Finally! Flea Market and Goodwill Finds

Good morning!

 How's tricks, kids? It's Thursday/Friday for me, as I am offfff this weekeeeennnd...! Roll out the barrels, I'm not sure what I'm doing, but I'm doing something! :D As promised both Tuesday and Wednesday, here is your day-late, dollar-short report from the flea market this past Saturday! My favorite thing I rounded up (other than the purse we spoke about on Tuesday), is this pair of clip earrings. Aren't they GORGEOUS?

The last couple of months I have been really lucky at picking up these baubles for almost nothing in the sheds...this pair, winking at me from among the other trinkets, was $3 (that's a buck fifty a clip on, people...can't beat it with a stick). Compare that to the ebay or online prices of similar sixties' earrings and you could see where I would be giddy with excitement over serving Joan-Crawford-on-a-Pepsi-Cola-promotional-tour realness in my choice of jewelry for less than the price of a takeout sandwich. They pinch like the devil, and I don't like the spacers you can buy as a kind of Scholl's pad for your earlobes, so I'm grinning through it today! The black jet beads were also from the flea market; I forgot to take a better picture of them, but they are chic as chic can be and similarly inexpensive.

These two pins were brought back together this week....remember when I bought the devil pin in March? I looked and looked and LOOKED, combing through the other various pieces on a table, and came up goose eggs for the angel I had a hunch was part of a two-brooch set as I'd seen them on other lucky so-and-so's blogs and Ebay/Etsy before. Then I looked again last month, nada. This month, as I was getting the earrings, what to my wondering eyes should appear but the missing brooch! Can I almost not wait to wear one on one shoulder and one on the other? I cannot.

Inside the Exhibition Building, my dad and I stopped at a vendor booth just inside the west-facing door and were stopped cold by a suite of Barbara Mandrell autographed items perched on a fruit crate. What are the odds?! Barbara Mandrell superfan runs smack into a whole slew of Mandrell-o-bilia, including an autographed copy of the audiobook Get to the Heart, a signed photo, SANS name, of the country queen (maybe I'm weird but I don't want to shell out for a photo inscribed "To Jerry with love"), and a pair of turquoise two-tone boots with "BM" emblazoned on either side. Sadly, they were sold together for $200, and that was way more than either of us was willing to shell out, but in the same booth, I found the following:

One: Acid pink floral-and-green-velvet-ribboned hat? This isn't a very good shot of it, but with my melon-like cabesa I'm always on the lookout for hats that will sit boater-style on my head, and this one fits the bill!

Two: This crazy thing:

This is a mother-of-pearl oyster shell that opens into a change purse. Kooky enough, right? I think the paint on the outside must have a floral embellishment of some kind like the ones you see here. What really got me interested in it was the date written inside: "Nov 30, 1894". Oh reeeeeally? she says. Imagine some little turn of the century Gibson girl snatching this up as a souvenir of her beachside vacation. I should start carrying this around in my larger purse-- can you imagine the effect of "Oh, wait, I think I have the change--" at Goodwill when I whip out a clamshell and produce the required coinage. TRUE LIFE SUCCESS.

And third: This strange little picture, which is 3D, GUYS. IT'S 3D. I usually find roses or religious art in this format, but a children's picture featuring dolls as storybook characters? Yeah, let's just go ahead and do that, thanks, yes, take my money. I love the detail of the tableau and also the fact that the owner scrawled her name across the back of the picture in a child's looping scrawl, "MARY".

Both my clothes people in the Antique shed were MIA this month (Bobby COME BAAAAACK), but I did grab this surprisingly heavy real estate sign for a couple bucks. There were three others that said "INDUSTRIAL", "COMMERCIAL", and something else, but I liked this one best for the bold, plain typography. What I'm going to do with it...search me. But sometimes liking something is enough! My dad found three WWI brass ammunition casings at a booth I'd bought some oversized earrings from sometime earlier in the year. Not bad, huh? We were settin' 'em up and knockin' 'em down (deals, that is, not the brass casings). I still wish I'd found some clothes, though.

