Salvo Wednesday At Home: Vintage Yes

It is amazing to me that I have been going to this same Salvation Army constantly for years - since so shortly after it opened that Google didn't believe me it existed - and I have never realized how much vintage it contains. I'm really finding this to be true everywhere I go this summer. It's like when I introduce a classic song to my kids to sing in choir and I'm shocked when they tell me they've never heard it - and then after we sing it, they tell me they hear it everywhere. It was always there, in the background, but they'd just never noticed it before. 

This is happening with vintage. I'm sure it's always been there, waiting for me to notice. And I have noticed to some degree - if it is exactly my size or exactly my taste. But now that I've really started looking at all of it, and educating myself about different labels (styles I knew, labels I did not), it's everywhere. 

This week I went to my home Salvation Army for the first time this summer, and I only found one thing for myself. And yet my cart looked like this.

Oh, I tried on 7 things, but only one made the cut.  The rules are that it has to fit me perfectly with no alterations required (we've seen what I do with DIY), it has to be something I will actually have the opportunity to wear even if it's just once a year or a special occasion, it has to be unlike anything I own or has to be a great improvement over something similar (meaning the previous one gets ousted), and if at all possible, it ought to have pockets. This met all my requirements!

This falls into the category of being an improvement over a similar item. The improvement is partially just being a higher quality material, but mostly pockets. We ladies love dresses with pockets. Fashion designers, take note. WE LOVE THEM.

There were some really great vintage items I didn't take with me for various reasons. I didn't take this:

Gorgeous (50s? 60s?) lace wedding dress. I didn't take it for reasons twofold: One, it was $45. HALF OFF. That's right, folks, Salvation Army wants $90 for this when it's not half-off day. Ugh. That is too high for you, Salvo. You're on notice.

The second reason is space. This skirt was HUGE. And the number of dresses in my spare bedroom can only be called alarming. I'm literally getting rid of my vanity to make room for a garment rack (and probably more totes) in the next week. Because there's no more room at the inn. This is going to be especially problematic since this is only mid-July, and I still have a month and a half of summer to go, and it would seem that vintage is everywhere. And I'm the only one who's buying it.

A couple of my vintage favorites from this trip (if you want to see them all, well, you'll just have to head over to my Etsy shop, won't you?):

A Ralph Lauren silk number, which is business in the front and party in the back. The most sophisticated mullet you've ever seen. And a little extra special because of this:

Apparently this was a sample, not for sale, and specificially on 10/14/85. The date surprised me - I would have pegged this as a 90s dress because I swear Monica wore something just like it in the early years of Friends. You know, before Rachel worked at Ralph Lauren! 

I can't get over how much I love everything about this dress. The eggplant color, the lace bodice, the handkerchief hem, how light and comfortable it is. No label, just a gorgeous 70s sundress. And we all know I love sundresses the most.

A side note: I'd like to take a moment of silence for my favorite wine bar, Veritas, which closed its doors this past Friday.

I loved this wine bar not just for its great wine, but because it had great atmosphere, it had great cheese, it always had French macaroons, and most of all, it offered killer wine classes. I learned about the Bordeaux wine region, sampled wines from Greece, Italy, Spain, and the FingerLakes. I discovered my current favorite winery, Billsboro, during a food pairing dinner they did.  I even learned that I was not cut out to be a sommelier. They did all of this at affordable prices, and they remembered me every time I came. They even remembered me well enough to call out to me by name at the race expo at the Boilermaker in Utica. I was sad to see this wine bar go, but I bid it a fond farewall with two of my cousins, and in a vintage 70s dress that I hadn't had a chance to wear yet because dogs.

Goodbye, lovely wine bar. In Vino Veritas.