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| Eurona Belgium hat Here |
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| Here |
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| Here |
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| Hattie Carnegie hat Here |
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| Here |
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| Here |
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| Lucila Mendez hat Here |
And from our shop, a trio of Anne Dinken hats:
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| Our shop |
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| Our shop |
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| Our shop |
the lives and junk of the Blackbird girls...
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Junk Love: Ruffle Our Feathers
And from our shop, a trio of Anne Dinken hats:
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Vera Vault
I know, I know. I've completely fallen down on the job as far as the Vera Vault is concerned. I mean, I haven't stopped getting new scarves, I just haven't been posting them. We pulled out my bag of newest acquisitions, gathered over the past year, to photograph (finally!), and you know, I didn't remember buying that many...
Oh well, here's a few to start with today. I thought they all look like they were made using a wax resist method of decoration.
Oh well, here's a few to start with today. I thought they all look like they were made using a wax resist method of decoration.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
On the Radar -- Latin Influence
We Blackbirds get inspiration from many places, and we recently watched "Anchors Aweigh" one night when it was on TCM. (Hey -- if Gene Kelly is on the TV, we're going to watch it. Unless it's "The Pirate." Then no, no, no!) Now, I'm sure you know by now that we love us some color and pattern. The more, the better! And what I had never really paid attention to when watching this movie is the 1940s fascination with Mexico that runs throughout. Kathryn Grayson's Aunt Susie character works as a singer at a Mexican restaurant, and the backdrop that the restaurant provides is full of amazing inspiration, from clothing to music to the village-like atmosphere outside the restaurant, which even has a little lonely senorita for Mr. Kelly to dance with around a fountain.
When I decided to write this week's On the Radar (finally!), then, of course, I just had to talk about the resurgence of Mexican, Spanish and otherwise Latin print, patterns, and colors. Designers pulled it out for Spring 2014, but it's not really going anywhere quite yet. Here's a roundup of some of my favorites, new and vintage -- and I'd like to think Aunt Susie would approve of everything!
When I decided to write this week's On the Radar (finally!), then, of course, I just had to talk about the resurgence of Mexican, Spanish and otherwise Latin print, patterns, and colors. Designers pulled it out for Spring 2014, but it's not really going anywhere quite yet. Here's a roundup of some of my favorites, new and vintage -- and I'd like to think Aunt Susie would approve of everything!
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| Nicolas Jebran, 2013-2014 Couture |
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| Valentino resort, 2015 |
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| Valentino resort, 2015 |
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| Mara Hoffman, 2014 |
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| Embroidered tunic, from Living Textiles on Etsy, here |
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| 1940s jacket from Red Poppy Vintage Shop on Etsy, here. |
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| 1970s Purse from Sunday Girl Finds on Etsy, here. |
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| 1970s rug, from our shop, here. |
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| 1980s embroidered caftan, from our shop, here. |
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Junk Love: Dior Drama
When the Blackbird girls go shopping for junk, we like to start out the day with a little fantasy element: In a perfect world, what would we find today? The answers usually involve fantastic mid-century furniture (signed of course), really good costume jewelry, and Robert Downey Jr. (oh please, like you didn't know this about us already). And then we close our eyes and chant vintage Dior, vintage Dior. Someday, there will probably be a rain dance of sorts, but our chances are still pretty terrible of actually finding any. But while we keep the dream alive, we like to spend a ridiculous percentage of our free time looking at photos of Dior dresses. Today's collection features dramatic skirts, starting with Dior's iconic scalloped ladies: Junon and Venus, both of which are in the collection of The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
And a few variations on the scallop theme:
For drama of a different length:
A bit of basket weave:
And...her.
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| Dior "Venus" dress, Costume Institute |
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| Richard Avedon's photo of "Junon" |
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| "Junon" dress, Costume Institute |
And a few variations on the scallop theme:
For drama of a different length:
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Junk Love: Welcome Back!
So, you may have noticed that the Blackbird girls took a break for a while. We had a good excuse--promise! It all started back in February, and it is because of Liam Neeson. This will make sense eventually.
I was supposed to go to a movie with my mother. We had our date, time, and restaurant nailed down, so all we had left to do was agree on which movie to see. The problem was that there was no movie in theatres that either of us cared about in the slightest. But...Non-Stop was due out the following weekend, and neither of us can resist a Liam Neeson movie. So, we rescheduled. That is why I was at home at 2pm on a Sunday for the first time in months (I am a 7-day a week workaholic), and even more importantly, why I was bored.
When one is crushed by the weight of boredom, there are several potential cures: television, a good book, trolling the Internet for good junk, or actually leaving the house to go junk shopping. I decided to go with Option 3, and thereby ended up on the eighth wonder of the world: Craigslist, that magical artificial universe of junk, both good and bad. And, occasionally a place to find real estate.
We Blackbirds have dreamed of opening a store since day one, and I am the one who likes to torment us both by looking at commercial real estate online about once a month. We inevitably fall in love with a place that is geographically and financially impossible, and then we end up depressed and elbow-deep in pizza. So, on this particular Sunday at this particular time, because I am a masochist, I clicked on Real Estate. The very top listing was for a 1300 square foot shop in a nearby town for a ridiculously low monthly rent. I immediately called the other Blackbird, who ordered me to instantly-right-this-minute-why-are-you-wasting-time call the number on the ad. Two hours later, we were sitting in the car on a deserted street waiting to meet a strange man that we had met via Craigslist. And while we waited, we fell in love with our building.
