Christmas Windows, Asheville NC

I went to Asheville today to see what was “new” in my favorite vintage places, and also to check out the Christmas windows.   It had never occurred to me that Asheville might have great holiday windows, but I saw in the newspaper that there had been a design contest on the theme “A Star is Born,” and I felt I owed it to myself to see them.  I had no illusions that the Saks and Bergdorf’s and Macy’s windows were facing stiff competition, but for a small city like Asheville I thought the display was pretty impressive.

Over the past twenty years, the civic leaders in Asheville have worked hard to revitalize downtown.  After most of the stores and restaurants abandoned the area and relocated at the mall, downtown Asheville was a rather scary place.  Only a few stores were able to hold on.  But they did, and slowly they were joined by other urban pioneers.  Today downtown Asheville is a wonderful place to shop and eat.  Best of all, almost all the businesses are locally owned.

But enough bragging on my little city.  Here is a tour of some of my favorite windows.

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This window was made entirely of layers of cut paper.  It really was a showstopper.  Note that there is no product to be found!  This was one of the windows at
Sensibilities Day Spa.

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This sock monkey carolers window was at the yarn shop, Purl’s Yarn Emporium.

Windows are really hard to photograph, so I’m sorry about the quality of this one at clothing store, Caravans.

I cannot resist polar bears.

This is one of the windows at Spiritex, which is a clothing store.  All the clothing is made here in Western North Carolina.

This is one of four star windows at the Chevron Trading Post.   These stars are made of paper and they are stunning.

This is the window at Mountain Lights, which is a seller of locally made candles and crafts.

Hip Replacements had a retro theme and won the Judges’ Favorite prize.  They sell retro and vintage clothing.

I couldn’t help but notice that some of the most effective windows I saw today were the ones that featured only a few, or even one product.  Some of the windows that I did not photograph looked like windows from the turn of the 20th century where shopkeepers piled the windows high with as much merchandise as possible.  I think people are attracted to visual clutter (like the star windows) but the clutter has to make sense.   Trying to show everything in the shop is just confusing.

So, what are the holiday windows like in your corner of the world?

The Vanderbilt Shirt Company, Part II

The slightly fuzzy girl in the photo is me, circa 1974.  It was taken by my boyfriend (now husband!)  at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville.  I chose this particular photo not to show off how short I was wearing my skirts in 1974, but because I made the top from fabric I bought at the Vanderbilt factory outlet.  At the outlet one could buy the finished products of the factory, and they also had a big bin of fabric pieces that were left over from their products.

I remember this fabric well because it was such a bear to sew.  It was a two way stretch knit that had a mind of its own.  The top is actually a bodysuit, and there is a zipper down the front.   And you can’t tell, but what looks like dots are actually ladybugs.  I loved that outfit.

Today my plea on my last post about Vanderbilt paid off.  My post was seen by Pat Purvis whose mother Helen Watts had worked for the company.  I was able to talk with Helen on the phone and got some great information about the company.

The Vanderbilt Shirt Company was started in 1946, and had no connection to the Vanderbilt family who built the Biltmore House.  As Mrs. Watts put it, people in Asheville just like to name things for Biltmore and the Vanderbilts.  The factory was located in downtown Asheville, on the corner of Walnut and Lexington in the building I showed last week.    In the late 1960s there was a fire, started by a homeless man who had gone into the building to stay warm.  Because of that, the owners built a new factory  where they relocated in 1969.

My biggest question was how was Vanderbilt shirt connected to Langtry, Ltd.  As it turns out, Langtry was a label that was actually started by the Vanderbilt Shirt Company.   Previous to this label they did contract sewing for other companies like Levis and they made shirts and jackets for the US military.  Most of the output of Langtry was women’s blouses, but they also made other women’s garments like dresses and jackets.  Mrs. Watts was not sure about where the name Langtry came from, but thinks that it probably was named for actress Lillie Langtry.

As American companies began to outsource part of the manufacturing process, Vanderbilt Shirt Company turned to Haiti.  For a while much of  their product was made in Haiti, and this led to the ultimate undoing of the company.  During the political unrest of the late 1980s following the ouster of the Duvalier dictators, the Vanderbilt factory in Port-au-Prince was destroyed along with all the machinery, the fabric and inventory.  It was a hard blow from which the company never truly recovered.

The company limped along in a smaller facility on French Broad Avenue, until the early 1990s when they finally declared bankruptcy.  

Before talking to Mrs, Watts, I just assumed that Langtry was just another victim of the flood of cheaper imported goods that was making it harder and harder for American manufacturers to compete.  How much more interesting the story turned out to be.

