Corsets, Shards and Seam

I haven't had much to say for a while.  After my trip, I thought I'd spend some quality time sulking at having to be at home.  My sulk continues but I'm slowly getting back into the routine, with only mild residual resentment that I can't see the Eiffel Tower or the Shard from my bedroom window.

I can see the beautiful Princess Royal Harbour, which is pretty amazing.  So I mustn't grumble.  Much.

Last weekend I went to White Rabbit Vintage and Handmade, at the local Torbay Hall.  It was a long weekend here - which meant the Albany Classic car race, right in the main street. We escaped the relentless 'zoom zoom' and public address system, for the green serenity of the cutest little hall, amongst the trees.  Lots of people obviously had the same idea.  Its a great venue, the kids can scamper about (outside), people ate their lunch under the trees. I met some really nice people, caught up with some old friends, and had a great day out.

It did remind me that I haven't really been working on any fish for - oh - six months.  So I  managed to focus a little bit and so here's some work I prepared earlier.  Just a little bit earlier. Last week. Yesterday.

I've also been playing with my photographs from Paris and London, but I'm not ready to share those just yet.













I did find a couple of interesting things on the interweb this week.  Actually I found quite a lot of interesting things, but that's another story.  While I was stalking Spitalfields Market in London,  I saw a popup shop by two designers making really clever garments and bags, and I noticed that they have opened a shop, Seam.  Here's a link  where they describe their work, including corsets made from upside down pinstripe suit jackets, skirts draped from tuxedo trousers, and dresses cut from jacket lapels, cuffs, and colour-contrast prints.  There are also high quality and locally made leather and sheepskin goods, specialising in bags, jackets and coats. Highly original and highly desirable.

I also found a blog, via a Facebook page, called Charity Shop Chic - where opshop clothes are upcycled into fashion garments.  In this case (unlike many others) it's real tailoring and design, the blogger is a seamstress of considerable talent. She gives clear step by step instructions, with pictures.  Highly recommended.

Out and about in Paris and London

It's been a while since I posted here, because I've been holidaying in Paris and London.  I still love saying that.

We stayed in an apartment in Paris that was in a house built in 1663. Luckily, the plumbing was more recently upgraded, but the lift was so small two people could only squash into it with a certain level of intimacy. If there were groceries, one took the stairs. When we were leaving, we had to each take our luggage separately, and when it was my turn the owner literally threw my new vintage fur coat in on top of me, pushed the button and I held everything in while the door closed, before avalanching out on the ground floor. I loved it.

Unfortunately, Paris hasn't really grasped the idea of op shops, although 'vintage' stores are popping up all over the place.  The distinction between 'vintage' and 'second hand' is - shall we say - blurred, and you have to comb through a lot of pretty average stuff to find the gems. I did see a Lagerfeld silk skirt for 10 euros,but it would have been snug on an emaciated poodle (provided it had been on a crash diet, was wearing shapewear and  holding it's breath). Other vintage 'big names' were just plain out of my price range.  In a weak moment, I bought a vintage wine coloured faux fur coat, which took up most of all of the room around me for the rest of the trip. It's total 1980's paisley silk-lined hand-finished swing style is so over the top I broke every single self-imposed luggage-limiting rule in buying it, but if we ever enter another ice age I will be looking stylish AND warm.

We loved Merci, which is a new and brilliant concept in charity stores, stocking new and secondhand books, clothes, jewellery, homewares, and just about everything else in classically classy French style.  Kind of like Ikea-meets-St Vinnies.  Great food, great shopping destination. My friend saw someone famous on the way to the loo, but couldn't remember his name. C'est la vie.

Parisians have fabulous hair and stylish glasses. They must have, because there was an optometrist and at least one hairdresser on every block. As I waited in gallery and museum queues, various, I noted that a man in a gallery or museum queue looks somehow deeper and more intelligent a) by being in the queue in the first place and b) by wearing studious and interesting, often tortoiseshell, round glasses. 

I spent a happy hour or so in Shakespeare and Company, the famous bookshop, and managed to limit myself to one new and one secondhand book. Maybe it was more than one hour.  It was a happy time. French gentlemen help ladies with their suitcases in the Metro, which has enormous amounts of steep stairs. 
I discovered that French women are thin because everything, everything involves several flights of steep, narrow, uneven, spiral stairs.  Houses, shops, the Metro, galleries, museums, chateaux, castles all involve the negotiation of steps.  It's like permanent step classes. La toilette, Madame? In the cellar.  The shoe department? Upstairs. Of course.

We saw people walking cats, and every breed of dog but the poodle. Not a single poodle. I felt vaguely cheated.

Probably 90% of the restaurants, cafes and shops wouldn't have met Australia's stringent health and planning regulations.  We had the best food in places where the roof was too low, the floor was uneven, and there weren't enough toilets in the cellar.  The road rules are more of a guideline really, people cycle without helmets, if the bar's crowded, drink outside on the footpath - it's a nanny state nightmare.  Yet people are polite and well mannered and I didn't notice piles of dead bodies being wheeled away in carts from overcrowded eateries.  They have the tourism thing nailed, and create a place which you want to return to soon, if you can drag yourself away at all.