At Goodwill on Monday, I found two skirts, two dresses, and a couple weirdies, like this record:

I think it's a training record for med students to learn what a heart murmur sounds like through a stethoscope? I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that my recent binge-watching of Grey's Anatomy does not actually count as medical training.

I ran across these books, interested in both the museum overview and Panorama color slide aspect of the titles, and there was a secret bonus!

One, they came through on their promise of color slides...now I just need a Panorama projector to truly benefit from this boon.

But that's not the best part....THE BEST PART is the three record set of my pal Vincent Price taking me on a personalized tour of the art exhibitions. Veeeeep! I missed ya, buddy! Remember the Vincentennial party I threw oh my God three years ago? We need to have a 104th birthday party for this guy next year.

Well, that's all the news that's fit to print. What did you grab at the sales or the flea market this weekend? Had any unusual record finds lately? What should I be looking forward to seeing this weekend estate-sale wise, anybody got the inside scoop? Let's talk!

Have a great Thursday and I'll see you tomorrow for Photo Friday-- til then!

Weekend Finds: Only a Little Belated! (Goodwill a palooza)

Good morning!

As promised, I did manage to get all my weekend finds photographed and ready for you today. OH. MY GOODNESS. I bought way too much stuff on Saturday. 

I picked up my dad and we decided to do the gauntlet of Goodwills down Gallatin Road (trip G, for those in the know...I'm kidding, I just like alliterative phrases). This means the Gallatin Goodwill, the Indian Lake Goodwill, the New Shackle Island Goodwill, and the Rivergate Goodwill. We could have kept going and hit the East Nashville Goodwill, but we were overspent both financially and physically at that point, and threw in the towel.

Wanna see what we got? You know you do!

Weirdly enough, this is a) one of my favorite things I bought and b) one of the things I struggled with whether or not to buy! It's a painting, about the size of a piece of copier paper, in a heavy wood frame, of what looks like someone's long-ago lakeside house. Check out the boat dock and the screened in porch on the 1910's? 1920's? looking homestead. The picture is signed "P.E. Hunt" and has this masking tape provenance on the back of the frame:

Walter! What are you doing getting rid of your "memento from Grandmother Eddy-Stout's"?! This picture reminds me of the two or three tiny, similar canvases my grandma's father, a Cape Cod fisherman in the thirties' and forties', did of local lighthouses in his old age. When you think about whoever painted this piece being an amateur, it's really heads and shoulders above a lot of the bizarre things I see in the Goodwill pictures bin! What kept me on the fence about buying it? Its $6.99 price tag. "That's a lot for a little picture like this!" I said to my dad. "Do you think it's reasonable?" He did, and home it went with me, where it goes JUST PERFECTLY in my green room den/computer room. I'll have to show you what I've done with that space sometime this week or next, I've finally just given in to my TGIFriday's aesthetic of "HANG EVERYTHING ON THE WALL", but I think it works!

This 1920's or 30's clipping of birds in its chipped-to-pieces frame was appealing to me for the very reason that it was probably dug out of someone's attic after years of disuse...doesn't the weirdness of the bird subject and the faded quality of the print make it something else?

I'm am really in a fashion rut for late forties' things right now, and this embroidered-collar dress might have looked very nineties' with its original, straight-shift under-piece, but as that was missing when I found it at the Gallatin Goodwill, I had no compunction about pairing it with a low cut, flared skirt dress yesterday to have this kind of almost Turkish robes, 1920's marketplace thing going on. Plus, this kind of embellishment reminds me of things I've been drooling over in the bound volume of 1947 Harper's Bazaar parked at my desk, so it was buy, buy, buy.

This distressed Catholic statuette of Jesus, sacred heart and all, was sitting in the housewares section of the Indian Lake (Hendersonville) Goodwill, and I about died. $2.99 folks. AND. ANNND: One, the gorgeous, fifties' paint on Him, in beautiful peach, red, turquoise, and gold; two, the way said paint is rubbed off around His poor nose and forehead; three, the fact that it's an almost antique Catholic statue here in the middle of the predominantly Protestant Bible belt, in a GOODWILL, where I can buy it. Three cheers!  Isn't it dreamy? I don't usually buy religious items (see: recent purchase of Dali's interpretation of the Last Supper as another exception), but this was just too good to pass up.

