Shopping with The Vintage Traveler: Asheville, NC

After several days of looking at photos on the internet of people baking Christmas goodies, I decided I needed a break from the I’m-not-cooking-guilt.  What could be nicer than a day shopping in the antique and vintage emporiums of Asheville?

I call it shopping, but what I really do is 99% looking as my life is a textbook case of knowing that I have more stuff than I need already, and that  I’m out of space for more.  Still, looking is an education, and that requires no space at all.

I adored the postcard of the shipboard shuffleboarders.   And even though postcards take up little space, I resisted.

This Vera Neumann shirt from the early 1970s is such a great example of her work.  I’ve written before how she would paint the design and then her team would convert it into a garment.  The print was engineered so that the pieces of the garment were printed right onto the fabric.

This was a new one for me.  This is a close-up of a quilt made from pieces of felt, at least some of which were from pennants.  Big faux fur diamond shapes were appliqued over, and the whole thing was tied to join the front and back.

This is a shawl or stole, with a silk paisley print on one side, and a deep pile velvet on the other.  I took photos of it because it reminded me so much of one I found and bought not too long ago.

I’m still trying to figure out the target customer for this piece.

This piece started life as a tablecloth, but I think I like it better as an oversized top.  It looks like it was made in the late 1950s or early 60s, by the shape of the collar and neckline.

Why is the tablecloth-turned-top acceptable to me while this conversion of vintage skates to Christmas decoration is not?  Maybe it is because I’ve been looking for a nice pair of women’s 1950s skates, and here they are all covered with fake snow.  I do find skates a surprising lot considering I’m in the South, but they are usually cheap vinyl.  These are leather, and were well-made.

This was interesting, and a bit unexpected.  It’s a sketch by Grace Sprague, who was Edith Head’s assistant and main sketcher in the 1950s and 60s.

If I ever become a time traveler, the guy on the left will be my Edwardian boyfriend.

The poor woman driver runs deep in our consciousness.  The Victorians started it with their cartoons of the woman on her bicycle, and this Colliers cover perpetuated the myth.

These left me speechless.  Made by Wrangler, I’m quite sure they were made for men.  (I forgot to check the fly to see which way it was oriented.)

Aren’t these photos fantastic?  I wonder if they were actually used in an advertisement.

I see a lot of vintage tailoring displays and books, but this one is nice because it features a woman’s suit as well as a man’s.

And just to show that it’s not just about clothes, here are two little Scottie friends.

I did actually make two purchases.  One is a 1942 Make and Mend for Victory booklet by the Cotton Spool Company.  The other is a 2013 book on French designer Jean Patou.  It’s one of those huge, over-sized books that could have been published small for half the price, but I had to have it because of the wonderful photos of Patou’s sportswear.  Many of the photos came from the Patou archive, and are simply envy-inducing.  Bathing suits, tennis dresses, and ski wear – Patou did them all.

These wonders can be found at Bryant Antiques, Local, Screen Door, and Sweeten Creek Antiques, all in the Biltmore area of Asheville.