Moving Day!

Phew, what a busy and fun week it’s been… lots of Vintage Fair prep and excitement.

There is a full blog post winging its way to you very soon but I just wanted to alert you that it may look different when it reaches your email (if indeed it gets there at all… still a Luddite as you can see) because … I’ve finally launched my website!

Please visit irene.ie for all future Vintage blog posts and activity (including news of my Personal Vintage Styling and Vintage Gifting services – my word it’s exciting times!)

A Magical (af)Fair

My two nieces and two nephews are off to Disney next week. They range in age between three and five – the four year olds being very girlie twin girls – so you can just imagine the sense of anticipation in that house. Four adorable little faces looking up at me so earnestly, explaining about Minnie, Mickey, swimming pools and of course, ice cream. Their parents and my parents are joining them. Another four (slightly larger) faces explaining about theme parks and pancakes … it’s tough to say which four are more excited.

I would absolutely love to be going with them and I don’t mind telling you that I feel a little sad that the amazing memories awaiting them will happen completely in my absence. It’s their little reactions that get me … I want to observe them open-mouthed as they watch the Disney Parade go by as I remember how magical it was for me when I first saw it. Alas it’s not to be and so I need to focus on the here instead of the there (and lets be honest they really couldn’t care less that I’m not there and will not give me a second thought from the time they pull their little bags out the front door). And as rather wonderful luck would have it there is an excellent consolation happening awaiting in the wings. In fact for Vintage lovers it is, I suspect, the equivalent to Disney World: The Vintage Fair is back! As the kiddies dream of Cinderella’s golden ball gown, I am instead imagining stumbling across Minnie’s original dotty dress from the 1920s… it came in black and white I believe. They say Glass Slipper, I say Vintage Satchel straight from Paris. Their ears are treated to The Little Mermaid, ours to Anita Williams & Rouge jazz band. Goofy train to Dun Laoghaire anyone??

Dirty, Fabulous, Mad Men

Some things are simply written in the stars. Wiggle dresses were always going to turn mens heads, Don Draper was destined to be a (terribly dishy) cad and it was inevitable that the Dirty Fabulous sisters would create the most heavenly of vintage emporiums to bring breathtaking occasion wear from the past number of decades to Dublin for our dressing pleasure.

It’s the family tree you see. Seamstresses, costumers and tailors make up the creative branches, ensuring the rather delightful fate of these ladies was sealed. With their mother opening a costume store in the 1980s when all around thought she was mad and their Grandfather’s pattern books still in their possession, it’s fair to say they have a more than credible fashion lineage. Their great-aunt had a Thrift Store in Monaghan in 1914 for goodness sake… my, do the women in this family have vision! And what better culmination and celebration of the family’s creative skills than a vintage fashion boutique.

Diamonds Are Forgotten

I have reached that time in life where it seems all around me are declaring love and announcing engagement. On a couple’s arrival home after the popping of the question, friends flock around to congratulate, hug and toast the pair. This is swiftly followed by the male being squeezed out of the picture and bride-to-be being moved to centre so all ladies present can get their first viewing of The Ring. Oohing and aahing ensues and complimenting begins, as does, inevitably, the trying on. The Ring is passed from female to female all earnestly advising each other on the correct direction to turn said ring to ensure … to avoid … to confirm … well nobody can quite remember what the purpose of the exercise is but everyone knows that it’s really very important that you turn the ring clockwise (no wait maybe it’s…)

Sisters, Tea & Treasures

In our family, First Born Sister is the glue that binds. This isn’t just because she is the only of the siblings to give our parents grandchildren (and therefore the most revered of the offspring) but it is simply her nature. She’s incredibly supportive and encouraging … to the extent of becoming self-appointed agent to us all. She has always been concerned with how I am, where I’m going (the literal answer sometimes slightly further afield than she may have imagined) and how I will be.

