When 8 vintage ladies went shopping & had an afternoon tea

 

Last Saturday I had a lovely day shopping & having an afternoon tea with 7 other vintage ladies :). Quite rare to have such a large group op likeminded women :)

 

You might think so many women loving vintage shopping together could end in a battlefield with all wanting the same thing. This was absolutely not the case. Partly because of the different personal styles & sizes but also because I think we really wanted everybody to find something and could be happy for each other.

We started at the Waterlooplein at our favorite stall. Where several (4 I think) of us already got lucky :).

 

Here we are in the metro to the Waterlooplein from Central Station.

 

 

Such a funny pic: Martine is sitting in the middle of 'normal' people, quite the contrast

 

After the Waterlooplein we walked to Marbles Vintage (which has several shops in Amsterdam). We were photgraphed by the saleswoman for their Instragram in front of the shop.

 

 

Lisette found a perfectly pink 60's dress. Together with Martine they were very much pink ladies.

 

Here I am talking to Marjolein. That is of course also a very important part of days like these, talking, gossiping ;)

 

I had such a good hairday! I was wearing my 1940's pale blue coat with a dark blue hat from the late 30's-early 40's. It is one of the first hats I ever bought. Found in a thriftstore in Haarlem where I then lived for a few euro's (I rarely pay more than 15-20 euro's for a hat, but even for my standards this was cheap). Had not worn it for a while and rediscoved it when putting this outfit together.

 

 

I did wear a practical bag and sensible shoes suitable for shopping. Now let me introduce you to my beautiful friends and what they bought: 

 

 

Jip in a trenchcoat that looks very 40's but is probably from the 70's. She found a delicate silk blouse at the Waterlooplein.

 

 

Lisette is wearing a 50's dress. We washed it with vinegar the night before because she had bought in a smelly state. Luckily it was the kind of 50's fabric that dries ever so quickly. She's wearing her grandmothers yellow purse. The cardigan she borrowed from me (knit from a 1939 pattern). And let's not forget the cat eye sunglasses. People were turning their heads as you can see in the picture. Lisette had the most succesful shopping day: she found a dress at the Waterlooplein and one at Marbles!

 

Martine was wearing a pink dress with a black-pink check jacket. Oh just look at those people looking...again and again. Martine found a 1950's purple dress with floral print at the Waterlooplein, that suited her perfectly.

 

 

Myrtle, wearing a floral dress found the most stunning  and figure enhancing black rayon crepe dress with green embroidery at Episode (you will see her in it in my next post).

 

Marinka, lady in black, as  (nearly) always :) also found a dress at the Waterlooplein.

 

 

Where Henny also found hers that day.

 

Marjolein in a vibrant magenta dress and 30's coat looking ever so happy with the magnificent bell sleeved black astrakan 30's coat she found at Episode in the bag beside her! All of th pictures were teken in front of that shop and is was nearly the end of our shopping trip.

 

And this is what I found at Episode (Berenstraat):

 

 

A 40's dress of sheer silk crepe. Dark blue is really my color lately.

 

Such delicate details! First I was afraid the sleeves migh be a tad tigh for me but it turned out the outer pleats were a later addition an could be removed with little effort. As my hair was so good that day I did not want to ruin it by trying the dress on. I had a measuring tape with me though and it told me the dress would fit just right. And  measuring tapes don't lie: when it tried it on when I got home it fitted like a glove :)

 

After Episode we brushed by Laura Dols. Then we headed for our main goal: The Teapot Museum where we were to have our afternoon tea! Such special surroundings, the private museum looks like a victorian parlour filled with teapots. (http://museum-tearat.blogspot.nl/p/blog-page.html)

 

 

 

Because Jip & I both wore coats that covered up our dresses entirely, just some coatless pics. 

 

Jip's dress was a dark blue velvet with pink floral beading.

 

Mine was a darkblue tule with pink flowers finished with dark blue velvet ribbons. One of my first vintage dresses, bought at the Waterlooplein aforementioned stall.

 

We matched!

 

And then it was time for tea AND food. We had not eaten any lunch in order to be able to eat the entire varety of food presented (we knew from the last time it was quite a lot an very delicious).

So we were HUNGRY! 

 

 

 

Just before the food arrived Martine said a little prayer ;)

 

And then FOOD!

