New charity shop, a cardi & a carpet bag, and a friend

Welcome to my new carpet and tapestry handbag obsession. I normally stalk these babies on Etsy, but since hubby's instructions to mind what I spend, I have had to back off from Etsy (but if he wants to buy me the 30-pound, plus almost that in shipping, leather and tapestry bag I am currently lusting after there as an early B-day pressie, I suppose I shall have to deal with it). But I digress: yesterday when I checked out a thrift shop in a nearby town that I've never been to, a church charity shop, I found this 1990s-esque tapestry bag with the tags still on ... for three pounds! Isn't it a beaut?

There's more to this tale. In said church charity shop, I met Shoo, a lady who lives in the same town in which I do and shares my passion for charity shops. Shoo kindly invited me to dinner at her place after discovering I'm new to town, haven't made a lot of friends and am often on my own. What a sweetheart. So I went to dinner and donned my "new" bag in honour of the occasion, along with an oversize purple wool cardi in perfect condition that I also bought at the shop for three pounds (note: church charity shops have waaay better prices than the corporate charity shops here, where these items would sell for double or more).

Under the cardi I wore a thrifted Teenflo little black dress, a vintage velvet elastic belt, new Guess? booties and crochet tights, and a thrifted statement piece necklace. Dinner was a blast and I know I'll soon be charity shopping and experiencing other adventures with Shoo!

I was pretty pleased that I was able to somewhat glam up a slouchy cardi for my dinner outfit, but I wanted to show you a more casual look showing the same pieces I bought yesterday: under the cardi I'm wearing a new turtleneck bought on sale at Danier Leather in Canada; a gorg scarf gifted to me by the owner of my fave thrift shop in Toronto, Canadian Thrift (now called Ontario Thrift); and riding pants gifted to me by my pal Nadia (of the green dress, see two posts below). I made the look more casual by wearing my new purse cross-body.

P.S. I have a few more vintage carpet bags to show you. Coming soon!

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1970s inspiration

1970s inspiration by grungequeen featuring oversized sunglasses

Halston Heritage dolman sleeve top, $103
Yves Saint Laurent high waisted wide leg pants, $990
Tory Burch leather high heels, $295
Diane von Fürstenberg clutch handbag, $340
Dinny Hall pendant, $135
Hermes vintage scarve, $325
Balenciaga oversized sunglasses

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Boho bliss - my first Polyvore creation!!

I am so jazzed - another thing to be addicted to along with Etsy! Sad that I've been blogging for a few years and have just discovered Polyvore, but better late than never. Here's my first fashion set, inspired by a lovely vintage Versace skirt and my bohemian style ethic. Enjoy!

Boho bliss by grungequeen featuring a ruffle shirt

Prabal Gurung ruffle shirt, $1,150
Joe Browns jean jacket, £38
Pleated skirt, £158
Stuart Weitzman floral print sandals, $345
Satchel handbag, $40
Alkemie shell jewelry, $130
Wunderkind coin necklace, £609
1STDIBS.COM - Fuller + Roberts Co. - Large Italian Poster for HAROLD...
1STDIBS.COM - Coup d'Etat - A Pied Peaccock
Exposure Gold Decorative Vase, £15
1STDIBS.COM - Le Trianon - A Fine Italian Silver Giltwood Mirror
Areaware Distortion Candlestick, $24
1STDIBS.COM - Hollyhock - Dodie Thayer - Dodie Thayer Cabbage Leaf Cup...
Areaware Distortion Candlestick, $24
19th C. Limoges Enamel on Copper Portrait in Frame from piatik on Ruby..., $375
Nearly Natural Indoor/Outdoor Potted Grass with White Vase |...
Kim Seybert Capiz Placemat, $65
Baroque Frames | Ornate Frames | Baroque Painting Frames, $78

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Fall look, thrifted

Yeeks we went from 40 degrees with the humidity this last weekend to mornings of 11 degrees C and cool days! I love fall, but when you go from wearing sundresses to jackets methinks it'll take a while to get my fall fashion legs on, if you know what I mean. Here's my first attempt:

Thrifted designer Angel jeans out of L.A. ($5.99 if memory serves but perhaps less) and a thrifted mass market style jacket (a couple bucks). The scarf (Anthropologie) was new and expensive but worth every penny, and the C'est Moi top was new and I actually paid full price!

My latest and greatest find I know I am going to wear with absolutely EVERYTHING this fall: these leather booties, picked up used for $34.99 (high price pour moi but je love) at CTS on Queen St. W at Spadina Ave. in Toronto. They have this cowboy-boot feel crossed with a semi-Victorian feel and a wee bit of 1990s thrown in, what with those tassels and all.

