Weekend outings & flea market finds

Here are my outfits from the last few weekends when I had outings with Club Interbellum and did some flea market shopping.

Above is a look I wore two weeks ago. Centerpiece is a late 30's silk dress with dots. The dots may look white on the photo's but they are actually red with a white centre so the color scheme was blue and red. The main colors of the hat too, with the hat pin having some white in it to make it even a better match). I wore my red 30's/40's wintercoat that I got years ago with the handwritten pricetag still attached. More on the shoes later.

Just a page from a women's magazine that inspired me.

With Club Interbellum I visited 'Het Mastboomhuis' in Oud Gastel in the south of the Netherlands. (http://mastboomhuis.nl) 

The outing was organized by Steve who lives nearby and kindly invited us for coffee at his house first. Here we are in the backgarden of 'Het Mastboomhuis' in front of the mulberry-tree that was planted when the last owner of the house was born. We got a very warm welcome from the volunteers who keep the place up and running and give guided tours. After our tour we even got cake with marmelade from the berries of that same tree!

In front of the house ringing the doorbell.

In 'Het Mastboomhuis' time has stood still since 1999 when Henri Mastboom died and declared the house should stay the same in his will.

Rather than 1999 the house breathes the atmosphere of the times of his youth, parents and grandparent's days, with an eclectic mix of 19th and 20th century neo-styles. Henri's father and grandfather had been mayors of Oud Gastel and Henri was destined to follow in their footsteps, but social changes and WWII turned circumstances around so much this never hapened. As Henri was a loner and never married he stayed in his family's house until his death with only minor changes being made as concessions to modern times.

The house has been conserved instead of restored meaning that the aim is to maintain the state it was in in 1999. The wallpaper comming loose for example has to be left that way.

The spiral staircase was installed because there was no room for a bigger one (as you might expect in a mayor's house)

Most furniture looks 19th century.

Even the clothes in the closets were left untouched. These were dresses belonging to Henri's mother dating from the 1900's through 1930's.

Afterwards we visited 'De Meeshoeve' a farm inhabited by 8 unmarried siblings. Again the interior stayed roughly the same throughout the years. A story similar to that of 'Het Mastboomhuis' but in a different social class. 

We ended our day with an old fashioned Dutch meal at Steve's house: potato and carrot mash with meatballs.

The next day I went to the 'Verzamelaarsjaarbeurs' (collectors fair) in Utrecht, so another trainselfie in my red coat ;)

I wore one of my favorite blue dresses which features such amazing details.

Combined with a 30's hat from 'Maison de Bonneterie' (former high-end department store) that seems to have been made for the dress as it has same contrast between matte fabric and shiny embellishment. The shoes are new to me. I had been looking for a dark-blue pair with a sensible heel for a while. These are pretty but practical.

They have the CC41 utility stamp on the inside, so a real piece of history.

Here are some of my finds at the vintage fair:

Lovely art-deco necklace, dragonfly brooch, darning yarn and dark blue silk knit gloves

The cutest table linen set. I think it is probably from the 20's/maybe early 30's when pinks and blues became fashionable for linens and underwear. It was probably a breakfast set but I'll use it for teas and dinnerparties too.

1940's dress of tule. It is so sheer you can see everything underneath. It is a thin layer that makes it acceptable to go out in a pretty slipdress, how great is that!

And another 1930's eveningdress, like I need any more, like I have weekly parties to wear them too or dress for every dinner ;) but couldn't resist. Heavy silk satin with gold embroidery, so glamorous & perfect with my gold lamé evening jacket!

I contemplating on wearing this on New Year's Eve.

Last Saturday I went to the 'IJ-hallen' flea market. This big market is held every three weeks in Amsterdam North in old buildings once used for building ships. Very trendy industrial heritage but also very cold!

I wore a comfy plaid dress that is made of soft flannel. Plaid dresses were popular in the 40's and you see them so often in photo's but they are a rare find. Maybe because they were made of warm wool and worn to death during cold winters and are a hearty meal for moth and carpet beetle larvae?

The checkered pattern has been used very decoratively! To compliment the colors of the dress I wore a grey hat, brown coat and rust scarf.

The dress in the middle looks quite a bit like mine.

Some more examples of plaid.

I wanted to wear a hat but it was wet and windy so this floppy grey number not only matched with the dress but was one of the only hats that was safe to wear as there is no shape left to lose ;)

I went with some friendes from Club Interbellum. You might be able so see Marinka and I have matching scarfs made from the same pattern (that I got from her and my mother knitted me the scarf)

Frank bought a Stetson.

It was a fun excursion but as expected it was cold, even more icy than I could remember, I couln't feel my toes at some point. I had wanted to put some socks over my rayon stockings but forgot, I won't next time, I'll wear woolen stockings!

We warmed up over lunch at our favorite spot: 'Grand Café 1e Klas' at Centraal Station. 

We enjoyed another Dutch classic veal croquettes on toast.

Ready for travel at Amsterdam Centraal station! Markina found an old suitcase :)

I did not buy that much. The art deco mirror was my main find. Also some gifts for 'Sinterklaas' (when the Dutch get presentson the 5th of December) in a few weeks.

