Weekend Finds: Coats-a-palooza!

Good morning!

I'll tell you what-- it is COATS, COATS, AND COATS up in this piece. This post is LOUSY with coats! I thought I would do my house a favor and rid myself of some of the old coats that are either too big or too worn for me to keep, and you know what? The karmic boomerang of this weekend involved me buying two new, super dramatic, super crazy coats to fill the void that the six or so I let go had created in hanger-space. So I'm actually still ahead on my closet cleanout, haha! I wanted to share a couple photos in this Monday post, in which most of my coat dreams came true. Wanna see?

Bonus cameo by Matthew and his iPhone's shadow in most of these :)

Vintage coats are often one of the last things to go when people are cleaning out their closets. Along with wedding dresses and formals, outerwear is one of the biggest clothes expenditures a pre-Forever-21 person was bound to make in their lives. Because, "you'll need a good coat"! While the entire ready-to-wear wardrobe of your average civilian is eventually relegated, sooner rather than later, to younger siblings, charity sales, swap meets, Goodwill...wherever used clothes are sent...I find that the really, really good stuff is what even an assiduous spring cleaner hangs on to, because hang it all, that coat was expensive when it was new!

Behold! The sleeve!

Which is probably why, to my delight, I found this black Persian lamb coat in an upstairs closet in a farm house in Bethpage, TN this weekend, a good seventy years after whoever bought it in the first place took it home with them. One of the sales ladies said it was her grandmother's, and my jaw about scraped the floor when I got it out into the light and realized how GORGEOUS the texture and pile of the wool was. I have been looking for something like this for forever, and to find one in mint condition, with beautifully belled sleeves and all luxurious fur? Forget it. At the checkout counter, I had two other fifties' dresses, a Patsy-Cline like sequined sixties' top, a velvet jacket-and-skirt matched suit, one fifties' swimsuit (!!), a black skirt, two sixties' lace tops, and some gloves, all of which came to about $21 with their respective second day discounts.... I think the break down of what I paid for everything clocks this coat at about $4. FOUR. DOLLARS. Possibly less. That morning, I was officially the happiest human being in whatever county that was. SCORE!

The one thing that's strange about it are these two ribbons sewn on either side of the inside lapel of the coat...one is stitched down about six inches, and the other runs maybe twelve. I was trying to see if it was meant to help you wear the coat over-your-shoulders-without-arms-in-sleeves, like the street pictures from the stylish woman on Photo Friday last, but in doing so, danged if I didn't pull the ribbon loose from its vintage stitched moorings. I'll tack it back down when I get a chance. In the meantime, any ideas as to its original use?

 

The tag on the inside reads "Weisberg Coats and Suits". While I couldn't find any information on the maker, you can see a map of the area where the physical store was located at the time of coat's manufacture, and it's  a pretty little neighborhood, surrounded by MLS listings for Victorian houses, so I guess it might be a tony part of town? If you're up North or familiar with that area, please let me know!

I'm on a huge, Dietrich inspired dramatic coats, and boots, and all slim lines and nipped waists kind of kick right now, so just for fun, here's the outfit underneath. How do you like that 1980's-does'-1880's velvet jacket (Goodwill in Hendersonville, $5.99)? Me, I like it fine. While hats are verboten at work, nobody's said anything about headwraps or huge bows yet, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed I can keep rocking this look on days I don't have enough time or chutzpah to do my beehive.

With the deal I got on the last coat, I almost feel foolish for having bought this one at Goodwill the night before, for the princely sum of $19.99, but what's done is done. This one photographs more wrinkled than it looks in real life, and I'm guessing it's from the mid-to-late seventies', with faux fur, faux leather trimmings,  and a French manufacturer's label on the inside (including a warning NOT to dry clean this coat, but to have it cleaned "by the furrier method" in spite of its imitation mink). I put it on and immediately felt like Emma Peel, so I had to get it. While other seventies' faux fur coats have passed me by, something about the depth and color of the material on this one made me stop once, twice, try it on, drag it around the store, and eventually buy it. I'm a sucker! What can I say.

Walking out into the cold in either of these coats this weekend physically buoyed my spirits up to the point of actual clothes-elation. I might look like I'm dressed for the dinner theater stage or a costume piece, but by Godfrey, that's how I want to look!

How about you? Do you have a vintage coat or two that changes your character description just by draping it over your shoulders? What do you think of fur and its imitators as a vintage style option?  I always have a secret suspicion that I look like Grizzly Adams in too-much fur, but the Crawford acolyte in me demands high drama in vintage outerwear choices. Any extraordinary luck at the estate sales this weekend? Let a girl know!

That's all for today-- if you're off for President's Day, I hope you're enjoying it! I think I'm going to run around to the Goodwills, myself. I'll see you guys back here tomorrow. Til then!