Many thanks to Pat and Helen.

The Vanderbilt Shirt Factory – Asheville, NC

One of the great things about living near a place like Asheville is the fun of playing tourist for a day.  We often get up to a day with nothing important on the agenda and take the drive into the city for lunch and window shopping.

Last week we were walking down a street passing by a favorite antique mall when I noticed the old sign above the door: “Vanderbilt Shirt Co. Inc.”  I’d seen the sign before and never given it a lot of thought.  At one time there were quite a few manufacturing businesses in the upper floors of Asheville retail establishments.  I can remember Vanderbilt from when I was a teen in the late 1960s and early 70s because they had a factory outlet that I loved to visit.  Suddenly, I was overcome with curiosity about the company.

I spent some time on the net, looking for information, and for a while I thought I was going to come up empty.  How is it that thriving businesses can close, and 20 years later there is little evidence that they ever existed?  Finally I found the transcription of an oral history interview in which the owners of the factory were mentioned.  Once I had their names, I got lucky.

Thanks to a project called The Family Store, there is a fairly good record of the Jewish businesses that flourished in Asheville in the early and mid 20th century.  Researchers Sharon Fahrer and Jan Schochet conducted interviews and compiled information about these businesses that was in danger of being forgotten.  In 2003 they interviewed Milton Lurey, who founded and owned the Vanderbilt Shirt Company along with his brother-in-law, Herb Wadopian.

Milton had been in the tire retread business, but it was dirty and smelly.  There was a small manufacturer of boy’s shirts next door, and it seemed like a pleasant place, so he sold the tire business and when into the shirt making business with Herb even though neither of them knew anything about making shirts.  They were able to get expert assistance when they found Evelyn Bookbinder, who had been a supervisor at a sewing factory.

They started by making men’s dress shirts, but before long they were doing contract work for other companies.  One of their big clients was Levi Strauss, for whom they made western style shirts.  They then made women’s shirts for Levis as well.  The interview does not give a good idea of dating, but it was probably in the early 1950s.  Around the same time they began making shirts and jackets for the US military.

After a fire the factory moved out of downtown to the outskirts of Asheville, where the business was located when I remember it.  The outlet was located in a fantastic old native rock building that was probably at one time a restaurant.   The outlet also sold blouses and dresses that were labeled Langtry, Ltd.  I’m not sure of the connection, but Langtry was located in Asheville on the same street as Vanderbilt, so it is possible that they contracted with the Vanderbilt factory.  At any rate, that outlet was my favorite place to shop for several years.  They not only sold clothing, but the leftover fabric from their lines.

I’m hoping the internet will not let me down, that someone who knows more of this story will stumble across this.  If that is you, please post a comment.

Ragtime Vintage Clothing, Asheville

Sometimes I think I must be living in a fog.  A good example is the fact that this store, Ragtime Vintage, has been open in Asheville for seven (or did she say nine???) years, and I’d never seen or even heard of it.  Granted, it is a bit off the beaten path, on Walnut Street, but I pride myself in knowing such things.

But no matter, because this little gem of a store is now on my regular circuit of Asheville haunts.   I’d like it even better if I were a guy, because most of the store has the best selection of early 60s boy vintage that I’ve run across in a long time.  Still, the women’s selection was small but select, with the best stuff, again, from the early 60s.  Honestly, it was just nice walking into a vintage store that was not 95% polyester 70s and 80s.

Loving that “College Shop” sign!

Asheville Antique Shopping

Sometimes I get so excited about going to a flea market or to another city to shop for vintage that I forget just how great the findings can be in Asheville.  There are nine multi-dealer shops plus  quite a few single owner ones.  From visiting other towns I know that the antiques and collectibles business has suffered through the recession, but the shops in Asheville seem to be pretty much weathering the storm, with few empty booths, and lots of fresh merchandise to be found.

Yesterday I took the afternoon to visit a few of the shops, and I am happy to report there were lots of vintage treasures to be found.  Today, a sampling of things I found interesting, and in the coming days, I’ll show you some of the things that added to up a very lucky treasure hunt  (or in other words, the things I bought!)

I’ll have more to say about this fabric later, but this vendor had these eight bolts of vintage novelty print fabric from the 1950s.

