So What's Vintage ?

well with wine it's a substitute word for "made in the year"...as in "this merlot is vintage 1990" = "this merlot was made with grapes picked in 1990"

(it was probably bottled some time after that)

With vintage clothes, jewelry, accessories and footwear, and headwear...vintage is at least 20 years old...See the difference?
Vintage, when applied to clothing etc, isn't a word that means "a year" or even "circa"...it means at least x number of years old, relative to the current year.


If you bought something new in 2004, it's not vintage in 2009. It's old, or used, or out of style. It may be perfectly wonderful...
but it isn't vintage...not yet! There are even some more hard-line purists that define vintage clothes as those that are older than 1970.

With the current and likely unending rise in popularity of "vintage" and "used" and "clothing swaps and exchanges", the right words need to be used for accuracy.

To read more about vintage clothes and the whole big wide world of vintage...go here...it's an amazing resource !

So, here in Tacoma, the best Vintage Clothing stores are VANITY, and GLENNA'S...
Orange is great, as is Pure, as are all the others...but for sheer abundance of glamor and choice of decades, those 2 stores, Vanity and Glenna's... really rock the older, harder to find, vintage!

Any day of the week you can walk into Vanity on 6th Ave, or Glenna's on Broadway, and get blown away by 50s leopard jackets, or 60s pillbox hats, or 40s rayon crepe dresses, or 30s bias cut satin gowns...


Me, funkoma, like the other vintage stores in Tacoma, do have glammy stuff! We be cool....
I think we specialize in the more everyday, more accessible daily wear...
Also, our prices are more affordable...because what we sell is still more easily found out there.


The reason a 50s leopard, a 60s pillbox, a 40s rayon, a 30s bias...is quite a bit of $$ is the rarity (and condition)...

These are just the facts of life about our industry...
Love your exchange store...this for that...but know the difference between vintage, and used clothes.
And...the most rare of all?
It's a large or plus-size...
Because people used to be smaller back in the day...
that's all, therefore the larger sizes are very rare...and rarity figures into availability and price.

Well, someone thinks I'm mean...

about beer and hot dogs. Not true. naaah. Drink your beer, and eat your hot dogs. I am allergic to beer, I am a vegetarian. So, a certain bar in Tacoma, well, I visited once, but I won't go back, although Mark was there just last week.....

If you read my red hot and cool cocktails post, I was talking about the weather. I was talking about my camping trip. I hate corporations!!!!! Geez, if you don't know that about me, then, clearly you know nothing about me!

And in Tacoma, any one can own a bar and make money selling booze. I am making no money...I'm ok with that because I'm ready for a change when my lease is up......Tacomans love to drink! 1/2 my friends are AA tho...
But back to making money in Tacoma selling booze. Yes, folks are making a lot of money. Hurrah for them. Really.

Do you remember the tshirt that said something like this:"Tacoma, 45000 alcoholics can't be wrong"

So calm down. My dead friend Steve Craig used to call everyone an Idiot! Didn't hurt my feelings or anyone else's that I every heard tell.

Get anywhere near me and I'll climb right up on the anti-corporate soapbox.
geez.
And you know what else I find so interesting...that if I am such a meanie, why do I have friends and folks stop in to visit me all day long...
If you know me, I rail against the big guys beating up on the little guys...I love everyone, and wish everyone the best of luck. Always.
I hope that those folks with money will get taste, and those with taste will get money.
I hope that those hard cold uncaring corporate jackasses at the top of the heap will someday get some human emotions.....and learn to be nice.

Sorry gotta go. Another friend dropped in ...just to chat!!

It's Red Hot with Cool cocktails........

Not that Red Hot...Erik said, and I agree, since I've been saying this myself for oh....27 years...the way to make money in Tacoma is to sell booze !

Any moron can make a lot of money in Tacoma just by selling you beer...and cocktails...... and if they toss in a limp hot dog...you love it !!!!

OK, to that end...went camping again...the pics are below...I tried to make my tent look like a Bedouin...I need more paisley and sparkle but it's a Good start.
then we bought dozens of oysters ($12.00) fresh from Carl's farm on Marrowstone Island........
see Mark cooking...then we drank many cocktails ($9.00) and ate many oysters....
prices of great dining while camping is because, we cooked and mixed ourselves instead of going to fancy schmancy restaurant...
The sunsets! Sunsets are one of my favorite things that the planet does....