This was particularly true pre little-people life when I would call around to herself and eternally patient brother-in-law’s cosy home, tired and emotional from perhaps one too many glasses of punch the night previous and experiencing a serious case of PLOM*. As excepted I would be offered sympathy, open fire, couch, papers, tea and lots of yummy food throughout the day. In fact I would still be offered all of the above now were I to arrive in such a sorry state but these days the little-people wouldn’t be quite so understanding … they’d be expecting ‘enthusiastic aunty’ (punch overindulgence or not).

Dublin’s Vintage Treats

After spending the last couple of weeks can-caning my way through Oklahoma (the show not the place…although you never know!), I finally got some free time to get back to the important business of vintage living in our wonderful capital. And what a jolly I had on this beautiful Spring day! Vintage has never looked so good in Dublin with a wealth of stores and markets on offer in which we can indulge our passion.

I became particularly giddy upon discovering incredible deals available to us retro lovers in the city at the moment. Below are some of the temptations you may like to know about:

Laundry Love

As you’ve probably realised by now, for me, Vintage is King (and Queen). I’m all about embodying past eras and I love how I can be transported to another time simply by the clothes I choose that morning. I spend hours scouring vintage shops and thrift stores in the hope of discovering a dress that will depict absolutely a time in history, so that I can bring it home to chreish and call upon whenever I want to be taken away from the Twenty-Tens (I’m still not convinced about this particular decade name).

However, for all that I wax lyrical about vintage there can be – forgive me for even saying it – issues! One of these issues is of course the obvious ambiguity of sizing. Now I don’t really mind this so much because, as I’ve said in the past, if it fits … it was yours in waiting. Also, if it’s too big, it can easily be altered on the sewing machine. If it’s too small? Alas the problem can be difficult to overcome – well unless you are a complete whiz at recreating in which case the possibilities are always endless you talented thing.

For the day that’s in it…

Love is … Mingling Ferociously

Love is a funny thing. When it happens that you first meet ‘The One’, you simply know that they will be all you need. You will go roofless, shoeless, sleepless and none of it will faze you because ‘they’ are with you. When my special gentleman first moved to Dublin I was brimming with such happiness that I knew I could live just in the clothes in which I stood and be ecstatic by his side forever.

Then the weekend happened. And what d’ya know? It turns out that maybe this one outfit won’t actually do forever more… maybe my eyes have started roving … toward the shop windows around Drury St.

Ye Olde Fashion Country

One of the things that I’m forever promising myself is to take more little breaks in this fair isle. It’s something I think about often, put the wheels in motion regularly but then thoughts of friends living abroad that I’ve been wanting to visit enter my head along with timely emails from those (oh so non-glamorous) budget airline that keep popping into ones inbox uninvited. They send offers such as ‘we’ll pay you to go’ and before you know it the promised reconnection with those other 31 counties gets put very much on the long (red varnish tipped) finger.

So although I say it every January, this year I am adamant – I will see more of Ireland. I will stay at some of the adorable little country houses with which this country is bursting. I will interact with fabulously eccentric people (hopefully!). I will seek out old tea shops in all of the villages in which I take up temporary residence and I will, in every location, seek out the vintage gems hiding around the unfamiliar corners.

Whenever I do find myself outside of Dublin I delight in the suspense of what treasures there may be to find in the area. Unfortunately however, unless you know someone local, the treasures are often left a mystery. On more than one occasion I’ve receeved a tip-off from someone in passing  (you know how it goes … you’re in a strange place, spot the style you most admire walking along the street and then … pounce! Slightly petrified they may be … but always informative in my experience); alas often I find myself so eager to get to the shop that my imagination carries me away and when I eventually come back down to earth all of the location information has failed to return with me. I will search with vigor and perhaps ask again passers-by again, but once it’s clear that word has gotten out about my last encounter the locals tend to decline engaging with me. My downturned mouth and I take to the long road home with thoughts of what might have been.