Liberty Antiques Festival, Spring 2013

Last weekend was the best time to be had in any cow pasture in the state.  I’m talking about the semi-annual Liberty Flea Market, or properly put, the Liberty Antiques Festival.  Hands down, it is the very best antiques and vintage show in my area, and so I’m happy to get up way before daylight for the drive.

In the past few years I’ve noticed that most flea markets and antique malls have gotten smaller.  In fact, my report last fall on Liberty indicted a smaller show with fewer buyers.  Not so this spring.  It was the most robust show I’ve ever attended there (and I’ve been going since 2005), with more dealers and definitely more buyers.   But best of all, the quality of items was up, but prices seemed to be stable.

I learned a long time ago that good markets are worth attending even if I don’t find anything to buy.  Fortunately, I did make some very nice purchases, but even more valuable is the experience of seeing things that are new to me.  The education at places like this can be priceless.

So here’s what I saw and learned on this trip.  I’ll show purchases later.

This is a very poor photo of a lovely booth.  The seller had some pretty 1920s and Edwardian dresses.

I admired this little collection of miniature hand cranked sewing machines.

I spotted this page from a 1959 McCall’s pattern catalog while looking through a stack of paper.  What caught my attention was how this was a design of a dress that was worn in Tall Story, starring Jane Fonda and Tony Perkins.  The movie was pretty much a flop, but there must have been enough buzz about it for McCall’s to do this tie-in.  What really irritates me about how McCall’s handled this sort of thing is how the fact that is is the same dress Fonda wore in the movie is not indicated in any way on the pattern envelope.  I know that people shopping for patterns in 1959 would have known, because the pattern would have been picked out from the catalog, but today the connection is lost.  They did this with other movie tie-ins, including four designs Givenchy did for Audrey Hepburn in How to Steal a Million in 1966.

I did not buy these fabric samples because they were a bit pricy.  I sort of regret it though, as they are such great examples of vintage North Carolina produced textiles.   The Glenco Mill is long closed, and the former company store is now a museum.

Such a great graphic for an odd product!

I thought this paper dress showing the hanging and folding feature of this suitcase was just charming!

The tag said this little loom was a salesman sample.  It certainly was complicated and detailed if that were the case.

There were a lot of Enid Collins bags, but this hot air balloon was the best.

With all the talk about Diana Vreeland recently, I was interested to see this poster for Dance, one of the last exhibitions she organized for the Costume Institute at the Met, in 1986.

Sylvia gives weight loss advice to the 1935 woman.

I loved this great little travel case for the Skipper doll.

This great advertising poster for work shoes features the cleanest farmer ever.

I wanted this really, really badly.

How about a pair of blow-up boot supports?

And finally, this has to be the most creative hat rack ever.

 

 

 

Season Opener

Last week was what I consider to be the opening event of flea market season – the Charlotte Metrolina Flea.  That’s my name for the event.  The official name – The International Collectibles and Antiques Show – sort of makes it seem a bit grander than it really is.  Not that there are not lots of collectibles, and even antiques, but this is truly a mix of the highbrow and the lowbrow.

My favorite thing this time around was not even for sale.  It was the clever reuse of a vintage travel trailer as a portable store.  It’s called The Go Girl Shoppe, and it was just the cutest thing there.

I was a day later than I like to go due to rain on Friday, and when that happens I tend to obsess over what the people who were willing to wear rubber boots and carry umbrellas found and bought while I was home warm and dry.  And invariably some sadistic dealer has to tell about all the fabric he sold for $1 a piece the day before.

It was a good day to find vintage patterns.  It almost made me wish I was  still selling them.  I said, almost…

This 1940s stunner was found in a stack of 1960s patterns.

I was almost hypnotised by this paint-by-number Pinkie.  I realized that it was the lack of pupils in her eyes that drew me in.

This is Scarf Mountain.  I didn’t look through them all, as I encountered this vendor back in November and I didn’t have the energy to plow through the pile.  Maybe I should have, because this is where I found a lovely 1960s Liberty of London scarf last fall.

Lots of great petticoats in this booth.

This fabric was part of a major ad campaign by Springs Mills starting in 1947.  The sexually suggestive nature of the ads made them controversial.  Today we’d be more shocked by the sexism and racism implicit in the the ads than the images themselves.  It’s an interesting bit of textile history that today is more relevant as social history.

The company actually had Cole of California make the fabric up into various items of clothing.  Scroll down to see the ad where this fabric is shown.

And, just for fun, here’s one last look at the Go Girl Shoppe.