OK, back to work!!
Many things in funkoma vintage are 50% off !!!
the RED X sale goes thru the first week of August, when the bulk of new fall stuff arrives... (there's some new fall stuff out already...)

Cleaned and moved and set up the Cocktail Party.......
Gold velvet furniture...
Gold and Fiberglass lamps...
Fringe dresses, lots of sequins....
Ruffle shirts and dressy jackets for the guys...



******* BIRTHDAY CAMPING ********

I really don't like how the city manager, & Julie Anderson, and all the other corporate douchebags act towards Tacoma........I just reread Murray Morgan's history of Tacoma and the south Sound...Puget's Sound.......

geez, everyone comes here and uses Tacoma like she's a slut.......now of course Tacoma's city council is using our tax dollars to give to rich asshats like the McMenamins......hey where's my federal Grant?
Oh, yeah, sure,300 jobs downtown from this one project. Oh sure. 10 high paying jobs and 290 at minimum wage ....
and 2 buses cannot pass each other on the new improved Broadway...er, um, Slimway......

screw the small business people...and suck the big business people...and to that end I think this is what the city council should buy for each other for Christmas ...Speaking of Asshats...

A Pair Of Dueling Penis Hats

Belle du Jour and Lots of Pink

I've had lots of requests for party clothes recently...
I have just set up an area I call my 60s cocktail lounge...
I've set in comfy furniture, and a selection of party frocks for the Ladies and the Gentlemen...
I must go off and vacation for a few days, but when I return to the shop, I'll add more pretty things, ruffly things, shiny things...
for party attire.
Towards the end of the month, I have a collection of hats to put out too.....
Hats are becoming more desired also....
You know me...I love to play dress-up...
and it's about 10 minutes away from thinking about the fall wardrobe........
oh yes..........

.....when Catherine Deneuve appeared in the Luis Bunel French film, Belle du Jour, the clothes made the ladies sigh......
Not only was her wardrobe designed by Yves Saint Laurent....but master shoemaker Roger Vivier designed her shoes.......


The Andrew Geller pumps in brown alligator have a big button detail on the toe that is so inspired by, most likely, the Vivier pilgrim pumps....these are in my etsy shop....
Andrew Geller was a high-end shoemaker and these likely came from Nordstrom...back in the day...



here's a lovely blog post from www.unefemme.net
that discusses the Pilgrim buckle shoe and well, the blog itself is on my burgeoning blogroll of sites that discuss um...
the persons of maturity and wisdom...
oh yes. Life after 50 is so much better for so many reasons.....
a sense of who you are...many illusions have died and a peaceful soul begins to grow..
Wow!
that was pretty new-agey...
but wisdom is comforting...and so are lower heels.
Leave the stilettos to the young girls looking for love in all the wrong places...


and....This week in my etsy shop I have a stunning Emma Domb formal, with a size 32" waist.

The dress is a confection in pink lace, long poofy princess skirt and delicately proper in a peek-a-boo sort of way.........

We're very streetful...

and greatful the Urban Art Fest...will be twinned with Hot Rod aRama... more or less...
I'll be going...because I love the iron...weird.
cars are evil, but chopped up cars are soul-charging heart-smacking Cool, daddy-0........



I've vowed to never do another outdoor show again..so I won't be vending there.....
i really hated getting rained on...
what a mess...(see Lulu's blog for a pictorial review.)

went to the Joel Dance and the Art show at the Merlino /IOOF bldg, (I helped dress the ever lovely Charlotte...)
then on to drinks/pizza/Colin/Jenny at PSP........

All week, last week, Mark and I rearranged the shop, moved tons of new stuff in...(Pics later tonight)

And I guess we'll be open for short time during Sanford&Sons auction Monday evening......Read the NewsTribune for details!!!

What's new?
Furniture...clothes, home design...vintage vinyl...
and summer is being phased out over the next 3 or so weeks...and fall is moving in...
Small furniture is being set out on the floor...later this week...
smaller homes, dorm rooms and ...your camping camper or Bedouin Tent need Decor !

from my last post bemoaning the State of Destruction...I see many repeat faces in the shop and some...I've never seen in the shop...but surely out and about...
I have been extremely critical of the harm the City has done to our district...because someone has to fill you in on the Whole Story, and the News Tribune has been harmful to us, slamming our district in a negative tone that borders on libel/slander...

and it was and is ONLY because a group of citizens protested loudly on what the Train People wanted to do to downtown Tacoma...that is, Build a Wall of Brutal Concrete, was the design changed to something much more uplifting...
There is nothing that says Public Transit has to be Mind-Slammingly Ugly, but governcrats often go the way of Cheap and Ugly...why? They never ever went to Art School!!!

