Anyway who has taken a peek at my shop knows I have a thing for dirndls. Although the ones listed there are, of course, for sale, I did give in to temptations and keep several for myself. Why dirndls? Here are my reasons.
Dirndls are for so much than just Oktoberfest. Actually, when I see one worn in full apron Bavarian glory I almost get offended. ;) They are both sweet and sassy, both innocently girly and super sexy. They fit well. If you have a boyish figure they make you look more curvy. If you have a curvy figure, they hide the spots that are maybe just a little bit too curvy.
They are also made of such beautiful materials. Soft cotton, raw silk, linen. The bodice is always lined often with a funky retro cloth or a brilliantly white cotton. And the pewter buttons are oh-so-cute for sure.
In fact, the only complaint I have about dirndls is the little "gap" that so many of them have underneath the bodice. If worn with an apron, you would never notice, but worn without the gap needs to be either pinned or sewn shut as it will flap open. But why is it even there in the first place? My theory: easy access. You can't get sassier than that!
I’ve never really been the kind of person who longed for a house with a garden, but right about now one would come in rather handy. Not for the house or for the garden, but for the garage. I store all of my vintage clothing behind two doors of a vintage 1930s wardrobe (my own clothes go in the middle). Although the wardrobe is big enough to serve as a great hiding place for the entire Brady Bunch, it is getting pretty darn full.And before you know it spring will be here and I’ll want to offer up oh-so-many more lovely vintage garments….Guess it’s time for a sale.Here is just a taste of what you can get for a song and a dance right now in my shop. To see the full sale selection, you can click right here.
I've been collecting vintage photographs ever since I was a teenager. I used to spend hours at this junk shop in Bancroft Avenue in Berkeley looking through the boxes of old photos they had there until one caught my attention or moved me in such a way that I couldn't leave the shop without it.
This photograph was one I bought there. It's been with me for over 16 years and has moved in and out of at least eight different apartments (before I had kids, moving was a sort of hobby of mine. I still get the itch sometimes, but our apartment is really great and it would be a shame to leave it....)
Recently I decided to start making jewelry with some of the photographs in my collection. I use a laminated high quality copy of the original photograph like this one of a sexy 60s woman. I bought a set of photographs on ebay, the other one with her in the same pose but with her button closed and the skirt down (the more modest position.) I had them nicely framed and am giving them to my husband for Christmas. Ebay (at least in Germany) is great for vintage photographs. You can get almost everything for only a Euro, I guess because there aren't many collectors out there. I paid a little more for this set of photographs, but they still definitely weren't expensive.
I'm planning on making a lot more of this jewelry after the holidays. Some of the photographs used will be from my own family, like these of my Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam was the black sheep of my mother's very protestant German-Russian family. You can read more about him here.
Happy holidays everyone, and happy vintage hunting! :)
Anyone who knows me the slightest bit or who has read my most recent blog post on Schaufensterbabe knows that I'm simply not a fan of winter. What can I say? You can take the girl out of California but you can't take the California out of the girl.....
Still, even a weather-spoiled East Bay girl like me gets giddy at the first real snowfall. Inches of snow have been on the ground for a couple of days now. Since it doesn't seem like the weather is going to warm up anytime soon, I suppose it will stay there for a while.
I took advantage of the pretty whiteness to take (and re-take) some pictures in front of ye olde green wall. The snow started getting a little too crazy by the time I got to this vintage 1940s black rayon crepe dress. Such a beauty, but I still have not managed to take any photographs that do it any justice. Black is so darn hard to photograph. Sigh....
Any Christmas presents ordered outside of the EU from my shop need to be placed by December 7th to make double sure they'll be there on time. But tis' the season for vintage every season I say. Everybody needs a little vintage pick-up to help get them through the holiday hectic. As a little x-mas gift to you, I'm offering 10% off of everything in my shop until New Year's Day. Just type in the coupon code winterinberlin at the time of purchase and the discount will be automatically added.
Just about everybody knows the Mama's and the Papa's song California Dreaming, but in my opinion Bobby Womack does the song so much better. He's got such a fabulous voice and you can just feel the longing. The song is also "aktuell" for me, as they say here in Germany, because I will be going home to California for a three week visit on Wednesday. Although I love my life here in Berlin, I still do miss a lot of things about NorCal, Californiaese for Northern California, especially the ocean. Oh yeah, and my family. ;) Anyway, here is Womack singing to some great vintage California footage. Enjoy!
p.s. I'll definitely be thrifting when I'm there, so stayed tuned for some of my great vintage Golden State finds!
The answer? Each of them spent some time in my vintage shop before I decided I couldn't part with them. Ever since I opened the shop, I never have to buy clothes for myself anymore. I go thrifting or to flea markets and buy whatever catches my eye without thinking about if it will fit me or not. What often happens is that great clothes literally falls into my lap.
