes. After hours of tense negotiation the rat surrendered and was taken to the lane way for a debrief and relocation. I understand the rat in question was issued with new papers and has now assumed another identity (hopefully as a rat I will never meet again).   


Normal shillings transmission has been resumed. 


Alert readers will recall I have been going on (and on) about my collection of vintage Gucci bags and finished my last post by promising a post on my favourite. This is her. 

This caramel-coloured oblong of lizard skin loveliness is one of my favourite possessions. I bought her on eBay, one of those rare purchases where the seller had not used very good keywords and few photos so hardly any one looked at (or bid for) this. I ended up paying about $25. She arrived in magnificent condition. 


I use her for evening engagements mostly and find her to be aloof and elegant. Her neutral shade goes with every thing and her gold plated hard ware twinkles under electric light. Most of the big labels used gold plating on their hardware - in those days you got what you paid for.


Despite her sleek appearance, she's roomy and very practical. Her strap can be doubled over so she sits neatly under your arm, Mary Tyler Moore style. My lovely bag can carry a full kit of supplies and you can fit photos, business cards or a phone in her back pocket. 

Her belly is lined with suede. 

She is also my most valuable Gucci, so I keep her zipped up in an old lingerie case. Dust bags, or sleepers as they are sometimes called, are not just status symbols but help maintain the quality of your bag. Dust can dry leather and - if the leather is pale- cause shadowy stains that no amount of cleaning will shift. Dust combined with moist summery air can cause mildew which you may be able to brush off, but it will leave marks on the leather.  If you can manage it, keeping your bags in a cloth covering will prevent dust damage and prolong their life markedly. Not many bags come with sleepers so I use old pillow cases that I buy for pennies from thrift stores. Old scarves or just pieces of fabric would be just as effective.  


And so, another bag. I'm depending on you to advise me if I have rabbited on long enough about the bags already. If you want to meet more, let me know. Otherwise I will make a point of wearing something colourful tomorrow. 


I have no photos of the rat, but here's the clown who brought it home. 

A flash of colour, like a parrot's wing

Today's example is one of my favourites for she ticks lots of boxes: 
*Flea market find
*Fabulous condition
*An unusual design
*Very practical - roomy and plain
*Reasonable price ($35)
*Always makes me happy when I wear it. 


Allow me to introduce Orange: 

I bought her a couple of years ago at the Kirribilli Markets in Sydney. The seller told me that Orange was bought in the United States in the late 70s but never used. (I like to think she's from Florida.)


Her long strap is detachable but she hates being carried as a clutch. Nor is Orange is interested in casual outfits; I've tried to do a dressed-down look with her many times and she just won't work. She's a at her best with heels, eye makeup and a frock. Her hardware is interesting  - the label is actually printed on a gold lozenge. 

Those nameplates are a sure fire way to pick an authentic bag.  The real McCoy will be screwed to the bag, not glued. Feel it gently, and you'll will be able to feel small bumps on the back of the plate through the leather. This works for Fendi and Prada too, both of whom fix name plates to their bags with tiny screws. Next time you see a fake Prada bag, have a look at the little triangular plate on the outside of the bag. It'll be glued on. Like stitching the bag together, this requires skill and care and is an expensive process. Fake bag makers cut costs and staff their factories with cheap labour who operate machines, not people who are actually trained to work with leather. 


Here's the Orange centrefold shot: 

I love that colour. Just thinking about this post this morning made me happy and disinclined towards black. I've omitted outfit posts for days because I've been a symphony of black. Today I wore navy, lilac and snow.

What we have here is

*a navy jacket from Von Troska's sale last year

*a silk Witchery blouse I found, still with its tags attached, in an op shop for five dollars
*a Veronika Maine skirt and 
*a Stephen Collins belt from another op shop ($3). I love this belt. 

I'm also very fond of the earrings (gold and aquamarine, another Kirribilli Markets score) and a purple pendant (Czech, from the Alameda markets). 

So there you have it - the bag that makes everything technicolour. 

What's your favourite colour  ? 

