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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More orange

I'm really digging the orange shades I showed you in my last post. They happen to go with my thrifted Matt& Natt handbag, which you see here, and this "new" orange hippie style sundress (only $21). The white cotton jacket was found for $5 at a clearance centre years ago.

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Colour my world, bigtime

Today I saw the world through orange-coloured sunnies, literally. Quite the experience. Don't try this if you have a headache as I bet it will hurt. Aren't these 1970s shades super funky? I found 'em for $1.99 at my favourite local thrift shop, Canadian Thrift.

I wish I could show you the sassy outfit I wore them with, but alas, I have no dedicated camera person to snap my looks. But you can see I matched the shades with my purse, a thrifted Matt & Natt beaut that's just perfect for the summer that we are now finally enjoying!

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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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Can you really let go of nostalgiac stuff, even if you never wear it?

As you look at this rather freakish close-up, that is the question I'm pondering tonight. I bought this 1970s?-esque pendant at a church sale years ago for a couple bucks at most. I have worn it - once. It doesn't really fit into my life or style, but I still love it.

I love it because it reminds me of those 1970s Christmas Tree ornaments we used to hang on the tree while growing up - you know, the cut-out balls with the foiled concave insides. It is just special, even though I never wear it.

But the agony sets in as I'm in the process of saying goodbye to some material things in my life, and this baby has gone in the sell pile, then out, then in, and is now in limbo. So the question is, do you get rid of pieces that rank high on the emotional resonance scale, or do you favour practicality, and pass it on to someone else? That, dear readers, is the existential question for tonight!

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I'm to sexy for my (vintage Franco Mirabelli) shorts

My thighs look like tree trunks but I'm trying to ignore that for all these fab reasons:

1). I was modeling second-hand duds found at and styled by the vintage goddesses at Common Sort in Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood. Owner Nicole Babin buys, sells and trades second-hand and vintage clothing and accessories, and she has this amazing blog where she posts pics of her customers modeling her wares. Fun eh? She's multi-talented as she's also a fashion photog and snapped the photo of me, above, and all the pics on her blog.

2). The shorts are by one of my fave Toronto designers, Franco Mirabelli, who has been making gorg women's styles for 25 years (found in specialty boutiques across North America and in his three Toronto boutiques, Mirabelli). His clothing is to die for (see that lime green tee in my header? That's by him) and he sources most of his fabrics from Italy AND he manufactures in Toronto AND he's just an all round nice guy.

So how could I resist when Nicole (left) brought me her lovely stylist (pictured right, whose name I can't remember), who in turn brought me these (1990s?) shorts? Well, dear reader, I couldn't. And I was having so much fun with the Common Sort gals (see post from last week, below, on my Common Sort adventure with gal pal Marsha), that it was all for the fun of it any way! For a run down on the rest of the outfit, all second-hand, follow the Common Sort link at the top of this post.

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