I also picked up this leather bag at CTS for about 20 bucks. I love the colour and it's so soft (not telling what kind of leather it is) - plus the long strap, as you can see in the pic, means I can wear it diagonally across my body. Think this will be my casual bag du jour this fall season .....

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Cocktail party at my fave vintage shop

Ah, who has cocktail parties any more - real, live cocktail parties where you actually dress? My gal pal Daina, who owns Continuum Modern Vintage - that's who. 

Daina was celebrating her shop's year-and-a-half anniversary. She dressed the part, and more, in this gorg emerald green silk taffeta cocktail dress from the 1950s.

Not having a proper cocktail dress (other than one that looks good on me only when I have a tan), I decided to wear this royal blue Lauren, by Ralph Lauren microfibre drop-waist frock I thrifted for $24.99 at Value Village - pricey in my books but the dress was brand new and would have retailed at several hundred bucks. And I do look rather smashing in this shade of blue.

I wore the dress with gold-tone strappy wedgies (thrifted of course!) and my Trifari necklace found in London's Portobello Market. Just look at the way the dress swishes when I twirl - je love!

Any one out there gone to a cocktail party lately? What did you wear?

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1970s handmade maxi dress, thrifted

Now that I'm working in the hip section of downtown, I am feeling rather free to dress the part - the part being a semi-cool vintage bohemian hipster. And I can also shop at one of my fav vintage second-hand shops, CTS at 394 Queen Street West, just west of Spadina.

The lovely and infectious Nadia reigns supreme at CTS, her dominion being vintage glam at great prices. Not thrift shop prices, mind, but low, under $40. This 1970s maxi dress (handmade I'm pretty sure) made of highly flammable fabric, fit me like a glove and was $19.99. I'm wearing it with a 1970s necklace thrifted at Value Village for under 10 bucks. Perfect for the heat wave we've been having here in Toronto!

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Peonies & punch at Nathalie-Roze & Co. 5th anniversary do

Yesterday I popped into Nathalie-Roze & Co for its 5th B-day bash. Owned by Nathalie-Roze Fischer, the Leslieville, Toronto indie boutique features accessories and clothing by local artists. There's also this darling canopied and gated-in terrace where they have events and sell what I hear is the best ice-cream in town.

Nathalie-Roze and crew had the place all decked out yesterday for the festivities. These fragrant pink peonies, reposing beside N-R's famous mango and rose-water punch, remind me of growing up.

Back to the shop, a gorg green-walled eco-sanctuary of lovely hand-crafed jewellery displayed on teacup saucers and cool indie fashion labels. At the after-hours do last night, the change rooms and shop environs overflowed with hipster young women in their 30s (ok, some of us weren't 30!).

You know I'm a jewellery nut. This designer found a way to break and sand down teacups and fashion the bits into beautiful pendants.

And this one - a spoon! How brilliant!

Of course, my pics aren't doing justice to the breadth of what's in store - it was just too hard to get decent snaps of the clothing. Trust me when I say everything is recycled, upcycled or refashioned into a new stylish life.

Hair barrettes and head pieces of old ties! Do you know how many old ties I see when thrift shopping that are made of the best fabrics and patterns?

The lady of the evening wouldn't let me snap a pic of her, for shame, so I will wish a Happy Anniversary to the floating and very peony-like paper puff balls - Happy 5th!

You can find the shop at 1015 Queen St. E in Leslieville, Toronto. Look out for N-R's roster of events on her FB page or Twitter - pretty sure there's a clothing swap coming up.

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English charity shops

Well I'm back from lovely England and I'm a bit blue missing my hunnie, but I'm armed with heaps of fab memories and interesting cultural and fashion observations! On the fashion front, I didn't get to wear any of my lovely frocks as the weather was too chill - so I had to shop, natch!! Here I am, in front of a traditional English red phone booth in the lovely town of Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire county, sporting a semi-thrifted outfit from a charity shop in the area: the Pepe London jeans (killer expensive new) were seven-pound-fifty (12 Canadian dollars), and the hippie top for 4 pounds (just over $6 CND).

If you cast your mind back to my blog posts from September 2010 when I first went to England, you'll remember that I commented on the general low, mass-market quality of thrift shop clothing there - but that was in a wee town in the north. The charity shops in the southern and quite posh area of Beaconsfield and surrounding area are an entirely different matter: good quality labels, though not a ton of vintage as far as I could tell.

Still, I'm impressed with the calibre of the charity shops in England - the ones I shopped were hyper-clean, immaculately merchandised and well organized - in other words, leagues above the chaotic, stinky and dirty shops here.

The marketing of organizations like the British Heart Foundation, where I picked up the Pepe jeans, are well-thought out - as you see here, an 'urgent appeal' bag, containing a bag for me to put my donation in, accompanied my BHF purchase.