Pickens Flea Market and Shopping in the SC Upstate

Has there ever been a place or a store nearby that you just kept meaning to visit, but then things always happened or you kept forgetting or whatever?  That’s the way I was for years with the Pickens, South Carolina, Flea Market.   First of all, the thing is held on Wednesday, and second of all it is a bit off the beaten path.  But last week the stars finally aligned and I was off to check out Pickens.

I guess the most important thing to realize about Pickens is that it is a true flea market.  The booths of antiques and old stuff are far out-numbered by booths of new merchandise, fresh produce and this-’n-that.  But this is the type of place where the potential of scoring big is present if one is patient and very lucky. The second most important thing to know is that this place opens early – 4 am – and by 11 am dealers are starting to leave.  I didn’t get there until 9, and that made me very late.

Even though it was a chilly late winter day, the place was quite busy, but I can guess that when the weather improves that there will be even more activity.  As it was, It took me two hours to make my way through it all.  I’ll probably go back before the summer and hot South Carolina temperatures hit.  I can imagine that place is pretty miserable at 90*.

My only purchases were a Lilly Pulitzer dress for my great-niece and a shirt I’ll share later on.  All I’ll say is that it involves the Beatles and embroidery.

I probably would have bought this great old sticker if the dealer had been within sight.  Why have a booth if you are going to wander off instead of tending to your business?

That is pretty much it from the flea market.  I took the long way home, wandering through some of the small towns of the region, hitting an antique mall or two.  The one above is in Easley (where the famous Swirl wrap dress was manufactured).  This is the old Mountain View Hotel, and is worth visiting just to see the structure.  Built in 1872,  the rooms now house the different booths of merchandise.  Note the omnipresent 1980s second marriage dress hanging on the wall.

Here’s one of the guestrooms.  Note the fireplace.

Further on up the road in Walhalla is another mall I’ve visited in the past.  The last time I was there they had an entire room of old clothes to dig through.  It was, unfortunately, no more, but I love an enticing rack of clothes, as you just never know what will be stuck in there.  There was some teenager’s 1966 wardrobe of skirts that you can see there in the middle of the rack.

And then there was this pretty silk 1920s frock.

I probably should have bought this because my mother-in-law had the Monday of this set.

And sometimes I do wonder where my head is.  I passed on this album which held a bunch of 45′s (that’s those little records with the big hole for you young ones).  The writing on the front disturbed me, as did the presence of the 45′s (just a lot more things I did not need…), but now I have non-buyer’s remorse.

click to enlarge

Back to the Seventies

I graduated from high school in 1973, and this outfit would have been the very thing I’d have worn that year.  The girls at my school had just been granted the right to wear pants, mainly because the school officials didn’t seem to be able to control the shortness of the minis we were wearing.  Yes, there were rules, but they couldn’t send us all home.  So rather than have the constant parade of over-exposed thighs, the powers must have concluded that covered up, even if it meant pants, was better.

It was a whimsical time in fashion with lots of silly little prints of Holly Hobbie and cartoon characters that were popular with girls at my school.  We liked pinafore tops and I even had a dress with a back tie sash.  I guess we knew it was pretty much our last chance to really be kids.

So, sure, I’d have worn the mouse sweater.

I’ve had this little Bobbie Brooks sweater for at least five years, and possibly longer.  When I found it I had a perfect vision of the pants that would go with it.  First, they had to be plaid.  The main color would be light, or even white, but the blue would match, and there would be a darker color, maybe a deep gold or a red.

When I found these last week, I was pretty sure I’d found my pants.  Still, I was working the color from memory and could not be sure.  It helped that colors are fashion-driven, and this was a good color in the early 70s.

It was such a good match that you might think that the pants are also from Bobbie Brooks.  Actually, the label is Gordon of Philadelphia, which was geared toward a slightly older, more conservative consumer.  But I guess even the preppy had to capitulate to the way of fashion, at least for a few years.

 

Looking

I’ve always been an opportunistic shopper.  I can take any errand or trip and turn it into a vintage treasure hunt.   Last week I had the good fortune to travel a bit west to the little town where my father was born and raised for a small family get-together.  That was delightful, and the party broke up in time for me to make a few stops on the way home.  It was one of those times when there was plenty to look at, especially in the way of interesting graphics.

I loved the girl in the advertising poster seen above.  It’s enough to make me want to use Campana’s Italian Balm.

The framed piece above is about two feet long.  The photos are from an excursion to Dartmouth River, Gaspe, Canada.

Here’s the ideal from about the same period of time.  I think the real woman in the cabin doorway more than holds her own against the idealized woman in the drawing.

Okay, I know it’s not fashion, but I could not resist photographing this cheery flock from the 1970s.  The artist is Japanese and I could not decipher the name.

