Raiding Grandma's Closet

Raiding Grandma's Closet

By Anna Angel

"Beautifully wrapped treasure boxes used to arrive by train for me when I was a child, full of gorgeous hand-me-downs that my Aunt no longer wanted," Christine Miller smiles, gesturing with her bejewelled hands the opening of a box. "I was immersed in these pretty, well-made things as a child," Mrs Miller, who owns Adornments, a vintage boutique in Paddington, says.

After a life-long attraction to old, glamorous and unique clothing, furniture and curios, she opened her own shop full of vintage and antique finds almost eleven years ago. Mrs Miller's past fuels her love of vintage and antique fashions, but her customers are drawn to the sequins, lace and frills for a number of different reasons. She says it's usually the quality of vintage clothing, the value for money that you can find, or the chance to purchase something unique that people love.

"Look at the handiwork, the craftsmanship there, you don't see that anywhere anymore," she points out a pink beaded top hanging from the wall. "Or, take that blue coat, made by an Australian designer in the 70's. It's faultless, and if you were to buy similar quality new today you'd be paying 6 or 7 times the price."

Mrs Miller blames mass-production for the downfall of quality and individuality in fashion today.

"It's sad the way the world's gone. Everything's made in China. It used to be that you could travel and buy special pieces from that region. You could buy a coat as a ten year investment; they weren't items you threw away after wearing it for a year."

Mrs Miller, who has a love of hand-made antique lace shawls, won't put any in her shop because she believes most people don't recognise their value. Customers will instead be greeted by a dizzying array of hats, dresses, shoes, umbrellas, and doorknobs from every era imaginable.

"The more you shop and look, the more you learn through your fingers," she says, her hands dancing across an imaginary rack of clothing, "vintage fabrics are very tactile, they are beautiful to touch compared to what you find today".

Her tips for shopping vintage? "It's about digging around, playing a bit". She says while people don't want to dress entirely in clothes from other eras, picking pieces here and there can be a cheap and fun way of getting unique, quality clothing.

University student Kirsty Howarth agrees. While fighting her way through the daunting number of clothes-racks in a Paddington op-shop, she wrestles a knitted vest from an overcrowded rack, which she later scores for a couple of dollars.

"Half the fun is in the hunt," she says, during a weekend crawl of her favourite op-shops and vintage haunts, "it's the excitement of sorting through and maybe finding something special".

Or, maybe not. She leaves a large number of shops empty-handed.

"There's a lot of luck involved. You never know what's going to be in stock, but that's the point."

Kirsty says her clothes that attract the most comments are often op-shop finds. "People always ask where I bought certain things from, and often, I got it for five or six dollars." A rebellion against mass-produced, trend-based fashions that seem to lack individuality leads her to hit the op-shops over chain stores.

She is certainly not the only one, if the turnout at this year's Vintage Fashion Fair in West End is anything to go by. The biggest crowd since it opened in 2005 clawed their way through two floors of 1950's silk nightgowns and tie-dye dresses, battling other shoppers and the oppressive, nastily un-air-conditioned heat, in search of bargains. There seemed to be no age-restrictions for vintage revellers; with some shoppers swindling champagne and pointing out a dress that looked like the one they wore to their high school formal, and some clutching dresses sewn long before they were born.

"I think people are really getting tired of always dressing the same as everyone else, because stores available to people with my kind of budget are all putting out the same, recycled, poor quality crap," Kirsty complains, fingering a comical taffeta '80's dress complete with puffy sleeves.

She comments that with fashion trends increasingly turning to past eras for inspiration, such as bohemian, mod and rockabilly trends, buying new items isn't the only way to update your style. "If the new clothes they're churning out are all mimicking past trends, why not try to find an original item?" Heading home with a newly purchased bracelet, vest, belt and shirt, and not $30 spend in total; "it's not a bad haul," she laughs.