I worry that Tacoma only gets the "Happy, Happy, Everyone Is Happy" delusional side of the story....in Gentrification, Winners are picked and Losers are kicked...by Government...you need to know that those in power on the City Council and the City Manager...want Tacoma to become a white-bread sanitized UnCreative spot on the road between Portland and Seattle.....
We'll never become a high-class Artful Community until we have at least one bona fide Art School, and a Law School......why? because without a body of energetic fresh weirdos (I love the creative weirdos we have but we don't have enough to make Tacoma fully satisfyingly amazing...)(Yes, I'm talking to you Folksingers In Hell, Colin and Lyn..et al...)
And a Law School, with its yearly graduates of charged up Do-Gooders...will go after corruption and stupidity (Luzon Bldg.) so that it will not reign in Tacoma forever.......
Museums house Art from outside Tacoma...which is why Tacoma made such a big f'n deal outta Dale Chihuly...there's no reason why we can't cultivate 10000 more talents like that....
I know we have SOTA (good start!) but an MBA school is the opposite of creativity....except for creative ways to get all your money, Bernie Madoff...
**********Remember, you heard it here first....**********
the lovely Sarah commented:
I would hope that whenever the Elks deal goes thru and is actually refurbished, you would get a lot more foot traffic back on antique row. Trust me, I still go there. But when the Elks is shiny and new, tourists will like all the little shops and vintage wares (here's hoping).

I think some tourists don't always make it beyond the museum district and Pac Ave.

I loved Rampart from the Steve days, he was always so friendly, and love that you guys have kept it alive in your own way. Don't give up yet.

I responded:
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment...
I really do want more retail down here...it's so lonely!
Ask my neighbors...I really do want us all to have a great success, and not just in the Capitalist way...($), but to be creative and to give Tacoma tons of fun and inspiring things to do!

So, I do hope the Elks project happens and I hope a million more businesses open up...

Sadly, our business has been decimated by the City of Tacoma. The Elks project, if it ever happens, will be at least 2 more years away. My lease is up in May 2010, and I'll go...
Steve was able to keep Rampart going, with my/husband's help for part of the time, only because Steve had a very very cushy City of Tacoma job.....I find that extremely ironic.The new city manager Eric Anderson, only has one idea for Tacoma...and that is to turn Tacoma into the most condo-friendly retirement/bedroom community that exists to employ every single MBA that UWT can spit out.

Business is the enemy of Art (true fact), Art exists for its own sake. Business exists only to make money. We, are caught in the middle. I'm not rich, will never be, but I'm feeling pretty happy...and pretty creative...and that is a feeling that no amount of money can buy!! But bring some money downtown anyway, just in case...;-)

A Portland Show, a cheap motel, and making friends...

Packed up and took my show on the road.
Here's some pictures of my booth...it was cuter than the pics show...blame the photographer, I guess.
I drove with my load, I checked in to Mel's Value Inn on Interstate, and rode the train a few times (That Train Idea thru town is Wonderful!!)
Ate some great food at the Overlook, and at Charlies Corner Bar...shopped the Fred Meyer...watched a Harry Potter movie........
I met a lot of sweet Portland people...but I always think I'm gonna run into Gus VanSant or a Decemberist or...that sexy mayor...or.....Winona!

I saw steampunks (maybe they were Decemberists....) I saw country folks, and city folks, the gays, the grannies, and the young cuties. Missing of course, was any hippie kynd people....they were all at Country Fair.......
A pic of my motel room and the cute light fixture...








Wow! it was fun and it was all good! until......the rain at 4 pm on Sunday. So I got a little wet, but thanks to friends, Kathy and Margaret, who helped immensely with packing...I got outta there quite fast and got back to Tacoma at about 9 pm...


I finally got to meet Lulu, of LulusVintage.com......Miss Anne and her darling husband, Chris.
So positive so sweet...I met a few other shopkeepers and vintage dealers in the Portland area too. I am quite happy I went....