I always notice pictures that contain dogs, but what I found to be interesting about this print was the subtitle of the work:

“Love me Love my dog.”  Having just had the anachronisms of Downton Abbey on my mind, I was really surprised to find that phrase on a print dated 1848.  But a bit of online reading revealed that  actually the phrase is quite old, being attributed to St. Bernard who died in 1153.  Of course, he said it in Latin.

Of course I loved this fourth grade health text book from 1935.  The frontpiece:

The little girl’s coat is so similar to a Pendleton coat in my collection, one that Pendleton reproduced last fall (and is now on sale for an amazing price).  But it also reminded me of a Hudson’s Bay blanket jacket.  I was pretty happy to run across the very thing just down the road a bit.

And I’ve got one more photo to end this little walk through the antique malls of western North Carolina.

This is a booth in an antiques, seriously, it is.

Shopping Day – Franklin, NC

I really have not been shopping much in the past few months, due mainly to the cold and dreary weather combined with my sister’s illness and death.  But last week I suddenly got the urge to get out and visit some of my favorite vintage and thrift haunts.  I ended up in Dillard, Georgia and Franklin, NC, both of which have enough junk stores to fill an entire day.  One of my favorite things of the day was this pretty velvet evening cape from the 1930s.

This is a die cut cardboard advertising piece.  I suppose that originally there was a sample of the Shamrock Water Wave & Sport Cap that fit over the hair.  I’ve seen similar heads that were ads for hair nets.  It appears that the Twin City Beauty & Barber Supply Company  in South Bend, Indiana, may still be in business.

This is a sort of catalog folder for Beau Brummel men’s suits.  I liked that it was from a kind of local store.  Click the image to see an enlarged view and a sample of a suit.

The lid of this shoe box was pretty interesting.  It gives five reasons why Tarsal Tread shoes are good for your feet.  Unfortunately, there was only one shoe.  Click to read about the shoes.

And how pretty is this young woman in a canoe?  It is actually the front of a hanging magazine rack.

I didn’t find anything fashion related to buy, but that does not mean I did not have a good time, and did not learn anything.   And I was able to make a few purchases of some Johnson Brothers Christmas china that I collect.  And best of all, I bought a souvenir pennant from Rock City, Tennessee.  My parents took us there when we were kids.  I had talked about that trip with my sister to see how much she remembered, as she was quite young at the time, probably five.  She did remember a bit, probably because there was a Fairyland area.  And she had kept the little figures that she bought there.  I, on the other hand, had long ago lost the pennant I’d bought that day.  So finding this one was a special treat.

Shopping Heaven – Brevard, NC

A couple of weeks ago I posted about driving over the mountain to Brevard, NC to meet up with Mod Betty from Retro Roadmap.  In the comments, Hollis mentioned that she’s been wanting to get to Brevard, and it reminded me that I really needed to do that myself.  Though the town is close to me, it’s a roundabout trip to get there due to the mountains, so I tend to neglect visiting as often as I should.  But I did make time last week, and I’ve now determined that I must get over there much more often.

Brevard is a small town of around 7600 people, though the population is higher in the summer when the summer residents are there.  The town really benefited several years ago when it was named in one of the first surveys of great places to retire, and so today it is thought of as a retirement town.  As any good thrifter will tell you, thrifting is best in affluent communities.  Many of the retirees are affluent, and they have time on their hands, and so there are quite a few privately run thrift stores for local charities.  It makes for a very good shopping experience.

The town has two antique malls, and several other stores with booths, some of which have old stuff.  There are vintage clothes scattered around, mixed in with newer wares.

If I were a knitter, I might have wanted this little charmer as a mascot.

Paris and fashion and the early 1960s.

And while the antique malls are fun, where Brevard really excites is in the thrifts.

Yes, I bought this 1920s Whiting and Davis bag in a thrift store.  I did not get it for $2, or anything crazy like that, but the price was far under what it would have been at an antique store, and the thing is in almost perfect condition, right down to the silk lining.

Another store down the street had this copy of Elsa Schiaparelli’s Shocking Life.  I already had a copy, but mine is rough, and without the dust jacket.  So I bought this one and will be giving the old copy away in January, so stay tuned if you are in need of that book.

I’m always in the market for some Cecil Beaton, so the first volume of his Diaries was a real find.  I also picked up Oleg Cassini’s autobiography, a 1933 copy of Fortune magazine that features the emerging New York fashion design scene, some 1950s sales brochures from an Asheville department store, Bon Marche,  and a 1983 Vogue.

I was so excited that I finally understood the rush that leads to youtube “haul” videos.  Okay, I exaggerate a bit, but I was a very happy shopper.