I could hardly drag myself away, and I'm seriously thinking of selling everything I own so I can get back there soon. 

'Tis the season (almost)...

I've decided that as window washers go, I'm a really good jewellery maker.  We spent a large part of the afternoon cleaning the windows of the ex-restaurant which is to be the venue for our annual vintage and handmade market. My friend and fellow stall-holder Sam came with me to pick up the keys and let the sunshine in, which we did - eventually. I have new and enormous respect for those people you see effortlessly squeegeeing in curvy shapes and leaving nary a smear or streak.  Scratch 'window cleaner' from my list of alternate professions and George Formby from my playlist.

While we scrubbed the urban cocktail of oil, grease, salt and dust (baked in the afternoon sun for 3 months till crispy) we chatted about the joy of 'curating' an art market. We talked about the dreaded 'stall creep' (where you get crowded by the person next to you, who wants to expand into your space - especially if you are 10 minutes late); market etiquette generally; and the gazillion little things that make a market happen.

Events like this don't randomly spring into being: there are 1000 jobs to be done and decisions to be made before the doors open, expenses to be incurred (and underwritten).  Posters and ads have to be designed and produced; ads written and booked (and paid for); venues found and organised; local councils appeased (even though the zoning is correct); stall holders invited, encouraged, vetted and sometimes rejected; furniture moved; finances and credit card facilities maintained and organised; cleaning (before and after) to be organised or in this case, done; the many different needs of participants juggled (working hours, space, times, allergies and alliances); and so on and so on and so on.

To provide a successful event, none of the above is cheap, yet everyone wants to pay the absolute minimum for their space.  The big places where costs can be reduced are, of course, venue and advertising.  If you want a few hours in all weather in a park, on the off chance someone will come by (and buy), then invest your $5 and take your chances.  If you want a good venue, in a CBD location, then you advertise - as does any business. Run of paper advertising (that's the ads NOT in the classifieds) isn't cheap but good ads will yield serious traffic.  Some radio advertising is really good, provided the right people are listening and I use a small, truly local outfit with a large listener base in the right demographic. Like anything else, you basically get out of it what you put in: invest correctly and reap the rewards.

You can't guarantee that people will buy.  That's up to the sellers and their stock. But provide a quality product at a reasonable price, and people will buy, provided you sell it to them.  It means hours of standing on your feet, engaging the customer, smiling till your face aches....working hard. And don't even talk about display, merchandising, promotion.  Or who will pay for the toilet paper and hand towels (and for that matter, the lightglobe in the loo).

So here's a big thank you to Sam, for giving up her Sunday afternoon and getting her hands dirty (literally). I suspect she's not considering a career in semi-professional squeegee-based services, either.

Sun. Rain. Wind. Thunder. Cherry blossoms. Winter. Spring. Little blonde puppies. Grumpy jealous older boydogs.

And that was only this weekend.

Believe me, I know how she feels.

courtesy http://www.retronaut.co

Although the garage sales doldrums are upon us, the pre-summer wardrobe season has given us bounty most plentiful.  And as we receive, so shall we give back (to the opshops), that we may be able, once again, to walk into the bedroom without danger of death from clothes avalanche.

I hate it when you lose a new item of black clothing in a poorly lit room with a gazillion other pieces of black clothing.

After last week's coatfest, I was being a little cautious this week, but was excited about the new season's burgundy/red pants I found - right till the Girl-child claimed them as her own.  She grabbed a heap of clothes from Friday's op-shop round.

I've clawed back a little floorspace in the lounge by re-stacking and sorting my framed drawings and prints, and making new piles of the vintage frames waiting to be used.  I've decided to have a Fathers' Day sale to make some room for new works.  I shall post here when I have details.

In the meantime, here are a couple of things I've been playing with today.

next stop, Xmas!!!

Wow, another Summer Street Fair has been and gone.  I have that aching footed, stiff kneed exhaustion which comes from 3 big days of craft and people.  We had a great time, sold heaps of our work, and met lots of new people.  I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did.

There are lots of great photos on the Facebook page, if you missed out this year, look out for us next year.  You can catch up with the exhibitors through the page too.

                                   Lots of my fish drawings, jewellery, and other vintage frippery found new homes, enabling me to see the floor in the lounge room for the first time in ages.  Most has been tucked away but I will be listing on Etsy again when I've had a little rest.

In the packing away I did notice that the suitcase stack in the sitting room is now so tall that I can't lift a suitcase over my head to the top without serious health and safety risk.  

To celebrate our success, a couple of us hit the garage sales, car boot sale and Boatshed Markets. To celebrate, I had the freshest of oysters for lunch, and I have some baby asparagus, picked this morning, for tomorrow.  And the cherries - oh, the cherries.  Spectacular! 

One of the highlights of the time was our dinner at Joop Thai in Albany on Thursday after opening night.  Its brilliant to go into a local restaurant without a reservation at 9 pm and be welcomed with a smile and reassured that the kitchen is still open!! Thanks guys, and the food and service were, as always, great.