Nestled in the San Diego hills of California, sits a sweet little shop full of vintage treasures. My mom discovered this hidden gem a couple of weeks ago and purchased a dress and capelet for me (I'll share some pics soon). My mom told me that the shop was full of vintage clothes, fabric, buttons, sewing patterns, jewelry... in fact, she said that there was so much stuff you have to walk on stuff to get to more stuff.
The story is that the owner is an elderly lady in her 80's and she used to work as a seamstress and costume designer. Currently, she spends time frequenting estate sales on a regular basis.
After hearing about and seeing first hand some of the thrifty finds, I had to find the time to take a trip to the shop for myself. It took a couple of weeks, but finally, last Tuesday, I made the drive down to San Diego to visit the vintage shop.
When we arrived, we were greeted by an employee of the shop named Beth. I asked Beth if I could take pictures for my blog. Hesitantly, she said yes but asked me not to mention where the location was. I'm not kidding. She said she didn't want a ton of people to come there. "OK?" I said and I put my camera away. The strange thing is there was a huge SALE sign in front of the store. A little twilight zone-ish. I did get a little spooked, but then again it doesn't take much to spook me.
The shop was overwhelming, but in a good way. It wasn't like the swap meet (I don't do good shopping there). It was charming and every room of the house/shop seemed to have a story. There where 3 separate shops and one of the shops was a house. The kitchen had vintage dishes in the sink. The living room had an old record player with records stacked around it. There was tattered luggage on the floor. The place seemed frozen in time. I felt like a detective snooping and exploring through a
private life.
I found quite a lot of goodies to purchase. When it was time to leave Beth showed me one more room. It was there that I found my treasure. In the corner of the room there was an end table with a weathered book lying on it. It looked like a scrap book. Casually I opened it and found pages and pages of vintage magazine cut outs. "This is what I came here for," I thought to myself. I asked how much the scrapbook was and Beth gave a fair price, so I bought it. I bought it without looking at everything inside, so as soon as we left the shop I opened my book and was shocked to see what I had. The book not only had cut outs of fashion designs, but it also had magazine articles and full magazine issues dating from 1902 to 1978. And when I write 1902 to 1978 that includes practically all of the years in between- 1903, 1905, 1906, 1910, etc. Crazy awesome!
Here are some pictures from the book...
I circled the date 1913!
This one has the words written My hat. I wonder if she designed it???
This is a magazine about crochet and knitted handbags.
I'll stop here, but there really is so much more to share. Every page has the year the images were collected written at the top. This book is not only inspiring for the design element, but it also inspires me to keep a book of all the design trends in my lifetime.
I'm so happy I finally picked a good vintage find, because in most all of my previous attempts at vintage hunting I've come up fruitless.
I also picked up some sewing patterns...
And a dress...
I'll show you how it fits just as soon as I get some pics with the dress on.
The dress has some stains on it. Beth said they're water stains. I'm not sure how to go about removing them. I don't want to ruin the dress. Anyone???
I can't leave you with a picture of the stains, so here's some shoes...
Cheers,
Jamie