Here's another example of "I shouldn't buy it, it's too expensive" from me. I picked up this pan in the same Indian Lake Goodwill, and went "GahLEE this thing is heavy!" (because at times, I sound like I am blood related to Gomer Pyle). I actually brought it over to my dad to show him how heavy it was, as he perused the t-shirts for school colors. "That thing IS heavy!" he agreed, hefting its weight. "We're talking a PROFESSIONAL. SKILLET. HERE! Man!" Yes, both of us come from the school of "if it is heavy, it is probably of great value." And the Goodwill pricing people agreed, as this pan was $8.99 to the other pans four to five dollar range. Still, I stuck to my intuition (and my need of a heavier duty pan to cook the millions of vegetables this diet has me cooking on a daily basis) and pulled the trigger on it.

What sold me, other than the weight? The crazy cute midcentury illustrations of all the sorts of things I could cook in this pan, naturally. When I got home, I looked up the  words "Markley" and "Descoware" (the only markings other than adorable abstract sheep and lobsters), to find that this was a pretty top of the line pan in its 1950's-era day. The Markley design in particular seems to be collectible (duh, which is why I wanted to collect it), and right now there's a smaller skillet from the line on ebay for $34.99, another for $49.98. Things get more expensive on Etsy, as they are wont to do-- here's a saucepan for $69.99 and a dutch oven (a VERY CUTE dutch oven, omg) for $80.00. So my nine dollar purchase is vindicated! Also, the clerk who checked us out remarked encore une fois upon the heft of the skillet. "Don't go hurting anybody with this thing! This is like a self defense weapon." Way to take it to a dark place. But seriously! This pan is serious!

This shirt was at the New Shackle Island Road Goodwill, and is a rare sight to see nowadays. I was complaining on the drive over about how, when I was in high school, I could buy my own weight in polyester print dresses and shirts and skirts at any given second hand store. The hardest thing was finding one that wasn't somebody's-zepplinesque-grandmother's size or the tiny bird size of other people's grandmothers. Was there no in between for an average sized girl of above average interest in polyester day wear? Now, however, it's IM.FREAKIN.POSSIBLE to find crazy seventies' prints, I guess because they're the first thing snapped up by resellers? Or just because everyone-who-would-have-cleaned-out-their-seventies'-wardrobe-from-the-attic has already done it? My dad had similar woes to share about the old Friedman's locations (I think there used to be three altogether, including Nolensville Road and a Gallatin Road location-- now there's just the original one on 21st ). While he still took us religiously around to those Nashville army surplus stores in the summer, picking for goodies in huge bins that smelled of oil and moth balls, he said when he was a teenager, the place was chock FULL of WWII stuff in addition to all the Vietnam era surplus. "I used to see buckets, I mean buckets, of mess containers and shovels and all kinds of stuff...I saw a shovel in its case at the flea market last week, you know what they wanted for it? SIXTY. DOLLARS. It still had a clod of dirt on it from when somebody used it on a boy scout trip or something in the sixties' or the seventies', and they wanted SIXTY. DOLLARS. for it. Can you believe that!" I can, Pappy! The changing tides of old stuff is hard for us old stuff collectors.

Look how crazy the print is though. A tree, in Greece, surrounded by Victorian sightseers. And the same replicated on the back! Mr. Fine of Dallas, you have outdone yourself, truly.

I lunged for a "Country Sophisticate" jacket in an eye popping teal- and-purple-flowers print in the blazers section, which turned out to be zoot-suit-sized too big, but I was rewarded in my efforts with this small sized sequin jacket. Oh! The sequins!  It's lovely on, too-- in my heart of hearts, when I'm not dressed like Joan Crawford circa 1946, I would appreciate being dressed like her circa 1968...that regal, older-lady-with-panache kind of over the topness that keeps Bob Mackie's ready wear in business.

This is a robe of some unknown ethnicity...I think Middle Eastern?...that was in the dress section, and I fell crazy in love with the detailing on the buttons and the embroidery at the bottom. With a cinched belt and a skirt underneath, like the other embroidered piece, it turns into an a-line type dress. I love all the little stitching and how dramatic the pattern is for an otherwise plain black garment. I WILL be wearing this, toute de suite.