But the most bizarre thing...I was watching Cable TV since I don't watch TV here...and I saw Iman, Mrs. David Bowie...hawking cheapo Chinese/slave made crap on Home Shopping Network......
Is she stupid? Is she broke? Has she never heard of cheap labor/slave labor? Wtf?

Gee, I thought I was right...

about my most favorite mono-rant........
my position that a City has done either nothing to help small business, or has done everything it can to eliminate small business.......
While Monocle magazine isn't an expert on cities...building & running them...but they do know what it takes to make a World Class City livable...and how it got there, & from them comes this article (available by subscription or in the back issue)
concerning a terrible failure of city governments to nurture and appreciate the role of small business in the beloved urban environment.

Most cities get an F- for the ugly cavalier attitude it takes when Gentrifying An Established Neighborhood ....it is never done to improve the lives of those who are already living and doing business there.....

THE HELM...may have an opinion on downtown...

Most small business people agree their City was absent and therefore negligent and quite sinister, in the lack of help for any small business to carry on...and this small business too...

Here, it was the work crew, the women, specifically, that gave a shit during the worst of the rains, and the rains that created RIVERS OF MUD, (that flooded Broadway and invaded the basements of several businesses...It was them that nailed indoor/outdoor carpeting pads in front of our front doors to help cut down on filth and to lend a welcoming ...something to the brave and few customers that wanted to shop in downtown Tacoma....
The work crew have been wonderful.

But when I go, and I will go, because, as neat as my landlord has been, as soon as the papers are signed on the Elks remodel deal (if they are), my rent will skyrocket. The FREE entertainment, the FREE place for young musicians to play, the FREE art space, the cheap and swell Lifestyle Accessories emporium, known as Rampart will die.....


The recent remodeling of Times Square was done with the positive and uplifting involvement of New York City government going out of their way to help the small and medium and large businesses weather the near-fatal upheaval of their business and their lives, in the case of small family businesses.

The Condo Builders, and the Russell-suckers are getting ALL the benefits of the renewal efforts. Down here, ALL the small businesses can just go belly-up 0r tits-up and leave.
Then, the landlords and empty-lot slumlords can make BIG bucks by raising the rents, and building even more condos to stay empty.

The condo builders make their money AS THEY BUILD...not by selling the condos...By the time the For Sale signs go up, the money has left town and Tacoma is left with very expensive abandoned deserted buildings, right in the urban core.

The condo-selling is almost the Afterthought...in this government scheme to transfer taxpayer money to the wealthy instead of uplifting all classes, and specifically the working class and the middle class in Tacoma.

I give you the Luzon Bldg. as a prime example of corporate bullshit and sleight-of-hand.


In 5 to 10 years the north end of downtown may start to move up again...more folks moving downtown...and the businesses that move in to service the people will be corporate chains.(Trader Joe's, McMenamin's, Whole Foods....then...Olive Garden, Outback, Chevy's...Applebees...)

Really, Russell gets taxpayer money to stay in Tacoma....I don't think Russell needs a flippin' dime of taxpayer money ...
But I do. And so do my neighbors. We're small, and we'd like to stay and grow. But we are being held back.

I've made my mind up to leave Tacoma and take my small business with me to a community that values Originality, Art & Heart....unless a Miracle happens...and a Miracle did happen on the way to the Last Portland Dead show... (yes, we found a ticket to get into the Portland show !!)

so, I suppose ....lightning could strike again....and illuminate a Pot Of Gold...in the same way Tacoma made Mr. & Mrs. Mason rich...I don't need millions...or a street named Tressie...but I'd sure like it if Government would get out of my face.

It's Alice In Wonderland...

Like a billion girls on the planet...I loved Alice in Wonderland...and I love the
Sir John Tenniel illustrations that we most identify with the story...oh sure...Disney wrecked it tho it is a charming movie...it's old school Disney.......
No.
The real Alice is Tenniel......like this:




But I saw theeeeeese the other day....and wow.







click this Linkie for more......

Imagine my delight ! when I found this dress last year....in a thrift of course. It's a 90s babydoll....just barely vintage in about 5 more minutes......covered with Sir John Tenniel illustrations !!! oh yes.
I'll be wearing this in Portland this weekend...