Even our empty stomachs were not big enough for the aundance of sandwiches, scones and pie but they always wrap the leftovers up, so you can enjoy them at home :)

 

The best possible way to end a perfect day!

The next day was a little less perfect but more about that in a next post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tripple blue: three new dresses

This post features three dresses I bought during the summer and have been meaning to post about for a while. All three of them are dark blue, one of my favrite colors. Every dress needed something done to it, not uncommon problems, but I will discuss them anyway:

The first two dresses I found on the internet. I bought them of a woman in Amsterdam, so I could just go pick them up by bike. The day I planned to do that however the heaviest summer storm ever recorded made Amsterdam into a battlefield of branches and falling trees. But everything for a dress, so I did cycle through it got soaking wet, but it was worth it.

This dress needed little to no work except a wash. Because of the two different fabrics this had to be done with some care especially because of the white flowers, that could easily turn blue when the color bleeds too much.

I did remove the shoulderpads. Though it is a bit of a nuisance it's always a wise thing to do as they would take very long to dry and might create uneven color or even waterstains.
The dress washed and dried very easily. As it is crepe fabric it dit shrink a little. This problem is solved by ironing it back into shape when the garment is still a little moist.

I love the use of a patterned fabric and a plain one so much. It  very probably dates the dress to the WWII era when textiles were particularly scarce. There are plenty of patterns of dresses from scraps of fabric and how to revamp your old dress or combine two dresses etc. I own several examples of actual dresses, often with very inventive combinations of two fabrics. I really like the look of patterned fabrics in combination with plain ones.

This dress is already one of my beginning of autumn favorites. Very comfy, a bit dressy bt not too much.

The second dress is made of very soft cotton, a really casual daydress. The print is not your usual floral but consists of feathers and scrolls in white. To compliment the print the dress has white cuffs and collar. The  white collar was a little dirty and sewn on top of the rather nice sharp collar of the dress. So I took it off and tried to clean it, as the upper layer dit not become as white as I'd like so I sew them over with the other side up and under de collar of the dress. This also matched the cuffs much better.

A problem I often have with vintage dresses is that the sleeves are to narrow for me as my arms are rather chubby compared to the rest of my body. The sleeves of this dress did fit but not in a comfortable way, as you would want in a cotton dress you might actually do some housework etc. in. The bodice had two darts from the shoulder to the bust. The fabric had not been cut away so I could use it to create some gussets in the sleeves that would make them a little wider.

I've worn the dress on several occasions, for example comine with a white apron on my mother 40 year work anniversary. (the picture is a repost, but I don't care)

The third dress I found in one op the four Episode stores in Amsterdam. Episode sells a lot of 80s and 90s 'vintage' but they do have a rack of 30-60's dresses in every shop. As these dresses have one fixed price regardless of rarity or quality you can sometimes find gems that are quite affordable.

So I found a gorgeous late '30's/40's dress made of lace. Pity to find  the dress had a lot of scattered holes in the skirt. Even more allarming were the signs of moth activity I found in one of the skirt seams.... As the store policy is that they cannot give al lot of discount when something is dammaged (they told me broken zips were considered more severe than fabric littered with holes...unbelievable, as a zip is never a potential hazzard and is a traighforward thing to replace). But oh it was such a lovely dress that I did eventually buy it.

Because of the indications of moth larvae having munched through the dress I put it in the freezer for more than a week. Putting clothes in the freezer kills any eggs that may have stayed behind. I usually do it anyway with any wool I buy secondhand. It's best to let it sit in the cold for at least a week. I roll it (to prevent creases) and put it in a plastic bag or two.

Afterwards I aired it in the bright sun (moth eggs can't stand sun either). And I did not put the dress in my closet right away, so I could keep an eye on it. This might sound a bit paranoid, but preventing is better than curing and a moth investation is one of my greatest fears.

Then there were the holes to adress. This was a lot of work buti ts always very doable to mend invissibly with lace fabrics. You have to kind of reweave the lost fabric. When darning this has to be done very densely, with a lace fabric you should not do that as it would show. Just mimic the lace. I like mending holes, it is very calming.

 

 

 

I wore the dress on my housewarming party.