I think I posed for only one picture in this gray-green vintage 1960s dirndl before I realized "Uh-Uh. That one you are keeping for yourself!" Oktoberfest is still going on but any parties that they have here would only be in the touristy areas because, well, Berlin doesn't really "do" Oktoberfest. I'm planning on taking the Alps out of it by combining it with a simple blouse and cardigan topped off with my very favorite Puss In Boots-style vintage brown leather 1970s boots (which, by the way, I bought from the vintage shop my sister runs out of San Francisco. Yes, she did cut me a bit of a deal, but not much of one. Can you say, "shrewd businesswoman"? ;) The necklace is one of my handmade pieces and is still available for sale in my shop, though I'd hurry if I were you. I love it with the dress and so it might just be disappearing from the listings soon.... This vintage 1970s sheer black dress has a pearly, Victorian collar and is patterned with fireflies. It was actually in my shop for a while and got some attention, though I listed it in the summer (the day I posed in it it was sweltering outside so yes, that is a glisten of sweat on my brow...) It will be great for fall and I have a thing for fireflies since they feature heavily in a story I made up for my daughter called When Lights Were Born. I think I'll wear it with the buttons open though because I find it a bit extreme with them closed (not to mention, a little bit hard to breathe!) This dress was also in my shop for quite some time, though it was modeled on my friend Erica. I've lost some weight recently so I thought I'd pose in some of the older dresses and found myself liking the funky school marm appeal of this one. Erica also probably won't be modeling for me again. Although a really beautiful woman, she actually doesn't like to have her photograph taken (the exact opposite of me, Miss Self Portrait ever since I can remember...) The clothes she modeled in also have barely sold for some reason, maybe because people can sense she is actually uncomfortable? At some point I may try to find a model for the size small and medium clothing, but for now I'll stick with the wall and dress form.
So summer is winding down and we are heading slowly into fall, but in my mind I seem to be in spring fever. This is partly because we didn't really have spring this year in Berlin, more like a long, especially cruel winter that one day turned into summer and then REALLY turned into summer in the form of a series of vicious heat waves. Sigh. Back when I lived in California I never imagined I would spend this much time talking about the weather....
Anyway, on a more cheerful note, take a look at some of the lovely floral prints I have recently added to my shop:
The photographs are a bit too dark, I priced it just a tad on the high side...Dang it, it could be that I just want to keep this dress. If it suddenly disappears from my shop then you'll certainly know why. :)
P.S. The fabulous red wool hat here that has made its appearance several times already in Curious Knopf is by the hat maker Fiona Bennett who also just so happens to be my brother-in-law's girlfriend.
One of the most amazing things about being a foreigner living abroad is how clearly you can see certain things that the native locals simply cannot. Take, for example, Trachtenmode.
Trachtenmode is the traditional costume of Bavaria and Austria, best known in its form of a dirndl and Lederhosen to the rest of the world. But there are also lots of dress that are "dinrdl light" (no apron, no frilly blouse) and adorable long country style circle skirts. At its very best, Trachtenmode is colorful, playful, feminine with just a touch of frill and often covered in Alpine flowers. It just doesn't get much cuter than that....
Yet when I show this clothing to my (German, but not Bavarian) husband he always says "No way! You can't wear that!" His cultural conditioning has just blinded him to how great they really are. Luckily there is a whole world out there with women who just might see the cuteness that I see. ;)
I'm not really sure why but, with the exception of navy I've just never worn much blue. Maybe I have it partly in my mind that it's a better color for the blonde and blue eyed, though a brighter blue also does look fabulous on someone darker. The good news is, if you are a fan of blue in its more royal, sky and icy shades, then I have a lot of goodies right now just for you in my shop. Bis bald! :)
Has lived in Berlin for: almost ten years (I beat her by one year. Originally I planned to stay for a couple of years and she for a couple of semesters. Berlin just does that to you.)
Favorite neighborhood in Berlin: Kreuzberg, baby (well, duh!)
Claims to Fame: Besides being a sweet and generous person, Erica can also sing one mean version of the song "I Am From Michigan", complete with hand gestures (and anyone who knows Michigan knows they are proud to be shaped like a hand.) She also knows her tenses and has a hankering for literature and linguistics. Oh yeah, and she loves to get out on that dance floor and dance, dance, dance.
Erica, thanks so much for being my model! And yes folks, she did get some free, bad ass dresses in the process. They looked so great on her, how could I say no? :)
Sales have continued to be pretty much non-existent at my shop this week. Although I'm pretty relaxed about it and have come to terms with the fact that it is (hopefully...) just a stroke of bad luck, I've also decided to try out some new things. I recently asked people on the forums if they prefer a dress form/mannequin or a live model for clothes and people overwhelmingly said live model (something I found kind of surprising since I definitely prefer a dress form.) A chic friend of mine has volunteered to model the size mediums next week, but I thought I'd also give it a go with the larger sizes.
Although this vintage navy blue pleated skirt with white art deco style z's is actually too small for me (as is all the clothes I model) I pull it off for the picture I think. But I guess that's the question I have: Do I just pull off the modeling or does it actually make the clothing more interesting?
Do you prefer something like this?.....
To something like this?.....
Non sequiter I know, but isn't this vintage 1960s dirndl adorable?
Anyway, in the end I'll probably just end up mixing the different type of photographs together, including those on the Berlin walls, but any critiques, personal preferences or insights would be most appreciated. :)
Anyway who has taken a peek at my shop knows I have a thing for dirndls. Although the ones listed there are, of course, for sale, I did give in to temptations and keep 
several for myself. Why dirndls? Here are my reasons.
Dirndls are for so much than just Oktoberfest. Actually, when I see one worn in full apron Bavarian glory I almost get offended. ;) They are both sweet and sassy, both innocently girly and super sexy. They fit well. If you have a boyish figure they make you look more curvy. If you have a curvy figure, they hide the spots that are maybe just a little bit too curvy.
They are also made of such beautiful materials. Soft cotton, raw silk, linen. The bodice is always lined often with a funky retro cloth or a brilliantly white cotton. And the pewter buttons are oh-so-cute for sure.
