Taking care of vintage + a giveaway

I am by no means an expert on taking care of vintage, but I have made some terrible mistakes in my time which make me want to stop others from doing the same thing. Here is a non-exhaustive non-authoritative list of tips on how to look after vintage garments and make sure you can get the best out of them:

1. Handwash pretty much everything

 I know it is a horrible chore and the washing powder makes your hands super sore, but it is really the best way to ensure your garments last for a long time and stay in good condition. The rough washing machine can cause tears, pills and fading and generally bash your clothes around in an unpleasant way.

I hand-wash almost everything. I know a lot of other vintage wearers put their cotton garments in the washing machine on delicate, but I don't trust my crappy old machine enough to do that. I wash in cold water with a tiny bit of gentle detergent dissolved into it, in the laundry tub, and gently swirl the garments through the water to ensure the detergent gets distributed through the fabric. I leave them for a wee soak as I wander off and do something else. If you haven't washed a garment before and are unsure how it will cope, do a spot test to ensure wetting the garment and exposing it to detergent won't damage the fabric. Dip an un-exposed part of the fabric into the solution and wait to see how it reacts before going ahead with a wash. 

With my hardy cotton dresses, after hand washing I run them through a spin cycle to get rid of any excess moisture. I hang things out to dry in the sun to make them all crisp and lovely, but not for too long as direct sunlight will cause fading. If there is no sun - which there pretty much never is in Wellington - I hang them carefully across a clothes airer in our room with the dehumidifier on until they're well and truly dry.

If you do need to put things in the wash, because hand-washing is time consuming, ensure they are colourfast first. Use a gentle detergent or powder and allllllways cold wash.

2. You don't need to wash everything all the time.

 Idk, I'm sure some people will think this is gross but I definitely don't wash my vintage dresses every time I wear them. Most of them get a lot of wears out of them until they actually need a wash. I am just not that dirty/sweaty a person and I don't think they need it a lot of the time. I do, however, take other measures to ensure my dresses stay nice and fresh even if they've been worn four times. Hanging them out to air can breathe a bit of new life into them. I hang them by some open windows or peg them out on the line to let the breeze do its thing. The sun is also great at killing bacteria and keeping clothes smelling fresh and lovely.

Also, it upsets me to waste good vodka on clothing but it really does the trick on freshening up clothes that have been worn once or have been in storage and smell a bit musty. A fine spritz from a spray bottle on any potentially malodorous areas will go a long way.


Some vintage nightwear and lingerie I opshopped that I am yet to soak.

3. Store carefully

Very few clothes will take kindly to being hung on a plastic hanger on a rail. Most of my clothes are on granny-ish crocheted padded hangers I've picked up from opshops, but I don't have quite enough of them so some are still on wooden hangers and a few non-delicate non-vintage things on old wire or plastic ones. Knits and delicate or heavy fabrics can become stretched and damaged through the shoulders through being hung for a long time, so feel free to keep them carefully folded instead. Also, direct sunlight will fade fabrics quickly, so keep your wardrobe door closed.

Heat and moisture will also damage garments. I had a horrible moment when I first moved into my damp Aro Valley flat where after a week I realised there was black mold all over a favourite novelty-print cotton dress that I'd left hanging against a wall. I tried everything to get it off but there are still a few faint black specks. Don't make the same mistake I did! Dehumidify as needed, or use moisture absorbing sachets and a lot of them. I also have little lavender sachets through my drawers and wardrobe, which not only make things smell lovely but keep insects pests away.

4. Repair as needed

I need to take a little more of my own advice, as my sewing pile is a great untameable beast.  However, it's definitely the best idea to get onto repairs while you are motivated and before you lose one of the big buttons to your favourite little 60s jacket and can't find another similar one anywhere and now you just can't do it up ever again wahhhh. SO YEAH, don't be like me! I find that if I buy something with the intent to alter it, I'd best do it within 24-48 hours or it will never. Get. Done. If a metal zipper is catching the surrounding fabric, replace or it get it done at a tailor before you get stuck in a dress or it rips while you're trying to pull it on or off (also something I've done. I hate myself).



A good way to keep your clothes non-smelly is for you also to be non-smelly. The really lovely Jenna at Oh Natural sent me some of the Soapwalla deodorant cream to try, and it's pretty lovely. There is something about rubbing on this mix of essential oils and natural clays that seems a lot nicer than slapping on a bit of old Dove from a plastic tube. Also the smell is amazing, although very lavender-y and I know some people are sensitive to that odour.