I know these dye cases used to be a hot item, and sold for insane amounts.  This is the best one I’ve ever seen, and lo and behold, when the lid is lifted:

It is still full of dye packets.  Really nice, especially if you were thinking about stocking a country store…

This is a little off topic, but I loved this folding chair.  I hosted my family’s Christmas get-together, and every year I’m reminded about how I need lots of folding chairs.  This one was a bit out of my price range, but I thought it was pretty nifty.

Louis Vuitton it is not, but is this field desk not the best?  I wanted it, and I almost succumbed, but common sense over-ruled my thought that some day I may take a photo safari to Africa and I would absolutely need this desk.  Wouldn’t I?

Cute sailor girl in middy and sailor’s pants.  Need I say more?

Asheville: Boom to Bust to Boom

I’ve been talking about Asheville for years, and finally realized I need to show off this little city a bit.  Despite the misguided efforts of the North Carolina legislature to move Asheville to the Piedmont, Asheville is a  mountain town, and this has always been a factor in the town’s growth.  Above you see Pack Square, where Asheville really began, back in the early 1800s when it was just a stop on a livestock driving trail from Tennessee to South Carolina.  People in the hot lowlands of South Carolina quickly realized that Asheville was not just for pigs, and by 1851 a road was built north from Greenville, SC.  The tourists arrived soon afterward, looking for a cool spot to spend the summer.

A railroad was completed into Asheville in 1881, and a period of wide growth resulted.  Hotels were built on every hilltop, the most famous of which was the Batttery Park, finished in 1886.  There the rich and famous stayed, including George Vanderbilt who decided to make his home on one of the nearby mountaintops.

Through the turn of the 20th century and the 1920s, Asheville prospered as a prime tourist destination.  In the 1920s the city went on a building spree, with a new Art Deco city hall and neoclassical courthouse.  The old Battery Park was torn down and replaced by a modern skyscraper and a shopping arcade.  But all this came to a screeching halt in 1929.  The city was hard hit by the Depression, but through the 1960s the downtown area maintained five large department stores and a variety of little shops and restaurants.

As a child in the 1960s, I would go with my family to Asheville twice a month or so.  We always went to the big downtown Sears store, and then to a new shopping center just outside the downtown area.  We didn’t know it then, but the Westgate Shopping Center was the first sign that downtown was beginning a downhill slide.  The slide became an avalanche in 1971 when the Asheville Mall opened its doors.  The department stores opened branches at the mall, which soon greatly outsold the downtown stores.  One by one they closed.  By the early 1980s, downtown Asheville was pretty much a ghost town, with a few businesses managing to hang on.

I realize there is nothing unique about this, and the story might have ended here except that there were a few far-sighted individuals who refused to give up on downtown Asheville.  In the late 1980s a group set about to revitalize the city’s core, and today we reap the benefits of their success.   There were some notable losses along the way, but for the most part downtown Asheville has emerged as a unique place filled with privately owned businesses.

Pack Square, where the city began, and the center of early development.  The obelisk is a monument to Civil War governor Vance, who came from the area.  Behind it is the courthouse and the city hall.  The biggest change in this photo is the I.M. Pei monstrosity to the left.  When the building of it was announced in the early 1980s, there was a public uproar.  The block it replaced contained small shops dating back to the early days of the square.

But it did get people to thinking, which is usually a good thing.

Tops for Shoes was one of the few businesses to remain in downtown through the 1970s and 80s.  The store opened in 1952 as part of The Bargain Center.    The shoes were so successful they soon got their own space, and have been there ever since.  And yes, in Asheville, they really are tops for shoes.

I hope you can tell from the photos just how hilly Asheville is.  This is looking up Haywood Street, which was developed in the 1920s.  Asheville’s premier department store, Bon Marche, moved to Haywood in the mid 1920s, and soon this area became the shopping street.  The Woolworth is now an arts and crafts co-operative.

Directly across the street is that 1923 Bon Marche building, on the right.  This store moved beside Woolworth in 1937, in a new Art Deco building.  Ivey’s of Charlotte moved into the old Bon Marche building.  Today it is the Haywood Park Hotel.  Yes, Asheville does have a Flat Iron Building, and behind it runs Wall Street, which used to have a lot of character but was sanitized to death by renovation.

The 1937 Bon Marche building now houses the Earth Guild, which sells craft supplies.  Have you noticed the  artsy vibe?  The Earth Guild was one of the first businesses to take advantage of the large empty spaces for rent during the late 70s.

From the beginning of the revitalization in the 1990s, the efforts were entirely local.  No national chain would have touched the place, except for a CVS pharmacy that was eventually closed.  That all changed a few years ago when Urban Outfitters announced they would be opening in the old CVS space.  The protest continues, as you can see by the graffiti on the rear of the store.