Before I even got started on Goodwillapalooza 2014, I dropped by a yard sale that was just the other side of the tracks from me in Inglewood. Literally, if it wasn't for the placement of a railroad track whose bridge was further down, I could have easily walked to this sale. Eartha Kitsch sent Rae and me a message earlier in the week going, "You do NOT want to miss this sale, girl has got some GREAT STUFF". When Eartha says go, by Godfrey, I go! Rae and I both heeded the call, as we bumped into each other with our respective husbands bright and early that Saturday morning! She and Travis got some great photos, a kooky lamp, and a forties' or fifties' cake tin I am still too jealous of to quite describe to you (haha, I kid, couldn't be in a better home....anditwaspinkandturquoisewiththewordcakeonit *stifles sob*), and I got these little goodies. Eartha told no lie-- one, people were swarming the place like they were giving away treasures even in the pouring rain (the sale was thankfully in a car port and screened in porch), and two, everything there was like a distillation of the best stuff you would see at several estate sales. Which it probably was! Good eye, that picker.

Here's what I brought home:

I put my foot down on cameras a while back, and $10 wasn't a very good price on this Brownie six-16 Target, but I'm legitimately afraid I will stop seeing these things as much as I have in the past, and my fear drove me to pull out my pocketbook. In my sixty-some-odd camera strong collection, I actually don't have this deco-y little model (circa 1946-1951), and since it came with the box...I caved. I CAVED. I might never be able to fully stop buying cameras...I don't know what it is that appeals to me so much! The box's iconography, the way, if you had film for it and could process it yourself, that this camera would still work, no strings attached, no batteries required, today...they're pretty much my favorite collectible after clothes, framed pictures, and lamps (see: my horribly overcluttered house for more details).

Hats were $2 apiece...act like I wasn't going to get one. Or two. The black hat on the right is actually much cuter in real life, I'm always reminded of Audrey Hepburn in that one scene in Sabrina when I see cap-ish little fifties' hats like these.

Ok, seriously! End of the line! This is the last thing I bought, for $3:

What you should know about this photo-- it's HUGE! Well, in comparison to other photos of its time, definitely larger than life....maybe two feet wide by a foot across. The subject matter ("Man on Horse, Old") and the large format made me want to buy it for my collection of photos you wouldn't want to bump into unawares in the middle of the night...check the expression on the horse, and the expression on the man riding it:

What always bums me out about seeing photos like this is the person sitting for the photo's sense of how important this photo would be. You know what I mean? Nine times out of ten, I find pre 1900's photos in dismal states of disrepair...which of course, make them more interesting to me, but if I were the photograph or portrait's subject circa 1877, getting all gussied up for "a portrait for the grandkids to remember me by", I would be rolling over in my decades-old grave as the picture sat in someone's attic or barn or storage unit until it was eventually sold to a stranger with the half-hearted caveat, "We don't even know WHO that is, somebody's great-uncle." Being a collector of pictures, I'm glad they did forget who so-and-so was and have his poor picture for sale at discount prices, but dang! I also feel sorry for the guy who thought this photograph was going to carry his existence on in his family into the next century, for generations to come.

AN-Y-W-AY, how about you? Did you find anything good out at the sales this weekend? Are you a junk store addict who really COULD while the whole day away at store after store (I think I've answered that question for you on my behalf)? Which of these finds do you think was the best buy? Let's talk!

That's all for today, I gotta get to the business of shifting books (luckily, I'm reading this insanely compelling-to-read Patricia Highsmith collection on audiobook, so I'll have some nasty-pieces-of-work possible murderers to keep me company)...you have yourself a great Tuesday! And I will see you back here tomorrow. Til then!

Weekend Finds: Almost Snowed In Edition

Good morning!