Some things cannot be separated

We were talking about my vintage Gucci bags. 


Some collectors find it hard to remember the things they collect are just things. I'm one of those collectors, the person who assigns genders and personalities to all inanimate objects. I learnt this from my mother who, when I was growing up, anthropomorphised everything in our home from teaspoons to the clothesline. Tablecloths had personalities, books felt pain, the iron had emotions. Everything we used had a heart. 


Not surprisingly, all my bags have genders and personalities. Some are even related, like this pair of Guccis I found at a garage sale. 

They are, according to the woman who sold them to me, from the early nineties. She bought them in Europe but didn't seem to be attached to them. I wondered why she chose them in the first place, they being plain and practical while she was bright and sparkly and wearing audible prints.  She offered me a great price for both. They looked to be in great condition - on the outside at any rate. Their bellies were another story: the lining was sticky, crumbly and rendered them both unusable. If you've ever dealt with a bag with rotting lining, you'd know that it sticks to everything it comes in contact with. 


I fancied the tan one particularly, but couldn't buy one and leave the other behind. They'd never been separated. So they both came home with me, and both were sent to Eli in the Strand Arcade in Sydney who is a bag surgeon. A specialist, even. He can repair even the most hopeless case. Eli replaced the lining in both these bags, and even stitched their identities back in place. 

In this photo you can see four important things: that the lining is restored, that the label and zip is maintained, the marks the rotting leather left on the label and that I keep my bags stuffed with tissue. 


You should stuff your bags with light paper. This keeps the lining dry and  helps the bag maintain it's shape. 


I've photographed the hardware too. I check this routinely when I buy any bag. If you like labels, it's these kinds of details that will help you discern fakes when you buy at second hand fairs and the like. 

Note that the bag is stitched - not glued. Note, too, the stamps in the hardware. This is expensive and labourious. Fake bags won't have such fine detail. They may imitate it with prints but they won't go to the expense and trouble of reproducing it. 


I especially love the tan bag. It is a magic bag, one that looks like it will hold your wallet, phone and maybe a book but it is actually a bottomless pit. I have twice used it as a day bag when travelling and in addition to the named essentials Tan Bag can fit a bottle of water, chap sticks, emergency liquorice, four pens, a guide book, a hankie, sunglasses and a scarf in there. The strap's nice and long too. 


Best of all, it is a very unassuming bag. It fits in with all your plans whether you're wearing a dress and tights or jeans and thongs. The blue bag is a little more choosy and prefers a floral theme. Odd, too, that while it has almost identical dimensions to it's tan sibling, it doesn't hold nearly as much. 


They may be related but they have very different personalities. 

Roll call

Regular readers will know that I love vintage clothes, jewellery and accessories, although I don't think I've ever admitted how desperately I love and admire vintage handbags. I have a pretty sizable collection (about 160) and within that collection there are subsets: needlepoint, Italian leather, evening bags, clutches,  specific brands and a couple of rather precious antique bags. 


I thought you might like to meet my collection of Guccis. I've been collecting these for about five years. I stumbled across my first one on the half price table in a suburban op shop. Before I opened the gold clasp and read the label I knew it was a good piece: the leather was smooth and soft and the hardware was very shiny and attached carefully. All of the seams were stitched, not glued, which is a sure fire indication of a quality piece. 

And she was a cute shape. 

She had some scuffs but nothing appalling, and nothing that didn't respond to a bit of neutral shoe polish and a leather-polishing cloth. Her strap is very long and she hangs across the body just so, resting perfectly on my hip bone.  

Sadly, her interior has started to deteriorate, which is not an uncommon plight amongst older bags. If you are considering buying a vintage bag, be aware that any oily-stickiness on the exterior or interior means that the leather is disintegrating. This can be caused by moisture, poor storage and is exacerbated by age. It looks likes this: 

See the soft cracks? Luckily I have an excellent Bag Guy who can work miracles with this bag blight. Tomorrow I'll introduce to two more of the class and show you the bag guy's  handiwork. 


