From Flowery New York Romanticism to Italian Mid Century Modern - My First Vintage Haul In Givenchy
Monday: I’m going to the post office to despatch a vintage “Romantic French Floral Bedsheet” I bought ten years ago in a boutique in Brooklyn and I’m wearing one of the miniature perfumes I bought at the fleamarket - “Hot Couture” by Givenchy.
I shall let you know how I get on.
“Hot Couture” by Givenchy
Tuesday: I’m still dining off the delights that Monday brung. For the first time in six months and throughout this whole pandemic I felt normal, and with that normal I felt strong and vibrant, like the horrors of the world had exorcised themselves from my soul. Good bye, don’t come back.
I had listed some fresh merch on eBay last week and it might have helped reinvigorate my chakras (I don’t know what that means, but I’m sure you understand). I’d been cherishing that vintage cotton floral print bedsheet I’d unearthed in a nook from a vintage boutique in Brooklyn ten years ago, but I hadn’t used it in seven years and it needed to be loved. It sold in the blink of an eye and I hope it makes somebody’s bedtime a beautiful experience.
Vintage Pacific USA cotton bed sheet - romantic
I thought it deserved a decent send off, so I dabbed my wrists in “Hot Couture” by Givenchy, a not quite vintage, miniature perfume I’d bought from one of my favourite seller at the flea market last year, and swanned off to the grubby post office like I was somebody somewhere sometime better than now.
[Click here for the lowdown on the vintage perfume haul].
I didn’t expect it to work so well. On the way to the post office, which is in between Iceland and an MOT garage, not Bloomingdales and Carnegie Hall, I slipped my Hot Couture self into the charity shop and found a chunky gold-tone locket pendant (possibly held solid perfume in the past) a 70’s vintage Celtic and blue stone pendant and what might turn out to be a silver Edwardian Suffragette necklace with peridot and amethyst gems - or at worst a vintage silver necklace in the style of. It wasn’t until I got home and steeped it in my antivirus disinfectant bucket that it’s true beauty, and potential value, emerged. It was caked in decades of foundation and neck sweat. Aren’t we all?
First vintage bling haul since lockdown
Silver Suffragette necklace with peridot and amethyst gems
I was feeling a bit excited in my Givenchy. I kept having a sniff and by now it had found its base flavour - Malibu. Not just the drink, but the neck of a stocky olive-skinned Argentinian man who had spent the day drinking rum and eating pineapple on the beach in 1984. It also held an aroma like the soul of a coconut.
Hot and couturey, I was in no state to scurry home. I’m staying out, like all those carefree people on the beach in a pandemic, I feel fine (for the first time) in my mask and sanitiser marinade.
I thought I’d peep into another charity shop. Glad I did, I found a gorgeous silver plated embossed galleried serving tray and filled it with a set of four vintage smoked glass mid century glasses. I felt alive, I had survived, my chums who worked there had survived, it was a glimpse of good old times.
Nice embossed silver plated serving tray
Malibu & Coke for my smokey Mid Century glasses please
As I presented my glasses on my tray at the till I chirped “Malibu and coke?” For a moment we were all on holiday ordering old fashioned cocktails and blending frozen mango bits in the magimix. I left, to head back to Iceland.
On a roll and smelling like a coconut soul, I thought I’d just have one more for the road. I swerved past my turning and cruised down to another charity shop I hadn’t seen since lockdown, didn’t even know if it was open.
Good job it was coz I rolled my French scent in and scooped up a set of 6 Mid Century Modern Joe Colombo ‘Arno’ glass cups like I lived in The Barbican in 1965 and had dinner parties with the literati.
Joe Colombo Arno coffee cups
This is a very good start to a very good week. I’m going to go out in Venti Vert by Balmain next time, I’ll let you know how I get on.