How's everybody? Ugh, it's been a heckuva morning so far-- Nashville was hit with a cold snap last night and the resultant, blizzardy weather this morning was NOT. FUN. LET ME TELL YOU. FOR COMMUTERS. I am a self-professed lily liver'd coward when it comes to driving in icy conditions; not because I'm afraid of ice, mind you, but because people in these parts drive like absolute lunatics when there's even a breath of cold air on the roads. Soooo, I parked my car in a large retail lot on a major street, and waited for the bus to come take me to work. And waited. And waited. AND WAITED. The times on the little ticker-tape bus schedule in the designated stop kept changing-- first 8:23, then 8:39, then 8:52...and no bus! Finally, after about thirty minutes in the cold, the BRT appeared, and I spent most of the ride in trying to thaw out and silently cursing everything I could think of ("Goldurn stinkin' bus in the gd mother lovin' ice and if I have to wait on the way home, I swear to GOD...," etc, etc..I essentially sounded like an Oliver Stone movie edited for tv). I got to work at 9:30, shivering, stamping my feet to ward off the cold...only to find that the library isn't opening until 11 DUE TO WEATHER CONDITIONS. Uuuuurrrgh. So I'm the only one here (apparently everyone else checks their work email with great regularity of a Monday morning)-- but that doesn't mean I can't use my silent, solemn, self-reflectory time here to type out a weekend find post.

A more reliable form of transportation than the one I chose this morning.

So what did I find, this weekend, you may ask? What DIDN'T I find. Let me get my mind off the snow-pacolypse with some gabbin' about junk acquired.

First off, Matthew and I popped in Goodwill on my lunch hour last week to pick up a picture frame, but were rewarded for our troubles with not one, but TWO exceptional items that just fell into our paths during the ten minute total trip. Do you not love when you're not even looking for something, and it jumps out at you with a bobcat's own spring, begging to be bought? Item one, this 1990's hussar's jacket (no, Eddie, I am not kidding):

This was hanging on one of the circular racks in the middle of the Charlotte Avenue store (green tag, $5.99), and what more could I ask for in a late eighties'/early nineties' jacket? Adam Ant like military styling, plus THE WHOLE THING IS INEXPLICABLY MADE OF BLACK DENIM. In a regular, I don't know, non-denim material, this would look dressy-on-the-verge-of-costumey...IN denim, let's not lie, we are on a whole other level of vintage bizarre-itude. I did initially get the jacket for my own use, but look how good it looks on the husband!!

As we were checking out with picture frame and jacket in hand, this framed print was leaned up in one of the windows with some other contemporary art (huge marigold on fuschia background, Home Goods kind of things, bluh)...I was instantly sold on the "I think it's the Last Supper, but WHAT IS GOING ON" factor of the piece. I usually don't buy religious-themed art/home decor, but come on. How could you say no? I showed a picture-of-the-picture to my coworker Jesse when I got back to work, and he said he had seen something like it before. Me: "Oh, I hope it's not secretly some Scientology masterpiece or something." We google image searched it to find out, and whoa, it's actually a reproduction of The Sacrament of the Last Supper by SALVADOR DALI OMG. No wonder it leaves one with that "Seriously, what am I actually looking at" feeling. Matthew pointed out that it reminded him of something from a seventies' prog rock album cover, and considering Dali finished the work in 1955, think of how avant this avant garde piece would have been when it was painted in the midcentury!

Some closeups...beardless, Gerard Malanga looking Jesus sitting with his robed, bowed heads, terrifying looking disciples....

And the body of Christ floating up above...From Wikipedia:

The Sacrament of the Last Supper was completed during Dalí's post-World War II era, which is characterized by his increased interest in science, optical illusion and religion. During this time he became a devout Catholic and simultaneously was astonished by the "atomic age". Dalí himself labeled this era in his work "Nuclear Mysticism". He sought out to combine traditional Christian iconography with images of disintegration.

"Nuclear mysticism"...now you're talking my language!

