@trumpan gave me the idea of exhibiting my old things and telling you where they came from. I am a friend of used things. Not only because vintage and fashion and furniture from past decades often have a much more beautiful design than contemporary furniture from discount stores, but also because a history and memory is linked to what you buy and where and from whom you buy or get something gifted.
I see the fact that used things are about avoiding new purchases as an upgrade. In a world in which there are millions of copies of a thing and new things always mean processing valuable resources such as water, wood, plant fibres, oil and other materials, buying used things is a gentler way of dealing with matter.
Starting with this beautiful chest of drawers. At the end of the 90s, when I was just moving to Hamburg, I afforded to go shopping at the weekly flea market at the former Hamburg Slaughterhouse. This picture shows you the place where the market still happens every Saturday. At that time not so many people were interested in old furniture.
I saw this piece and thought: Oh, my goodness, how wonderful these curved lines are! Although the glass plate was already missing, I made the purchase. I paid, I think, 70 German Marks for it. The shine of the surface still delights me when I stroke it or look at the light reflections.
On the same day I bought the three-legged hairy thing from someone else. I intended to use it with the make-up table (for which I never used it).
Below: I picked up the chair with the red fabric upholstery from the street. It was standing on the side of the road about two years ago, not far from my home, and I carried it happily to my apartment. The flaking white color doesn't bother me at all and I leave it there. It is comfortable and I like to sit on it.
The cocktail chair I got as a couple from the sister of my first longtime friend, with whom I was together for seven years. He is a train driver and we met at a disco called "Airport". He himself was unique in terms of trends and clothing. At that time he dressed completely contrary to the usual fashion, I still remember that he wore dungarees with too short legs and turquoise shaft sneakers as well as a red close-fitting scarf. It was 1987. Listen to the hit parade from that time. Sometimes he also was in full suit and tie. Never saw anybody else wearing those clothes.
He had his hair half-long and the natural curls fell into his eyes. He loved David Bowie, Prince and the Blues Brothers and introduced me to the film of the same name. We went to the movies and put on black sunglasses or maybe it was the others with the glasses, I don't know anymore.
We also later watched "Sex, Lies & Videos" together with a very good friend who was terribly heartbroken because her Italian boyfriend had left her. We were eighteen at the time. I admired the cocktail chairs when we visited his sister and I found her taste to furnish herself exquisite and exciting. Nobody in the '80s was known to have furniture from the '50s. She had the armchairs upholstered and covered and left them to me for a small price I don't remember.
I discovered this chair together with a friend from Hamburg. About a dozen of them were simply placed on the street in Hamburg's Schanzenviertel for disposal by a restaurant, about seven years ago, when we had a drink there in summer. We walked by and thought: "Oh, but they are of good quality!" He managed to get a chair, I managed to put two of them in the trunk. I think I got the car I was driving with my ex-husband and we squeezed the chairs into it.
Every time he visits me, he says: "I wish I had taken more of them". When I look at the chairs, I think of the street full of cafés and restaurants where you still meet too many people crowding and eating, drinking and partying there in high season. The chair seems to be indestructible, it is very stable and will last for a hundred years without any problems. Maybe even five hundred. ;-)
With this tripod here - I think it's a flower stool? - I really like the black and white design. It's a pretty cheap thing, not very well crafted and it's already collapsed once. I fixed it makeshift. I bought two of them as a pair, also at a flea market for too expensive a price, forgot the numbers. I think it was about 15 years ago.
The history of this kimono here is old and new. Old, because I picked up the cloth for it as bed linen from the street or the linen was in a cardboard box, near the Johanniskirche (district church) some years ago, also where I live. I looked at it and although the zipper was defective, I took it with me. But it bothered me and since I started my new passion, sewing, I have been looking for beautiful fabrics. The motif is Asian - fans and fruit blossoms - so it fitted very well to make a kimono out of it. Here you can see the fabric victim lying dead on my floor. I am not sorry. It was reborn into a much better life.
This very very red blazer from a very robust fabric has a classic cut and I liked the too short sleeves and the fact that it is an absolute quality product (probably a designer piece). I got it from my favourite second-hand shop - mano a mano e.K. - in the district where my sweetheart lives. I go shopping there regularly and my man knows that whenever we go down there to his place, I will dive into the Souterrain and either he sits outside on the chairs and smokes a cigarette or he goes ahead and waits for me at home.