And this was not a flea-market but an internet find but I wanted to share it anyway: a 1930's (or possibly 40's) carpet. These are so rare to find in good condition and for a reasonable price. It is perfect for my living room.

My parents bought it for me as an early birthday present, so I won't be using it for some time. Just put it in place to see how it looks and took a picture :)

Hope to be back in a week or so with a report of my trip to Brussels next Saturday!

Birthe

Autumn wardrobe: just some outfits

Many outfits I post on Instagram never end up here. Actually my Insta gives a better account of my 'wardrobe' than this blog. So I thought it'd be a nice idea to post some of my Autumn looks from the last month or so. I like Instagram because it is fast and immediate but I miss writing about the things I wear like I do here. In order to make this post more than just a repost of looks that is what I will do, write a little about my clothes & give some extra info and pics.

Coats and hats:

Autumn means starting to wear coats and felt hats again. The look above is an inbetween outfit I wore on a sunny and relatively warm day. A floral dress with a 'demi' coat and felt hat.

The hat was the first 1930's/40's hat I ever bought. It is typical of the style of hats I prefer: a general shape that is loosely based on men's hats but with a feminine take on it through details and the smaller shape making it perfect to wear tilted to one side.

The scarf was a gift my friend Lisette bought for me in Turkey. 

This picture shows the coat much better, not a very fancy outfit but I had to go out into the rain for the third time that day. It was very cheap but needed a lot of work. The hem was very sloppy so it needed redoing and I had to take it in at the waist.

Same coat, another brooch and my new Gerzon hat. I try to wear a hat at least once or twice a week. What makes it difficult is that you usually do things by bike in Amsterdam combined with the amount of rain during Autumn.

This is another coat I've been wearing a lot lately. It is too big for me but it works well oversized. The sleeves are so great: the bottom half is made out of astrakan fur and because they are narrow at the wrist they keep out any wind. It is the kind of coat I usually throw over when going out in the evening.

Continuing with the layering theme of my last post: I wore this late 30's shantung silk (probably summer) dress in salmon pink with a burgundy red cardigan, hat and shoes. To finish the look I wore a tweed early/mid 30's coat which has reddish brown in it.

The same brooch as on the blue coat and coral earrings.

My friend Annemarie and I went for cake and a pre-dinner cocktail after.

Going out in dressy dresses:

The less casual styles are reserved for special occasions. This dress had been in my closet for almost two years, it had some issues and I finally got round to fixing it up. All those details: lace, pockets, shirring and sleeves!

Sleeves were a theme lately. This taffeta dress has huge leg of mutton sleeves. I tried something different with my hair. Instead of brushing out my spongeroller curls I just left them. It makes for a good mid 1930's hairstyle.

We went to the theatre like this, most people wore jeans ;).

Another interesting sleeve. But so much more: all those bows and the color!

Playing dress-up:

You could argue I play dress-up every day but these outfits are more like costumes instead of 'normal' outfits.

There was Halloween. As 'vintage witch' I wore a 1930's dress that is really quite pretty so note to self I should wear it on a normal day. The cape is from around 1900 and is shattering, poor thing, but good for that witchy feel.

I recently puchased this sweater from &other stories. It works great with a 1930's style but really reminded me of an 1890's (cylcing) jumper from the MET museum. I had to try it on with a kind of 1890's style.

This is the jumper from the MET, a different color but the style is a clear refference to me.

In order to give the sweater a turn of the century shape I wore a corset. I hadn't worn it for quite some time and I always find in fascinating how easy it is to give your body an entirely different shape. Because the corset is an underbust I wore a brassiere with baleens (from H&M, can you believe it) to create the 'monobossom' fashionable during the Belle Epoque.

This is not really dressing up, but I almost never wear pants outside the house. I had a bad cold and I wanted to be warm. These are men's trousers that belong to a suit I once bought. The jacket is so big on me it would only be suitable for real dress-up but the pants work quite well as slacks. My look reminded me of a picture of my great-aunt Tilly. It reads on  the back: '1939, women in men's trousers the end of the world is nigh'

Little (dark) blue dresses:

On more casual days I wear LBD's. Mine are not black but dark blue. Black is so well.. black and dark blue is a color and does not attract too much attention. It might sound weird but there are situations where I don't want the first thing people say to be that they love my dress.

This dress is probably late 40's early 50's and I wore it with grey fully fashioned nylon stockings (you can just see the pretty top of those in the pic)

Dark blue is even better with some white!

So do I always wear vintage?

Well no, not when I'm at home all day.  I would not want to ruin a pretty dress over cooking & cleaning etc. I do own a few 'old' dresses I wear at home with an apron but most of the time I wear wide legged trousers (the lounging pj type) with a top or even a wool jumper when it is cold.

I look like the picture below, all H&M machine washables, no make-up etc. but some leftover curl in my hair.

I didn't post this casual look on Instagram btw. ;)

Will be back soon with some weekend looks and vintage finds

Birthe