It was old, with blue paint peeling down in huge strips. The dark windows looked sad, and the door was painted a psychedelic lime green. But we loved it, and as long as it didn't have a giant hole in the ceiling and snakes writhing on the floor, we were going to have it. The very next day, the lease was signed, we had keys in hand, and suddenly we realized that we had less than two months to be up and running in time for the local antiques festival (a perfect weekend to open a vintage shop, right?). This is when the blog died. It is also when we stopped sleeping regularly, speaking to our families, or eating vegetables.
After a lot of paint, a couple of new ballasts, and every possible Money Pit moment that you could imagine, we managed to get to what I would now lovingly refer to as Hell Week, during which we went to work, went to the shop, stayed up all night, went to work, went to the shop, stayed up all night, and pretty much survived on pizza and Snickers bars in order to get everything cleaned, priced, and placed for opening day. But we made it, and the shop has been buzzing like a little baby bee for two months now.
Now that I have blown the dust and cobwebs off of my laptop, it is time to get back to our regular blog schedule. I will try my best to get back into the habit, especially since I just noticed that we managed to get 4000 page views when we were not blogging. Check back if you can, or better yet, if you're in North Carolina, stop by the shop and say hello!
Blackbird Vintage
122 W. Swannanoa Ave.
Liberty, NC 27298
336-622-4775
I was supposed to go to a movie with my mother. We had our date, time, and restaurant nailed down, so all we had left to do was agree on which movie to see. The problem was that there was no movie in theatres that either of us cared about in the slightest. But...Non-Stop was due out the following weekend, and neither of us can resist a Liam Neeson movie. So, we rescheduled. That is why I was at home at 2pm on a Sunday for the first time in months (I am a 7-day a week workaholic), and even more importantly, why I was bored.
When one is crushed by the weight of boredom, there are several potential cures: television, a good book, trolling the Internet for good junk, or actually leaving the house to go junk shopping. I decided to go with Option 3, and thereby ended up on the eighth wonder of the world: Craigslist, that magical artificial universe of junk, both good and bad. And, occasionally a place to find real estate.
We Blackbirds have dreamed of opening a store since day one, and I am the one who likes to torment us both by looking at commercial real estate online about once a month. We inevitably fall in love with a place that is geographically and financially impossible, and then we end up depressed and elbow-deep in pizza. So, on this particular Sunday at this particular time, because I am a masochist, I clicked on Real Estate. The very top listing was for a 1300 square foot shop in a nearby town for a ridiculously low monthly rent. I immediately called the other Blackbird, who ordered me to instantly-right-this-minute-why-are-you-wasting-time call the number on the ad. Two hours later, we were sitting in the car on a deserted street waiting to meet a strange man that we had met via Craigslist. And while we waited, we fell in love with our building.It was old, with blue paint peeling down in huge strips. The dark windows looked sad, and the door was painted a psychedelic lime green. But we loved it, and as long as it didn't have a giant hole in the ceiling and snakes writhing on the floor, we were going to have it. The very next day, the lease was signed, we had keys in hand, and suddenly we realized that we had less than two months to be up and running in time for the local antiques festival (a perfect weekend to open a vintage shop, right?). This is when the blog died. It is also when we stopped sleeping regularly, speaking to our families, or eating vegetables.
After a lot of paint, a couple of new ballasts, and every possible Money Pit moment that you could imagine, we managed to get to what I would now lovingly refer to as Hell Week, during which we went to work, went to the shop, stayed up all night, went to work, went to the shop, stayed up all night, and pretty much survived on pizza and Snickers bars in order to get everything cleaned, priced, and placed for opening day. But we made it, and the shop has been buzzing like a little baby bee for two months now.
122 W. Swannanoa Ave.
Liberty, NC 27298
336-622-4775
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Technical Difficulties
Sorry, Blackbird fans, for the extremely long wait on new blog posts! We have a couple of things keeping us from writing:
1. We have no internet. We didn't have power for four days following a tiny (but dangerous) ice storm last week. Trees fell all over town, knocking out power for over 21,000 people. When it finally came back on, we realized that (as we have an electric hot water heater) a shower was the first, and most important, thing we needed. After we handled that, we realized we had no cable. Crap. No internet when you run an online business sucks. I've been handling Etsy with my phone, and I've had to wait in line to ship things the old fashioned way at the Post Office. Shock! Horror! No online postage!! I've been getting the runaround from the cable people, but maybe we'll get it back soon. Hmmmm....maybe.
1. We have no internet. We didn't have power for four days following a tiny (but dangerous) ice storm last week. Trees fell all over town, knocking out power for over 21,000 people. When it finally came back on, we realized that (as we have an electric hot water heater) a shower was the first, and most important, thing we needed. After we handled that, we realized we had no cable. Crap. No internet when you run an online business sucks. I've been handling Etsy with my phone, and I've had to wait in line to ship things the old fashioned way at the Post Office. Shock! Horror! No online postage!! I've been getting the runaround from the cable people, but maybe we'll get it back soon. Hmmmm....maybe.
2. We're opening a store. We're very excited about this! I had elaborate plans to write some blog posts about our progress, but since we haven't had internet (see above), that hasn't happened. We did have power at the shop during this whole mess, so we've been working hard on getting it ready to open. Our goal opening date is April 24th, right before Liberty Antiques Festival. Did I mention our shop's in Liberty, NC? Come see us! We promise we'll have it all painted and pretty by then!
Hopefully we'll back to our regularly scheduled blogging soon, if I can ever get Time Warner to actually fix the cable...
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