Jenna has also given me one to give to you guys, so leave a comment including some way to get in contact with you if you'd like to try one for yourself. This giveaway is for NZ and Aussie pals only, but I have a US-based one coming soon!

Stuff I've Been Doing

Here is some stuff I've been doing lately, all taken from my Instagram.

 

Got a lilac Kanken and a cute Ruby Boutique dress, went to Christchurch and opshopped a huge pile of 40s and 50s lingerie with Christie. Also visited my baby Jolly Roger who went to live with an elderly couple when my parents moved to Vietnam. 

 

Won the Hungry and Frozen cookbook from Laura's blog and spent my sick day reading it in bed, Christie came to Wellington and we went to the Warhol exhibition, and some drunk pals painted my nails.

   

 Had a sandwich party at the top of Mount Victoria, finally got a Feminist Killjoy banner from Unicorn Parade, bought some stuff on Trade Me including an awesome 1950s Egyptian-print dress. 

 

Went to Maddie and Rachael's house a lot (x2), bought the same vintage Swatch that my mum has from her youth so we can match. 

 

Wore lots of novelty prints, bought cute dresses on Trade Me, got this amazing portrait of me and my fella done for his birthday by good old Stevie.

   

Got an impulse nose piercing with Tash, went record shopping with Tash, looked cute but had fringe gap at brunch with Tash. Lots of Tash.



 Got these pewter Docs as a present from my mum and wore them in dancing at Mighty, bought myself this great 1950s cheerleading uniform to add to my collection, went to Arthur's for amaaazing brunch and got a great haul from another Emporium Vintage sale.

For Sale

I'm selling some super cute stuff over on my Trade Me account so please take a look! It's technically for NZ and Australian buyers only, but if you are interested in something you can email me on georgianess at gmail dot com and we can talk.

My favourite five opshopped finds*

*Well, my favourite opshop finds that I still have. There are some things I've bought and eventually sold and just regret it SO much now, like this cute pink rose dress I got for $2 in Nelson and this AMAZING 60s velvet floral dress I paid $20 for at Tassie Traders and sold for the same price and could just kick myself in the face for getting rid of.

But yeah, these are my top five finds that I've scrounged from charity shops and actually hung on to. My scores do not compare to those of Camelias and Crinolines or Helga, but I'm pretty pleased with my wee collection. It was actually hard to scale it down to five, and I would've had to make it six if my absolute favourite black and white striped top wasn't in the wash.

In no particular order:

1. The copper rose border-print 1950s day dress

I know, I know. I talk about and wear this dress way too often. This dress is the opshop equivalent of that time I met Tim Shadbolt and he kissed my cheek and we walked around Wellington talking politics; a story you just tell over and over at parties and bring up all the time and all your friends know it way too well but YOU'LL NEVER STOP TELLING IT BECAUSE IT WAS THE HIGHLIGHT OF YOUR LIFE. This dress is my big win and my favourite thing to be like 'oh? This? Just from an opshop' about. It's getting to the stage where no1curr about how much I love this dress or how I got it, but whatever, it still makes me happy every time I put it on.

And it was free. FREE. Someone actually looked in their wardrobe, examined this dress, and was like 'nah actually this isn't the most beautiful garment on earth, I'm going to throw it out'. And although that person is of questionable taste, I would like to thank them for bringing this into my life. Actually, Wellington is so small that one day I will be wearing this dress and someone will stop me on the street and tell me it used to belong to them and they donated it to the Aro Street Vinnies. I have seen people around Wellington tonnes of times wearing stuff I donated to the opshop or sold through consignment or on Trade Me. One girl had taken this great 80s fruit and veg print dress I sold and given it a mullet hem, which hurt me a lot to see.

Anyway, love this dress, number one dress, etc.

2. The sheer chiffon 1950s party dress

 

I got this dress from the same reliable Aro Street Vinnies that I got the former at, except I actually had to pay for this one ($4, I think) because I bought it before I volunteered there. As you can see in the last photo it has some unfortunate brownish spills on the skirt, but whenever I wear it people are usually so busy making thinly-veiled insults and being shocked at the site of 21-year-old woman dressed like a four-year-old from 1955 that they don't notice the stains. But seriously, this must be one of those great dresses that was made for a chubby child (I did find it in the kids' section), so the fit is really good on me as a wide and short vintage lover.  

I love the little diamante buttons and the sickeningly twee peter pan collar. I usually wear it with something black and sexy underneath so I don't look too much like an infant, but it also looks amazing with a plain slip and a knitted jumper with that great collar peeking out. 

