The Rågsved Couple

På höstens vintagemässa på Strand träffade vi Camilla, som tog en massa fina bilder av oss och gjorde en liten intervju till sin blogg. Nu ligger den uppe (här!) och som tur är har hon redigerat bort en hel del av vårt babbel om allt och inget.

Jag hade på mig en av mina favoritklänningar i ylle från butiken, och en gammal Esprit-sjal jag hittade i garderoben på väg hemifrån. Michael är stilig i gammaldags skjorta med manschettknappar, vintage väst och kravatt.

At the autumn vintage fair we met Camilla, who took some pretty pictures and did a short interview with us, which you can have a closer look at here (in Swedish). I was wearing my favourite wool dress from the shop and an Esprit-scarf I managed to grab on my way out. Michael was looking very handsome in a French cuff shirt with silver cufflinks, a vintage waistcoat and cravatte.

Tisday

Imorse fick jag frukost i sängen med mitt korsord, och steg upp till synen av den lilla lurviga herren som solade sig i en varm fläck på golvet. En tidig höstdag blir inte mycket härligare. 

Breakfast in bed with my crossword was followed by the view of the little mister sunbathing in a hot spot on the living room floor. Early autumn days hardly get any better than this.

Dagens outfit är en blandning av fynd, gammalt och nytt, med min vintagefavorit till mockaväska som vanligt. Ett par oanvända solbrillor från 1980-talet skyddar ett par trötta ögon, och finns i butiken nu.

Outfit of the day is a mixture of old and new finds, with my favourite vintage bag as usual. A pair of mint condition vintage sunnies from the 1980s protect my tired eyes from the sun. You can even get your own pair of these from the shop now.

Aaaah, noooo.

Det är synd om människorna, men allra syndast är det om mig som är sjuk. Butiken är stängd idag och imorgon så att jag kan vila och inte smittar våra fina kunder. Vi öppnar igen Onsdag morgon och under tiden går det ju fortfarande att shoppa online! HÄR nämligen.

Imorse tog jag på mig min nya favoritblus och vintage herrbyxor som jag sytt om och försökte inbilla mig att jag inte var sjuk. Det gick sådär. Alvedon och Strepsils funkade bättre än blusen och hyckleri om jag ska vara helt ärlig.

Pity me, for I am ill. The shop is closed today and tomorrow so that I can get some rest, and so that I won´t infect our lovely customers. We will open again on Wednesday and in the meantime you can still shop online - HERE. 

This morning I put on my new favourite blouse and remade vintage gent's trousers and tried to tell myself I'm not ill. It went ok, not brilliantly, painkillers and Strepsils worked better.

Dagens outfit of the day

It was acceptable in the 80s.

Rosett: av vintage tyg, från Fanny & Magdalena Kellerman

Blus: Hittad i en låda, mammas gamla från 80-talet

Jeans: Gul&Blå

Skor: Irregular Choice

Väska: Vintage Balenciaga

Bow: Made from vintage fabric, available from Fanny & Magdalena Kellerman

Blouse: Found in a box, mom wore this in the 80s.

Jeans: Gul&Blå

Boots: Irregular Choice

Bag: Vintage Balenciaga

Mix and match, baybee.

These questions bounce in my empty head.

So I don't know if I've mentioned much about my plans for the shop I want to open, but you'll just have to trust me that it'll be good. Part of my idea is to cater to an audience which I do not think is being served as well as they could be at the moment.

An article in this month’s VOGUE (capital letters means fashin superstar quality, shouldn’t you be making notes?) discusses why older women (and by older, fashin people mean over 40. Sorry) rarely buy vintage. Essentially, it boils down to:

Changing rooms: In your 50s, you may not feel comfortable or happy about stripping off in front of a crowd in an only occasionally cleaned warehouse.

Fit: We're shaped differently today from how women were shaped 50 years ago. Also, most of us don't suffer with girdles and bras which could have someone's eye out, so many things which were made for a 1950s silhouette, for instance, will not fit the vast majority of women today.

I also think that there are a few more reasons, like:

Time: When most women are past their twenties and thirties, they have accumulated a family or a demanding job or both. This means that if you have a free Sunday, you might prefer to spend it having a glass of wine with friends or a nice meal with your family rather than being on your hands and knees rummaging through a bin liner trying to find something to wear.

Trends: A friend made a very good observation the other day, which went a little something like "when a young woman puts on vintage, she looks cool and edgy, but when a middle-aged or older woman puts it on, she just looks like she's had it in her wardrobe for ages". Unfortunate, but unfortunately often true. If you wear the wrong kind of vintage, that is.

So the aim becomes to solve these issues, through design of shop and selection of stock.

The idea for the shop is that the clothing should work on a number of women (and men, if they are so inclined), whether they lived through the time period in question or not. I think it's possible, it just needs some clever editing.

Hopefully all this will be resolved, and of course there is still more to think about. Like why do some younger people not buy vintage?

Chapter 6 - le finale!

The evening wear at last! And that concludes the March shoot edit - another two shoots in the pipeline, so hopefully I can get those done soon enough. Meanwhile, look at this star quality:

Chapter 4 - To VFG or not to VFG; that is the question.

I’ve stumbled across a brilliant online resource – The Vintage Fashion Guild (the blog is on http://www.vintagefashionguild.blogspot.com/ ) – where lots of vintage traders sign up to discuss vintage clothing, to post links and contribute. It’s fairly US orientated, but there are apparently members in the UK as well.

The main thing I love is that the website has a label dictionary so that you can see whether a designer piece is authentic or not, and if it is, which era it is from. The “dictionary” is not in any way exhaustive, but it is the best one I’ve come across by far.

The other thing which makes me yearn to be part of this resource is finding out what kind of pricing strategies people have, if any. It’s impossible to find any decent books on the subject. The ones I have found are a good few years old and have terrible reviews (“doesn't offer much help” and “If you were looking into a particular brand or how to price a garment this really wouldn't help” – not glowing, are they?), which leads me to believe people just pluck numbers from mid-air and see if it works.
There must be a system of some kind. My Germanic brain demands it. EIN, ZWEI, wir must ein accurate price haben! DREI, FIER, das label must be correct!

More research has yielded the eVintage Resource Library (http://evintagesociety.com/vintageorbust/?page_id=56#fash), which has some great resources for dating and sizing things.

And that’s my capacity for today used up. I now know what a 1980s Dior label looks like in comparison to a 1960s one, but I also know that that tiny nugget of information will have replaced something else in my brain. I have only so much storage space, and now I can’t remember any basic arithmetics (I’m serious - I even had to look up the spelling on Wikipedia. This does not bode well).

Chapter 3 (I think), in which a picture says more than 1000 words

Styling with vintage; a very lovely hat by Sara Norling and brooches by Zara Carpenter for Three Little Birds, photography by Sara Norling. More of these pretty pictures coming soon.

UPP magazine shoot

Styling with vintage for shoot for UPP magazine in 2008. Check it out on http://www.uppmagazine.com/

Chapter 1 - part the second (where I forget about my troubles and think of the pretty clothes)

Shoot for eventual website with vintage goodies. Lovely Z looking like a movie star.

See this hat? Do you see? It has actual magical powers and makes anyone in its vincinity experience actual happiness!

It must be made from some extinct, madly extatic animal. I imagine some sort of joyous weasel with solid gold teeth, living off truffles and champagne.

I know I will probably have to sell this one day (what with the selling things and eventually making some money being the main idea behind setting up a shop), but before then I must devise a way of bottling whatever blissfull essence it exudes.