My humble opin is that charity shops in England are run more like corporations (such as Value Village in Canada, which is not a charitable organization but rather part of the Savers corporation in the US). I'm not bashing charity thrift shops here as I rather like their grottiness - but what accounts for the diff between them and their nicer UK counterparts, I wonder?

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They're new, but they're fabulous

This is my Birthday Suit ha ha. A new 1970s-style pantsuit bought with my Birthday money proceeds. I'm wearing it with my 1970s necklace I featured the other day as the pantsuit is so low cut.

I liked it so well that I bought a second one in a smaller size and a different pattern. Psychedelic bay-bee! And hey, I did have some Birthday money left! Thanks sis, for the pressies!

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The Dress, Veronica Slater, et moi: bloggers bond

Remember this dress? Fellow blogger Veronica of Veronica Slater Presents found the same style of Pucci-esque print silk dress in a thrift shop that I also thrifted. Doesn't she look fabulous in it? I love the chunky necklace accessory.

Veronica and I met yesterday, in the flesh, for the first time, after commenting on and following eachother's respective blogs for months and months. Not surprisingly, we got along like old friends. Look, we even look like kindred spirits here, with out short dos, oversize sunglasses and bracelets!

I love this photo of us. I hope I didn't freak Veronica out too much as I found myself opening up to her about all kinds of things going on in my life. Just goes to show that if you bond in the blogosphere, chances are you'll bond in 'real' life. I find thrift bloggers are of a certain ilk, to be sure - but Veronica, just so you know, doesn't just blog about her FAB vintage purse collection.

As you'll see from her blog and website Veronica Slater Presents, Veronica blogs about living better (in three languages to boot), and all the wonderful stuff that comes along with that. She shares her ideas for gifting, giving and living better weekly on the Boreal Express, a CBC Radio-Canada chaine premiere show. Here she is sporting a spunky jumpsuit and a wonderful belt from the 1990s. Quelle style!

Veronica was kind enough to snap a pic of me wearing a Franco Mirabelli dress I thrifted for about ten bucks, made of this gorg fabric which is the Toronto designer's signature.

Here's Veronica again in her lovely thrifted dress. Veronica, I had such a great time with you. I sure hope we hang out again (and maybe do some thifting too?)!

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Very special vintage coat, for a very special occasion

I haven't worn this vintage coat for years - as you can see, it's pretty special: a 1930s style (wool) with these gorg embroidered sleeves. I bought it when I was 19 (over 20 years ago!) for just under $200. I remember I had to borrow the cash from my sis, who always saved her bucks (no big surprise I was always shopping, eh?).

I had the opportunity to wear it this past weekend, to a party given in honour of a lovely lady who recently passed away, who I was lucky enough to meet and write about the month before she died. She was 104 years old and had lots of pluck and a great story - and I think she would have appreciated this vintage coat.

I've accessorized the coat with a vintage bag I found at Value Village for $5.99, and some thrifted Nine West slingbacks in excellent shape found for around $8.99 at my local thrift shop, Stretch Thrift. The scarf is vintage silk Liberty of London, a couple bucks at a junk shop.

The day wasn't about me, but I wanted my outfit to do justice to a wonderful lady who led a great life. It felt good to be pulling out all of my really special items that I never wear, for one day - some vintage pieces are for just that, and in this case, the occasion certainly warranted it.

Here's to Minnie. Rest in peace.

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Thrifted frock that changed my life inspired another thrift stylista!!

I've shown you this thrifted silk dress with an Italian label before, but I'm featuring it again as it was exactly one year ago that I wore it, and met my dream man in it. The dress, apparently, influenced the way he thought about me - let's just put it that way!! This is me at a recent party, in THE DRESS.

This was me a year ago, with faux tan, just before jetting off to the place where I happened to meet my gorg Brit mannie.

A spin-off of an already great story about a thrifted dress is this: there's a reader of this blog, a lovely lady whose equally lovely blog, Veronica Slater Presents, I also follow. The story goes that Veronica saw this dress on Grunge Queen and loved it so well, and the story behind it, that she searched high and low in the thrift shops before finding her own dress, exactly like this one!

Love it! Veronica, you will have to think about sharing a photo of you in your frock!

I dedicate this post to Veronica, and to my lovely man - both of whom know quality when they see it, tee hee!!

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BCBG dress 20 years old, $5.99

Notice: hips in this picture appear larger than they actually are.

Joke. Well, the pattern does make one look bigger. But I do love the mosaic print of this cute BCBG dress, found for $5.99 at Canadian Thrift. I wore it with a hot pink knit bolero and sassy strappy heels.