Oh, and her marked price in the op shop was two dollars - and marked down fifty per cent. So she came home with me for a buck.  

Out of focus

I had a truly scabby day, largely due to a the station master who watched me run for a train and then let it go before I could get to the platform. I missed a launch and wasted five hours. There's still a bitter taste in my mouth that no quantity of stir friend vegetables and brown rice can shift. 


The annoying thing is that I spent a lot of time planning my wardrobe: I had to look sharp and I had to be able to travel comfortably. The trousers are Stella McCartney, the jacket's a Max Mara (thrifted, $30, still with the hang tags in place - bliss!) and the t-shirt is from Target in Las Vegas. The shoes are Aerosoles and the second pair I've had in that style. Tres comfortable. 

My learned friend, the Shillings paparazzo, says the photo is out of focus but it's not him, it's me.  I was still blurred from the disorganised morning. Nat, toting a green Mulberry Maggie bag and wearing a Cynthia Steffe dress and Pierre Hardy shoes atop Wolford tights, is much clearer: 

My plan is to have a much better day tomorrow. 


Did you have a good day? 

With heart unlocked upon the giant earth

There is much value, I believe, in starting a new year with a different a different point of view so that's what I'm doing. A Canon IXUS 1000, to be precise. 


My Saturday was lovely. It is unseasonably cool at the moment, so I I traded the summery jeans-and-lace-top look for something a little more Autumnal. 

That's the dress I bought at the Alameda Markets in San Francisco last month. It made its 21st century Sydney debut with a Gucci belt (second hand, bought at a consignment store in Sydney), vintage boots from eBay and a Mulberry Elgin bag. Here's a better look at the print, and how I look at people bringing me a plate of hot chips and a pot of red fruits tea. 

And here's how it looks from behind. And yes, there was some shopping. 

 On Saturday night we went to a lovely restaurant called  The Boatshed which his located in Glebe and occupies the what once was a stable. No, I lie. It occupies what was once a boat shed. I wore Comptoir des Cottoniers dress (bought on sale in Paris in 2009), Gap trousers (New York last year, on sale) and am carrying my phone and several dozen lipsticks in a Bottega Veneta clutch. 

 The shoes are from San Francisco. Expect to see alto more of them as the year progresses because I love them desperately. 


The food at the Boatshed is great. I ate very well and even had dessert which is not something I do frequently. Then again, no place I frequent features rice pudding with a jam doughnut on the dessert menu. 

And today a few of my brothers and sisters came to lunch. I talk as if there is a tribe of siblings because in fact there is. There was more dessert, this time a pavlova. My second-oldest sister provided this and her choice was a good one. For the non-Australians amongst us, pavlova (or pav, as we call it) is a meringue shell filled with soft meringue, cream and fruit. It can be very cloying but this was a smart pav: the fruit was fresh (not preserved and sugared), nor was the cream sweetened. It was lovely. 

 And there you have it. A bit of a nip in the air, some fine shopping, a new camera, a really nice dinner, hot chips and more dessert than recommended by health professionals. Let no one say I didn't have a great birthday. 

The moon walks her lonely way

It has been a long week and I am very tired; too tired to even apologise for wearing another black dress. The best I can do is to try and soften the blow of monotony with a truly excellent rabbit. 

The painting reads, "The search for evidence". I love the look on the rabbit's face as it digs. I love this dress too - it was an ultra cheapie from Target. The tights are Wolford, the shoes are Aerosoles (and wildly comfortable) and the if the rabbit doesn't distract you ...

... maybe the jewellery will. The smaller pendant is from Tiffany and was a gift from Mr Baxter a few years ago. The larger pearly disc is from a vintage clothing store in a northern Sydney suburb. 

The earrings are old timers too, and feature jet set in gold. I bought them at the Alameda Markets in San Francisco last month. It has occurred to me that I could hop a plane tomorrow, make those magnificent markets with time to spare and get back in time for meetings on Tuesday.  No, really, it's perfectly feasible. I could sleep on the plane. 


What are you plotting for the weekend?