On Saturday, Dad and I ran around to the sales...I didn't find much but what I did find, I was VERY pleased with. At one sale on Acklen Avenue, I recognized the same house from last summer, where a bunch of primo MCM furniture had been for sale at fair but four figure price tags. Adrian Pearsall sofa, etc, etc. For some reason, they were doing another sale, and I managed to find two pieces to take home with me. This mink-trimmed sweater appears to be home made, but in WHAT. STYLE. it was made! The inside is lined in beige silk with a black lace overlay...the sleeves each feature a rhinestone button, there's a frog-closure and an even bigger rhinestone clasp at the waist, and LOOK. AT. THE COLLAR. At the same sale, I found a Saks Fifth Avenue coat from late forties'/early fifties'. Both are in tip top condition, and set me back $15 apiece. Higher than I usually pay, granted, but for mint-condition items? Fine, fine, take my money. I am looking forward to wearing this one out with some swank, Dietrich like outfit (as always, my true style compass).

I ran around to the thrift stores a little on Friday but only picked up these two crazy print polyester items...the green one on the left is a halter dress and the pink on the right is a collared shirt. I keep trying to cut down on the number of seventies' clothes I pick up, and crazy stellar examples like this keep hounding me! The heart wants what the heart wants, I guess.

Last but not least, Sunday I went to a blogger meet up arranged by Kimmie from That Girl in the Wheelchair. I am always glad to get a chance to hang out with fellow lady bloggers in Nashville (it's a cool crew to belong to), and we laughed and traded stories over good food at Gray's Pharmacy in Franklin. Here's what I wore (of paramount importance, obviously):

And here's a group shot yanked from Kimmie's instagram (shamelessness). Here you can see, from left to right, yours truly, Jenna from Kitty Cat Stevens, Lauren from Lladybird, Brittany from Viva Bang Bang, Amanda from Junebugs and Georgia Peaches, and Jen from Librarian Tells All. Aubrey from Adventures in Aubreyland and Sarah from Simply in Bold were also in attendance, but missed the photo opportunity (how about that Gray's sign in the background? Cool, huh?). 

Anyway! Good finds, good company, good weekend. I'mma have to remember the weekend that was as I slog through this no-good, very bad day at work! :) What did you guys do this weekend? Find anything cool out at the sales? Made any discoveries you later found were even neater than you thought they would be? Let's talk!

I gotta go make some more coffee and continue the dethawing process (eeueeuuuugggh), but I will talk to you tomorrow, if Jack Frost doesn't get me! Have a great Monday, and I'll see you then. Stay warm!

Coat(s) of Many Colors (Vintage Sixties' Coat Addiction)

Good morning!

Isn't it GORGEOUS outside, kids? My foot went right through one of the toes of my tights this morning, and as I tossed the traitorous pair of leggings, I thought-- why not go barelegged today? It's gonna be 70 something by noon! I put on a pair of black flats and one of my brightest print Hawaiian dresses to greet the day. I know we're going back in to the colder double digits next week, but by golly, why not enjoy this sunshine while we can.

To celebrate a day no-coats-would-be-worn, I thought I might show you a few of the winter wear selections I've been wearing lately. Usually, I just wear my one, good, black wool dress coat to living death, but this year, I've been trying really hard to wear some of the excessive number of colored wool coats stashed in my office's coat closet. Also, I got rid of maybe five coats, which was like cutting my own heart out of my body, but I have to admit, it's nice to be able to reach into the closet and effortlessly pull out a piece of clothing! Before, the struggle  to free a coat or find the one you wanted was almost more effort than braving the arctic climes!

As long as I have been buying old clothes, and this is stretching back to about eighth grade for me, I have been trying on coats with fur collars. Big ones, short ones, little bitty ones-- print ones, solid ones-- coats with collars of ermine, fox, chinchilla, mink, and faux everything...when I see one of these so-and-so's at the Goodwill, I can't help but try it on. And each time, is it an act of optimism! From the average selection of these coats, you would think most women who owned outerwear like this in the fifties' and sixties' resembled one of those pepper pot women from a New Yorker cartoon, instead of the Suzy Parker young secretary type I have in mind when I hope it will fit. Being tall, it's imperative NOT to wear something tent-like and too short or I look completely crazy-- remember I told you most forties' full length fur coats fall above my knee and make me look like Grizzly Adams? Ditto on fur collar coats. Which is why I was OVER THE MOON to find this lipstick red coat with brown fur collar at the Rivergate Goodwill a year ago, which fit like a glove. Every time I wear it, it feels like I'm stepping out of some midcentury, Jerry Wald produced movie (see: The Best of Everything; rinse, repeat).