3. The gray peter pan collar coat

 I got this amazing gray woolen coat, also from the kids' section of an opshop, at the Anglicare Depot in Summer Hill in Sydney in 2010. It was $8. The depot is this big, gross warehouse full of huge bins of clothing to be picked through. You cram your finds into this big burlap sack that you are provided with and weigh it at the end and pay $8 per kilo, or thereabouts. It also has a more curated opshop where the prices can be quite high, but I was happy to pay the price of an airport sandwich for this coat. This is sort of disgusting, but I've worn this so much that the lining has shredded through the arms and body and I have to be careful when I put it on that I don't shove my hand into the no man's land between lining and shell. The piping is velvet and navy blue, if this needed any more cute details. And the pink pin is from the Warhol exhibit.

4. Minnie Cooper red mary janes

 I got these shoes from a little church opshop in rural Taranaki where the old ladies manning the store were super, super cute. They let me go through their stock in the back room and I found SO much good stuff that Jack's parents had to courier a huge bag of clothes down to us because we couldn't fit it all in our luggage for the flight home. I got these for either $3 or $4, and one of the ladies was like 'back in the day we used to call those Mary Quant shoes and wore them with white tights and short dresses', and every time I style them like that I think of her. 

When I got them I thought they were real 60s mary janes, but I later found out the logo on the sole was for Minnie Cooper, an NZ shoemaker whose footwear is renowned for being excellent quality and super comfy. They took a couple of breaking-in wears but now they are by far the comfiest shoes I own and I am constantly stalking Trade Me for more of her shoes in my size. I have tiny feet so they don't often come up, but I honestly think they'd be worth the $400 they are new because of their craftsmanship and durability. I've worn these a lot since I got them and they look amazing still. I've got my eye on these.

5. The leather backpack

 

I found this one Christchurch day opshopping with my brother. It was $4 and I ran over to him and was like 'Will, you NEED this backpack'. He thought it was ugly and I wasn't actually that sold on it, but I bought it anyway and the next day I realised it was THE MOST PERFECT BACKPACK EVER. I haven't had an ill thought about it since. Not long after I bought it, one of my stylish friends said he loved it and asked what I paid for it. I held up four fingers and he was like 'four hundred? That's not bad' haha. Score. Several people have offered to buy it off me since then.

One of my biggest fears in life - this is telling about how chill my life is - is stuffing too many tomatoes in it at the veggie market one week and overloading it breaking it somehow and having to life the rest of my days without the style and convenience of a leather backpack.

Honourable mentions to ballerina dress I got for free when I bought a couch, 1950s chiffon ball gown with a print of flocked bows, the blue velvet cape (not cheap but worth it), 1950s wedding dress also from the Anglicare Depot, and peach pleated skirt that I still wear way too often plus BONUS the black and white striped top I mentioned earlier. Man, this post makes me so bummed to have to work all the time so I can't go opshopping during the week now. Saturday opshopping sucks :(

Sitting pretty

Wearing sheer 1950s daisy-print dress from Reycle Boutique, rose gold Repetti mary jane heels from eBay via Ana, heart-shaped perspex purse from Etsy, Datter necklace and ring and misc opshopped belt, plus NARS Afghan Red lipstick.

My shoes sort of blend into my feet and my bag sort of blends into my dress... whoops. I got a new role at work and my boyfriend got a promotion so I wore this out to celebrate. My new thing involves starting at 7am and finishing at 3.30pm so it is actually still light after I finish work, so maybe I'll sort my shit out and start taking better outfit photos in the near future. Maybe not, though.

I don't know if you can really tell (I hope you can?) but I am wearing makeup in these photos. Woo! I am SO excited about beauty stuff lately and I have basically spent all my spare money from my last four paychecks on makeup and skincare stuff. The catalyst for this was my pal Morgan (who will have a beauty blog up and running pretty soon) who is essentially a beauty guru and amazingly inspirational and useful when it comes to me sending her random photos I've found around the internet and asking her to tell me all the products I would need to look exactly like that.

Morgan does these big beauty buys online and I've mooched off her international mail forwarding service to attempt to become more put-together and help towards my yo-pro aspirations. Pretty much everything I do now relates to my yo-pro aspirations tbh. The other day I went to Morgan's to pick up a haul of lipsticks and stuff that had just arrived for me, and got to pore through her impeccably organized makeup collection and damn, it has me inspired. But as this is sort of a new thing for me, I have been pretty lazy with my usual kind of harm minimization deal that I try to adhere to in my everyday consumption.