The neat thing: I work in Toronto's design district on Wingold Ave., where all the fashion brands wholesale to retailers. I walked into a cafe for lunch today and a woman said, "That's BCBG. I sold that dress to stores in 1992."

Who would have thought? The dress is in such great shape, and so stylishly applicable, that I thought it was somewhat current. Wonder if the BCBG brand is so timeless and as good a quality today?

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We went; we modeled; we shopped!

Oh, the fun we had. My gal pal Marsha (pictured here in this lovely vintage dress and matching summer hat) and I had so much fun this past weekend at Toronto's Common Sort, a veritable treasure trove of second-hand and vintage clothing and accessories (with locations on Queen Street East AND West).

Owner Nicole Babin has it bang on: not only can you shop like a crazed deal diva in her stores (the Parkdale Queen West location is larger and packed with good stuff), but you can also bring in your stylish duds and if Nicole likes 'em, she'll let you trade them in for other stuff in the form of a store credit (think she can give you cash too - but hey, once you get there you'll want to shop til you drop).

Also a fashion photog, Nicole does this really cool thing where customers come in and model her wares, and the pics are posted to her website blog. In return the happy model gets a store credit - and as you can see, Marsha put hers to work right away with this gorg vintage blue drop waist dress (on the sale rack for five bucks!) and matching shoes that she took home with her! Doesn't she look stunning?

Using my credit and then a bit more, I went home with most of this outfit: Paige denim capris ($34 and they fit me like a second skin); Juicy Couture tie-dye tank ($18) and darling Banana Republic scarf with animal print motif ($14). The gold ballet flats, Kenneth Cole, were found for a twoonie at the $2 Sale in Toronto, and the vintage John Hort bag isn't mine but I may have to go back for it!!

The 'reveal' post with Marsha and I modeling the Common Sort duds picked out by the resident stylist - coming!!

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Look at the tag, I say

When thrifting, I follow these rules: feel the fabric, look for colour, style and tag, in that order. An item has to be in a colour and style that rocks on me, but if it's a crap fabric, I won't touch it. If all those points are met, I take a peep at the tag, and my thrifting spidey senses are normally rewarded.

I'm never disappointed when I find the gorg microfibre dresses made by Toronto label Bionic Women. New, these frocks sell for $150 and up, a price I can't afford even though I love the make.

Used, I have found them from $9.99-$19.99, screaming deals for locally made wrap dresses with simple yet exquisite styling. Here I am in warmer days in one of my faves, with a fake tan.

Here's another one, this time with white legs.

I can't find the pic of my sis in the Bionic Women dress I bought for her. But the black dress pictured above is one she bought for herself while thrifting with me.

I feel partly guilty, partly jazzed when I find well-made locally-produced clothing in the thrift shop, as I know I should be supporting these micro designers by buying new. But the fact is, I often can't afford it (ok I did buy ONE Bionic dress new, at 50 percent off. No pic though). Can anyone relate?

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Wool trench, Goodwill

It's been raining like crazy this spring - good thing I have a warm wool trench to get me through! I found this deep blue wool trench by Evan Picone at Goodwill for less than 10 bucks. I love it. Every time I wear it - which is frequent these days - I feel like I'm in France.

I'm wearing it here with thrifted suede booties made in Italy ($14.99); this funky round leather purse made in Vancouver and found at Value Village for $12.99; vintage blue shades made in Italy found in a vintage shop; and my Anthropologie scarf - bought new but so worth it based on the compliments I get every time I wear it!

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Sexy orange skirt (thrifted) inspires 100% thrifted outfit

Now that Blogger is working again, somewhat at least (it looks like they have deleted comments from Wednesday), I am going to show you today's outfit, 100 percent thrifted (excuse bad, flat hair).

It all began with the tight sexy Femme Carriere skirt I thrifted at Goodwill for $4.99. I typically look straight as Olive Oil in this style of skirt but this one actually makes me look like I have some curves.

The grey microfibre top by luxury retailer Holt Renfew was thrifted for a few dollars. Matt & Nat orange (vegan) handbag, thrifted for maybe five dollars. Shoes by Gerard Darel, found at a ten dollar sale at a local consignment shop. Blazer (tag cut out) a few bucks, and disco "Wonder Woman" belt found at a vintage store for $15 - def the most expensive thing here.

Even the ring was thrifted - 50 cents - as was the necklace (can't see it so I'll show you later).

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How I wore my 'new' thrifted rocker bracelet

I show you heaps of bling but rarely document how I wear it! Here's me wearing one of my most recent thrifty acquisitions: the chain bracelet with the big black stone. I rocked it out, as you can see, with some skinny jeans (new but cheap at Costa Blanca), booties (Nine West, thrifted), tunic (gift), tank (new) and rocker necklace (gift).

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