I found this ...thing...what is it? a tablecloth? an antimacassar? I don't know...
It's a Hitatchi thingie....(its also says Castle)
I adore the illustrations, the secondary gothy colors, the whole mid 60s pop art take on Art Nouveau...
it's pen and ink line drawings like the Sir John Tenniel drawings.....with those lovely colors.....
it's just a length of white cotton with fringe at either end....




It's just big enough to make a bit of a skirt
...add some white lace and other gothy White Queen stuff.......



Gee, I do believe I have my whole Fall theme all lined up......
stay tuned funkoma fans and etsy shop buyers.......
I think it might be Alice I want.... is a Wonderland....kind of season...

When I say No Budget and Found...I meant it!

Now this is the kind of stuff that intrigues me...a sweet and lovely idea of a bed made with discarded pallets...oh do I know of pallets! A house I lived in in Steilacoom just before I opened the deli was made of pallets and Army ammo boxes. It was weird and stumpy.
From Design*Sponge comes this Before & After by Ashley Campbell of ashley ann photography. And a door headboard too. The simple white works well with the light wood and the punch of pretty colors. I especially love the coasters..Imagine the fun a child could have with this! Practical, hard to wreck and mobile too!

The Only MJ vid I will post because it has Angelica Huston who is perfect.

this has little to do with Tacoma, but I live here and I like this....Enjoy!!

Where I live...is very very old....

built just after the turn of the century and I, we, live in the basement in a long skinny apartment. It's somewhat primitive because we only have a bathroom sink, and no hot water tank. I'm back to the laundromat...

I thought I would really hate this...even though it's only a few months till I move...There's a few more changes I want to make ...a few more lights to hang from the ceiling...

I'm really only interested in home decor that is done very cleverly with found stuff, recycled old stuff, and with a little bit of money. It's very easy to have a fantastic home and ooooh decor when you have a big budget.
I have no budget.
Even when I did have $$$$ I still liked to decorate this way. It is a huge challenge to find stuff and incorporate it into what you need in a home to make it function for living.
I've been in this space for 2 months.....I'll be here for about 8 more months and then move on....


...one wall of stuff we found, and a door from my old neighbors on N. 21st that was in their trash pile, and a piece of art I traded for a bike and a little $. A view of a vintage sansui, etc....we're all about the vintage.



fluffy rug, stripe sofa, and a peacock tapestry.....concrete floor....maybe I should use more rugs? Yeah. I'm not happy with my pink table...that's up for a change next...but I do love the green and blue, and peacock.




But, I really like the simplicity of it all...all I want to do anyway is make things...and conduct commerce with vintage stuff...Take a lot of trips to visit my family, and see the countryside.
I am especially looking forward to the next camping trip...the next one should last 3-4 days which is the most we can be gone.....

So, here's what we started with...crap in a storage space...then we just moved the stuff out and were left with concrete floors and white basement walls...I think I'll live like this forever!

While I really really like you I have to do this....

I stayed home today and didn't go to any parties...the shop is closed and I'm alone with my dog.
I made 2 necklaces and worked on other things too.
I really like to go to parties and I like to go out to eat and drink and I love spending time with my family a lot !
But none of those things get work done....and making stuff is what I do.....
here's what I did today...(well some of it !) and then 2 pics from the camping trip to Ft.Flagler....
the park ranger who checked us in was K. Shurely.
you betcha!

The first necklace is of random pretty charms....mostly hearts...this is from my vast collection of stuff...and they are both on etsy now.

The second one is a big apple..thing...I combined it with a piece that looks kinda like an eye.....apple of my eye......
it was inspired by a woman I saw in Seattle a few weeks ago.......she had long shiny hair, a black tshirt tucked in her faded jeans. Simple leather sandals and a stunning statement piece of jewelry...a long necklace with a large metal pendant....similar to this, but not this....She looked cool, collected and perfectly put together.




*************************
The first pic is going across the Hood Canal bridge and then the view from campspot 7...it took us an hour to remember how to put up our tent (it's huge!)
but finally we did it then we walked on the beach......it was 2 days of Heaven, and I am more sure than ever of the next place I want to live...not in Tacoma.
...It feels great to be able to actually create something ...to have skills...and recycle and save something from the great mountains of crap...
Of course these are skills that the US culture doesn't appreciate....yet!