The owner of the shop is a woman and knows how to TLC her customers. She lets people write up. A clever concept, if you ask me. If you let a customer take a thing with her without her having to pay for it immediately, you tie her to you. Of course, there may be those who behave dishonorably, but it's usually the case that nowadays you're so delighted with this method that you come back in any case and buy something again out of lukewarm gratitude. She has good pieces hanging there and when you enter her shop, you receive friendliness, warmth, a good chat and sometimes even an espresso. The consultation can really take a long time and everyone has fun.
It seems I started collecting old picture frames. I've got more than I show here. While photographing I noticed how many. Either found, from the flea market or through social media. Another one is from an antique shop in Wismar, where we were this summer The owner was a unique specimen who told us about his wife who runs the shop and that they will close next year. It's the golden one, got it for 30 Euro.
The large frame comes from a contact https://nebenan.de a German Internet platform (translated "next door"), over which one comes in touch in the district with neighbours. So a thoroughly local project and a good thing!
Actually I saw a woman on the "market place" offering this picture frame and I made an appointment with her. On the way - it was spring or summer - I picked her a small bouquet of flowers from the roadside out of a whim. There are always flowers growing around the said church and I only picked those that were half out of whack anyway. Then I rang the doorbell.
An older lady let me in. I gave her my bouquet to greet and we talked briefly. She showed me the frame. When I asked her what she wanted for it, she shook her head and said: "Oh no, nothing. Only when you advertise and you want to give something away, people think it's no good and nobody comes." I was unbelieving. Many people would have loved to have the frame as a gift. I was now the lucky one. I put a picture of @reinhard-schmid in there, my favorite artist here on Steemit. Reinhard, I miss you. He gave me this picture for a reason I don't remember, but it was certainly a very friendly one.
I was even more disbelieving when I saw what new pictures and frames the lady had hanging and I thought: "Oh dear, never in my life!" It's good that tastes are so different, isn't it?
This commode is in my corridor and weighs about a ton. I don't know ... 50s, 60s? There used to be a glass pane in front of the openings, which I took out at some point (and lost on the way in several removals), as it cost me nerves because one could not move that glass panes very well.
Today I would leave them inside, for I have become a more patient person. So I've had that piece for a long time. I no longer know exactly where I got it from. Probably shot quite cheaply from the flea market. It has at the bottom left a completely mirrored compartment! And in the closed side it has a black glass shelf instead of a wooden one! Can you believe something like that? It is very heavy and massive. I have rarely seen such curious things in furniture. It has very impractical dimensions and is basically only suitable for beautifying and as a storage space for people who come in to the door and store keys and mail there. But for that, it is very practical!
Lamp is clearly from the 70s (or late 60s), it's full plastic. The mirror above the commode is older, I guess, from the 50s?
Goodness, this blog already got long! I will show you just two more things and then quit. Otherwise you'll be overwhelmed..
This is an old wooden table of cheap design. I keep it for reasons of nostalgia, because it picks and is no longer the most steadfast. I got it from a good friend just when I needed a table. It's funny that one of my tables (a smaller model) is housed with her. There is no more space here.
The wardrobe is really unique! It reminds me of the vanishing cabinet from Harry Potter, with which Malfoy made the access to Hogwarts Castle possible. A clever coup of the young gal and a tragic one, as this caused Dumbledores death. I really would like to pay a visit at Borgin & Burkes. In reality I got the cabinet from my man this year. He saw it either on nebenan.de or eBay and one day he transported it to my place by a hand truck. What a good man!
The black & red dress you see hanging there, is making my title picture. It's a close up from the dress's pattern design. I got it from a Turkish woman at a flea market. Very 70s. I wore it with a very tight hair bun high up on my skull, like the mature Romy Schneider. Eyeliner very pronounced.
Lastly, a self portrait. Recently I decided to give up my facial anonymity. I never was really secretive about it, though. Here, you see me styled in a not fully authentic 40s outfit and hair. But it meets the purpose and I had a lot of fun sewing the trousers - actually a test piece - and making myself up with hair and make up.
