Night Bird located at 12 W. Mechanic St. in New Hope, PA sells vintage clothing ranging from the late 60s to to late 70s. The store is well organized, clothes are well kept, and everything is fun to look at. They have a lot of t-shirts from concerts and tours as well as hard core 70s get ups (bell bottoms and acrylic collared button ups). The store is what I imagine the wardrobe room on the set of “Boogie Nights” looked like.
It’s a really great store though and offers more men’s vintage clothing than I have seen at any other store.
Walking into Love Saves the Day in New Hope, PA is like walking back in time, not only to eras ranging from the late 1800s to early 1980s, but also into my bedroom when I was in fifth grade. What my father would call a pigsty, but really just a cluttered mess of clothes, toys, and memorabilia.
The two-story emporium of vintage items, mainly clothes, showcases merchandise draped from the ceiling, posted on the walls, and folded in trunks on the floor amongst antique furniture and arcade games. While the clutter may overwhelm some visitors, there is a unique sense of organization to co-owner Leslie Herson’s madness.
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Carole Monterosso creates greeting cards and decorative pictures with vintage flare. She offers her works cased in double matting, wooden frames, or both. Each piece contains a quote personally created or chosen by Monterosso. She collected all the quotes over the years.
“I was inspired to make these pictures to help females keep a positive mental outlook as well as a spiritual side. I chose these quotes, because to me they stood for female empowerment and spirituality. I used card stock, feathers, beading, and lace. The materials represented femininity to me and I really wanted that to show immediately in the work.”
Quotes include:
“A woman is like a tea bag, you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.”-Elanor Roosevelt
“Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.”- Lauren Bacal
“One is not born a woman, one becomes a woman.”- Simone de Beauvoir
Her works have been featured at craft shows around Southern NJ. Cards cost $2.50 each and decorative works range from $10 to $25. To purchase contact her via email at wldflwrs@comcast.net
Each hand crafted card will show you care more than running to the local drug store for a card.
Over the next two weeks I will be reporting on vintage in New Hope, Pennsylvania. If anyone has any information about the area, comments about a particular vintage store, questions you would like answered , or things you would like to see, please send in your comments. I’m excited to hear from you and even more excited for this project. New Hope is actually the city that sparked my infatuation with vintage clothes.
Guy Trebay recently wrote “Scavengers on the Urban Savannah” for The New York Times. The article is about the massive market that features 170 vendors. My favorite is former Lane Bryant retail associate’s, Glenn Marla, comments on plus size vintage.
The article has a lot of fun interactive components and the market looks awesome. Brooklyn Flea just opened this April. It is the largest flea market in New York City and is open every Sunday a block away from Dekalb Avenue’s resturant row.
Southern NJ shore girl Carol Baker has a history with vintage. As the daughter of two antique collectors and dealers, it was almost serendipity that led her to open her online vintage clothing store, Dandelion Vintage, in 1997.
Today she ships vintage items all over the world from the center of her universe, southern New Jersey.
What first attracted you to vintage clothing?
I grew up around my parents collecting and dealing in antiques and going to flea markets. I started as a teenager, just looking for something different and cool to wear.
Can you remember your first experience with vintage clothes?
My mother used to buy Victorian clothing and baby clothing, so it’s just always been around
You opened your online store in 1997. What led you to selling vintage clothing?
I was fired from my last job in retail and spent my unemployed hours exploring the Internet for the first time. I came across someone selling vintage clothing and decided to add a page of vintage clothing to the crafts site that I was building. I sold items from my own closet that I had bought and horded over the years
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I have obtained a lot of my family’s old clothes over the years. However, I have never asked whether or not I could use it or what the story was behind them. My dad saw me wearing one of his old sweaters the other day and just broke out into a story about it. So I decided to ask about some of my other favorite items. It turned out to be a real bonding experience, especially because my mom and grandmother passed away a few years ago and it gave us the opportunity to remember them at their finest- in platforms and fur.
So here are some of my favorite vintage items that have never been abandoned on a store shelf. They may have spent a few years in the attic or had new trends out shine them, but they always stayed in the family.
The sweater that started it all.
“I bought that sweater in 1969. I just thought it was a fashionable sweater then. I just wore it in high school. I wore it on dates. I think I was working at a movie theater then, as an usher. It was a very expensive sweater, $75. I bought it in Willingboro Plaza at a place called Standford Reed.”
I like to wear it…with everything. It’s probably my favorite piece of clothing. First, it’s wool, warm, and uber comfy. It also works well with a lot of other pieces. But most of all, it reminds me of my dad. I do a lot of traveling, therefore get homesick a lot and curling up in this thing feels like a big hug.
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The Painted Cottage in Collingswood, NJ has beautiful furniture by Valerie Boothroyd, but they also have some great clothes. After you maneuver yourself around Boothroyd’s shabby chic creations, go upstairs. At first I thought I was not allowed, but I’m glad I was a little risky.
They don’t have many vintage clothing pieces, but what they do have is fantastic. The cottage offers vintage gowns, lingerie, and children’s clothes. Everything is laying perfectly across beds or hung on racks like they are just for decoration. But you can purchase these items and they would make a great addition to anyone’s closet.
Walking around that attic like bedroom, I had deja vu Pretty in Pink moments.
Photo from The Painted Cottage website.