 

Some very good additions to my wardrobe. I tend to buy a lot of dark blue, because I think it suits me and it is an alternative to black.

 

I already bought another dress in this color last weekend, but that shopping trip will feature in a next post.

 

 

Candy girls at Tuschinski Theatre

 So it is already a week and a half ago that I was selling candy at the Tuschinski theatre in with my friend Jip (who has a lovely blog on which she will post about this event as well (http://oldfashionedatheart.blogspot.nl/).

Tuschinksi is the most beautiful old cinema in Amsterdam I think. It opened in 1921 and was built in a kind of mixture of art-nouveau and deco. The interiors are amazing. So  when we were asked by Miss Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse, who runs a historical consultancy company (http://www.hab3045.nl/), to play candy girls for a show of Laurel and Hardy movies we were very enthusiastic. The idea was that we'd look like candy girls from the 30's and sell old-fashioned Dutch candy to the people attending.

We made our own costumes and had so much fun with it. We really wanted to match. For inspiration we looked at old pictures of maids, because the rather racy outfits of American candy girls would never have suited the more demure Dutch.

 

One picture form the movie 'De Tweeling' (The Twins) gave us the idea for our aprons. The costumes ended up looking a lot like the ones from this movie.

We ordered several  white lace collars. We used them to finish our aprons. We did not want bands over our shoulders as that is less fancy and more work. We pinned the tops onto our dresses.

Because Jip has a degree in pattern drawing she made the patrern for the aprons which we then individually made.

We used the same kind of collars as actual collars on our dresses. We did not make our own dresses but looked in our closets for similar ones. I think it hardly shows they are not the same.
On our sleeves we used some more white lace.

We did not want the headgear to be to big, as not to ruin our hairdo's. So we used some of the ribbon from the aprons and pleated it, attached a tunnel with a  smaller ribbon running through. We could not help the association with Goth-Lolita ;) as we both used to be Goths in our (early)teens.

 

 

To be able to carry the candy around we made containers. I used paper in a few of the colors used in the decoration scheme of Tuschinki to make them look art-deco inspired. The actual design of the wallpaintings was way to intircate te reproduce.

Because Jip lives on the other side of the country she was my guest for a couple of nights so we could do the dressing up ect. in peace and together (so much more fun).The evening before we set our hair: me with pins, Jip with the most adorable sponge-ragcurlers.

 

 

On the day itself we finished our outfits with original pre-war stockings and black shoes with low heels. Normally I always wear red lipstick but as this probably would have been forbidden during work in the 30's I left them bare for once (did feel a little naked though)

At Tuschinski we were joined by Tim who was the 'porter' who welcomed all guests.

When making the 200 candybags I was not sure how we were going to sell them all. But as it turned out we actually sold out a little to quickly!

Maybe the old-fashioned price of 10cts (in Dutch this used to be called a 'dubbeltje', a term that has disapeared since the Euro) helped us there.
During the time the movie was running we could walk around a bit in the wonderful building and we took some photo's of each other.

 

 

 

 

Even the toilets are pretty impressive at Tuschinski:

 

 

 

We we so stupid as to forget to bring our lunch (left if lying ready in the kitchen...), so we got quite hungry... In a back room we saw all these muffins....almost irresistable, we were good girls though.

 

 

 

Luckily there was free applepie in the cantine bacause of someones birthday, and we could have a piece of that. Let us eat cake ;)

Later on we could even see part of the movie from the upper balcony.

We had a very nice day and saw places normally hidden to the public. And we did feel pretty cute in out matching uniforms ;), would love to wear them again.

In the evening I organised a little diner party at my place in honour of my guest, who can't come to Amsterdam all that often. My inner Hyacinth Bucket jumped up and down for joy (she had been nagging me to throw a candlelight supper ever since I moved in to me new home ;)).

 

Because it had been a busy day I asked my friends to bring some food, so I would not have to prepare it myself. So a big thanks to them for preparing the wonderful meal!

As the evening proceeded, with a little help from Bacchus....;)

Jip and I thought it'd be fun if we both wore a long dress, as that was customary at dinner parties in the old days. As she did not bring one with her I borrowed her one of mine. I think she looked absolutely to die for, like a 1930's Disney princess! So let this be the fairytale ending of this post. I hope to soon catch up with the events of last weekend!