I think, fashion is very good for making statements. I got many comments and looks since I explore more different styles and outfits over the last few months. Almost fifty, I am not wasting my time. Vintage and all what comes with it got my interest. I spend lovely hours with researching, watching youtube-tutorials and making myself more acquainted with certain eras and lifestyles. I love it very much. Hope, you can see my devotion to materials, too. I am a true materialist, when you actually think about it. Which differs from what I call a "bottomless pit consumption".
Alright, that was my tour through the apartment (sparing the kids room). Now: let this rise over 20 STEEM, no?
That's some really cool stuff! I have found another plastic chair since my last post and that's all :(
Poor Trump :(
But: You'll develop a third eye on this. Then you'll stumble over things and see them, where before you just walked by. I promise. It'll get better! I started with a blue plastic handbag, when I was a kid. :-D
P.S. it feels lousy, down to a 0.01 vote I am with my voting button.
I can't resist commenting any longer. Waiting for my VP to replenish so I can give a decent upvote.
What a delightful post. @trumpman is on to something, I think.
I love the way you give the provenance of each item. Everything has a history, and that's what makes this blog delightful.
In my community garage sales are quite popular. Are they common in Germany? Garage sale is really a euphemism for 'stuff we don't want anymore and maybe you do." Sometimes there's really junk at the sale, and sometimes treasure. My daughter has the patience and an eye for sorting through this. I do not.
She has a nice lawn set in the backyard--chairs, table and umbrella that she picked up for very little. Sometimes an attractive 'find', however, doesn't look so grand at home. But since the investment is so little, the loss doesn't hurt.
My favorite picture here, of course, is the one of you, wearing your own creation. Next favorite: gorgeous desk in the top picture.
You tempt me to jump on the bandwagon and describe some second hands that have interesting histories. Not sure I'll do this. A little discouraged about blogging under the new regime.
Looking forward to your next post, as always.
With affection and warm regard,
Your friend, AG
Thank you, my dear AG :-)
I met Garage Sales in California. Since I lived in Palm Desert at that time and everyone there had their own house - or at least most of them - they were garage sales in the truest sense of the word:) I thought it was great just to go on someone's property and look around. Where I grew up, you could do that because they're all single-family homes. But nobody does, and the flea market tradition in smaller towns (at least in the area I come from) has somehow atrophied, it seems.
But it could also be that people just give each other things away or sell them without anyone noticing.
I would very much like to know about your second hand purchases and the story behind them :)
I can understand that the new regime here is discouraging. I'm thinking about letting my blog sneak out here bit by bit because I don't like the environment and people with possibilities don't want to understand much about democratic processes or are disinterested in concepts and methods that are new and different. Through my participation I support a platform that basically doesn't want to operate differently than what is so permanently criticized.
Perhaps the entire crypto market is organized in such a way that it is about profit and not about a really good product or service.
Granted, I would miss it, I like to blog. But maybe I will discover new environments and possibilities in this way? Who knows?
I haven't really decided yet.
Yours German friend E.
P.S. take a look at your mentions on steemworld.org. I put out the feelers once and tried again to draw attention to my suggestions. So far the resonance is at zero.
Hello Friend,
I will go to Steemworld. Rarely go there, never check 'mentions'. I'm not very nimble on the platform.
I guess you could say I'm discouraged by the direction Steemit has taken. For me, it will certainly mean less blogging. But I will do my best to support my friends, and those who need a little boost (I mean really little now).
I went through a stage where I brought vintage jewelry on ebay. Funny thing is, I don't wear jewelry. These were collectibles, for my kids. I just put them away. Maybe I'll pull some out and photograph them. A few interesting pieces.
I loved this blog. As always.
Be well, and happy.
Love from New York,
AG
the mention was from me to get your attention on a comment I made somewhere else to put up my proposal. Seeking for support :)
Jewelry! Please let them shine! Interesting that you collected them for your kids and not for you. Certainly you can talk about the purchases a little?
You too, be well. Hug from the far!
Yours Erika
I looked... still a little lost. However, if you ever want me to notice something, just add it to some earlier post as a comment. I'll see it in Steemd...I look there for new activity. And I'll support whatever your initiative happens to be, you know.
I really like those virtual hugs
Two for you,
Your friend,
AG
Oh man.... I absolutely love that furry chair thingy! This is a very cool style of post.
I’m very glad to have stumbled into it!
Thank you :-D LOL,
I tried to talk to it but it's stubborn.
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