Don’t shop here.

There are many locally owned clothing stores, some selling only locally made clothing, others selling high-end  nationally known brands.  Many display shop local signs, which really mean, “Don’t shop at Urban Outfitters.”  One store has a sign that reads, “There are no goods made in China in this store.”

“The conscious brain can hold only one thought at a time.  Choose a positive thought.”

The “new” Battery Park Hotel, built in 1924.  It closed as a hotel as downtown Asheville was abandoned, and the city leased it as low cost housing for the elderly.  It remains so today, much to the chagrin of developers everywhere!

This is the Grove Arcade, build by Edwin Grove, who also built the new Battery Park and the Grove Park Inn.  The arcade is located just in front of the hotel, and was intended as a shopping arcade for guests of the hotel.  It served this purpose until WWII, when it was taken over by the Federal government for some war-related purpose.  After the war the National Climatic Data Center moved in.  The building was strictly off limits, with guards at the doors.  Occasionally you could take a quick shortcut through the building (huge thing covers an entire block) but if you got caught then you had to answer a lot of questions.  Trust me on that one…

Thankfully, the feds moved out and the shops and restaurants moved back in several years ago.

And just one more…

The Basilica of Saint Lawrence, build in 1905.  You can’t see it in my photo, but the roof is a freestanding dome.   It is simply stunning.

Made in the USA – Stuart Nye Since 1933

In this day of the internet and widespread style sharing via blogs and sites such as etsy, I’ve got to wonder if regional fads and fashion even exist.  I’ve been thinking of this because I was sorting through an old box of trinkets and ran across a piece of Stuart Nye jewelry.

It’s highly possible that you have never heard of Stuart Nye, but if you lived in Western  North Carolina during the 1940s through the 1970s, Nye jewelry would have been high on your wantlist.  It was sold in the best stores, and everybody, and I mean everybody wanted a Nye dogwood ring.

Stuart Nye had been a patient at the VA hospital in Oteen,  which is just east of Asheville.  While he was there he bought some metalworking tools from another patient.  In 1933 he began making silver jewelry, based on some carvings he had made of dogwood blossoms.  His work was discovered by Ralph Morris, a buyer for Ivey’s, a major Asheville department store, which became one of the biggest distributors of Nye’s jewelry.

Eventually Morris became a partner in the business, and when Nye retired, became the owner.  The workshop, which had been located in Nye’s garage, was relocated to a new building built by Morris on Tunnel Road in Asheville  The workshop is still located there.

Over the years more designs were added, mostly based on the flowers and leaves of the Appalachian Mountain region.   Copper was added when silver was in short supply during WWII, and brass was added when the price of silver skyrocketed in 1979.  But what has not changed is that all Stuart Nye jewelry is made completely by hand in their shop on Tunnel Road.  And they welcome visitors, who can watch the jewelry makers at work.

An overview of the shop.

The making of one of Nye’s most popular styles, the Backward Loop Earrings.  These are made in three sizes.  The maker uses marks on her pliers to gauge the size of the loop.

This woman is a skilled hammerer.  She is working on making silver trillium pins.  The design has been cut out of the silver, and before she starts with the hammer, is perfectly flat.

The trillium quickly takes shape.

After about 10 minutes, the shape is complete.  It will then go to a solderer who will attach a pinback and to finishing where the piece will be cleaned and polished.

Beautiful finished trilliums in copper.

Dogwood: Step by Step

My guide, Mr. Ralph Morris, Junior.  He and his son Joe still run the business.

The 1948 Stuart Nye workshop, where the jewelry is still made.  Next door is the Southern Highlands Craft Guild  shop, where the jewelry can be purchased.  For those of you not in Asheville, it can also be bought online at stuartnye.com.   Especially gorgeous are the bracelets.  My thanks to Ralph and Joe Morris, and to the staff at Stuart Nye for the warm and friendly welcome.

Nye jewelry has long been a popular souvenir of this region, and so vintage pieces are often found throughout the country.  I was lucky enough to get a pair of vintage earrings from Pinky-a-gogo, who is located in New York.

Stuart Nye Hand Wrought Jewelry was part of the crafts revival movement of the early 20th century.  All over the country, people rediscovered traditional crafts such as metalwork, weaving and quilting.  A few of these ventures survive in some manner, such as the Penland School of Crafts and Jugtown Pottery in Seagrove, NC.

An ad from a 1952 Vogue.  They still make these earrings. In fact, I have a pair, bought sometime in the 1980s.