Because I don't really know a lot about makeup and my mum never really wore it, I've just been picking and mixing with a totally miscellaneous array of products that seem useful and/or fun, like undereye concealer to help with the 6am starts, and waterproof mascara because I am yet to learn that rubbing my eyes all the time = bad for makeup - but also glittery silver eyeliner because glitter. I do try to be as ethical as is possible and reasonable with my general consumption, through buying almost everything I own second hand, repairing my clothes and shoes and taking care of them, and buying local as much as possible - except makeup, because prices in NZ are insane. I am loath to pay $62 for anything, let alone for one lipstick.

However, I do not pretend to be completely consistent and there are always areas in which I could do better in terms of conscious consumption, and makeup is definitely one of them. As I learn more about beauty and how to optimize my face's cuteness, I want more and more to invest in really nice quality makeup that will last well. It is so easy and fun to buy cheap makeup to play around with and try to find out what looks good, but hopefully as time goes on I will be able to justify spending a little bit more to get a product which is quality, natural and not tested on animals, such as Tarte cosmetics’ great cruelty-free and natural products. I don't really want to support animal testing by voting with my dollar so I am going to try my hardest to be more consistent with my approach to makeup and invest in great quality products. I am really excited to conquer my fear of looking like a kid playing in their mum's makeup bag and start looking FIERCE.

NB: This post contains sponsored links but is 100% my own opinion and writing.

Retrograde

Wearing electric blue velvet 1960s cape from an opshop via Christie, 1950s cotton floral St Michael's dress via eBay for $2,  belt off another opshopped dress and old back 50s cashmere cropped cardigan. I don't remember what shoes I was wearing but it might've been my white Chloe ballet flats.

So I am wearing an electric blue velvet 1960s cape! Pretty great, right? Back when I lived in Christchurch and Christie and I used to go opshopping together all the time, we found this cape in one of our favourite shops. It was pretty expensive for an opshop (not actual expensive) and so neither of us bought it, but we kept coming back to it and trying it on over and over again until finally Christie bought it. And I pretty much coveted it ever since. Christie and I have a thing going on where we have dibs on certain items in each other's wardrobes for when they get sick of them, and earlier this year I had a couple of 50s dresses to get rid of so swapped them with her for this after a few years of reminders that I loved it.

 

Here's Christie looking adorable in it in 2010. Anyway, now the cape is mine and I wear it like once a week.  Every time I wear it people stop me on the street and in bars and shops and at the office to tell me how amazing it is, which is a nice feeling. It is surprising how many things in my wardrobe go with electric blue.

I am trying to be a more frequent blogger, so will hopefully post some more outfit photos later in the week. My brother is back from overseas and the days are slooowly getting longer so the conditions are more conducive to outfit photography.

Edit: I wrote and scheduled this post on Sunday before central New Zealand experienced a rather nasty magnitude 6.5 earthquake at 5pm. I have today, Monday, off work because my office is in the city. It doesn't really feel like a relaxing day home as I am too anxious to enjoy it. Some reclaimed land has slipped back into the sea and central city workers have been ordered to stay home while damage is assessed and we experience ongoing significant aftershocks. Wellington is a highly active seismic zone and it is an incredibly scary time, especially for the many Wellington residents who moved here from Christchurch following the earthquakes there. If anyone who has been affected by the quakes wants to chat, my email address is in the 'about' section.

I Made A Gif of Every Dress I Own*

*So the title isn't entirely accurate. It's three gifs because my computer couldn't process the images as one, and it's not actually every dress. There were a few in the wash, a big pile to be sold, my mending pile, a couple that Jack's mum opshopped for me, one that Will got made for me in Vietnam, some stuff that doesn't fit me in storage and since I took these photos, I've bought four more. I got a big tax return, okay? But I finally got contents insurance for my shit, which I've been meaning to do since my neighbours last year fell asleep with a heater knocked over and nearly burned the place down.

I remember when I was like 15 reading a newspaper article about a girl whose house burned down and she had no insurance on her big vintage collection, and that would be so awful. I would be so gutted if I lost my collection, not just because it's all pretty but because there's stuff I could never replace, like the blouse my mum made in home economics when she was 14 or the dress I made from a 1940s pattern for a school ball when I was 16, or the 1950s dress my manager at the opshop gave me to say congrats on landing my first big girl job.

So I got insurance, and it took ages to sort out because of the 'special nature' of my 'collection'. Most policies pay less for stuff the older it is, but clearly that wasn't going to work for me. I was also asked to take a photo of all the stuff I want to insure, so I snapped these rather unglamorous photos quickly one afternoon. Christie gave me the idea that they'd look cool as a gif, so here we go. Sorry it's a lazy post. The weather has been crap here and Will has been in Vietnam and so I've had nobody to take photos for me. I should probs get a tripod.