Remember when I bought this coat last year at that basement estate sale in Madison? The button it was missing, it is still missing-- but it occurred to me to remove two of the six buttons, and suddenly nothing looks amiss! I love how BRIGHT blue this coat is. I struggle a lot with the temptation to just wear all black, all the time. Or black and one-color-or-pattern. It's my cardinal rule! One, you don't have to worry if things coordinate, they just do; two, the black-and-monochromatic obsession is less of a gothic impluse except in the root Germanic sense of the word. I always, de profundis, want to look like Marlene Dietrich in one of her von Sternberg collaborations, and that means black ostrich feathers on black velvet with a black crepe cape! And maybe a sequined gold mantle, just for fun. You will never see me in green tights with a yellow skirt and a red blouse-- not because I don't love people who can use color in their wardrobe (my sister and my friend Ruthie, both artists and snazzy dressers with a strong hold on "how to use color", come to mind), but because of how uncomfortable I feel without a "grounding" overtone of black in an outfit. Note I am still wearing my black hair tie and my boots in this ensemble, but the blue coat is a big step outside the crayon box for me!

The red coat didn't have a maker's tag (not even a tiny union one...I think it may have been homemade by a very capable seamstress), but this one has "Youthcraft" on a silk label at the nape of the neck.

This green coat I found in Gallatin with Eartha weekend before last-- I was wearing the red coat and tried to hang it on a leaf blower in a garage so I could try it on, but Eartha snatched my already owned coat up from its perch. "I'm gonna keep you classy if it kills me!" she said, and I second guessed my in-the-field tactic of dumping my coat wherever. There were two in the garage of this house, both marked I think $8, but the white one, in a very similar style, had moth's holes. The green one was intact, though heavily rumpled; after a pressing at the cleaner's, it looks good as new! See the crazy, extreme mink collar:

And the moss green color, which reminds me of Tippi Hedren's suit  in The Birds. I can't decide if I like the collar better open or closed-- even though my shoulders aren't very wide, the capelet effect of the collar almost makes it look like it's too small for me when done up:

And ignore the messy flyaways, it had been a hard day's night when we took these pictures...what do you think? Better open or closed?

The only label on this one is this "Hockanum Fabric" by Stevens Fabric label...how cute is it?!

Last but not least, this white coat technically counts as a coat-of-color, as it is not black, in my book. This was from an estate sale in Forest Acres in April of 2012! I wore it once to the flea market that year and probably not since, so I've been trying to incorporate it into the outerwear rotation more (especially now that it's not hidden at the back of the closet behind some random army surplus stuff...old habits die hard). Because I am apparently obsessed with style inspiration from Hitchcock pictures, I associate white coats with Kim Novak in this one, from the movie Vertigo. With a black sweater underneath, it's easy to bridge the gap between where-the-sleeves-end and where-my-wrists-actually-are (this is decidedly not a jewelry-showing-off-length sleeve, it's just too short on my monkey arms!). On the other coats, which have similar "What do you do about the bare expanse of skin in these winter months!", I've actually stock piled four or five pair of cloth, elbow length gloves (LIKE what Novak is wearing in the photo! I KNEW I wasn't crazy), to keep my arms warm in these elbow-ending sleeves!

This is a Forstmann wool called "Ermina" (which is what I should name one of my children), distributed by "Louis Goldstein, New York". The maker's label is from Grace's, which was an upscale women's shop in Nashville that ran at least until 2008. I thought it was still around! I am disturbed to find its website defunct and no mention of it on Google maps outside of Grace's Plaza, a shopping complex down the road and owned by the same family...you can see the archived version of their old website, with history on the brand, here. Well, at least I snapped this one up while I could, I guess!

Anyway! What do you think of my coats of many colors? Do you have any outerwear that is a particular favorite, or a coat that makes you feel like a movie star every time you wear it? Have any style tips you'd like to share about vintage winter clothes? Let's talk!

That's all for today, but I'll see you back here tomorrow (if I live through this work day, eugh, nerves are being worked!!). ENJOY THE SUNSHINE! Til then.