When I was little one of my favorite things to do was rummage through my mother’s closet and my grandmother’s closets. By the time I was old enough to do this my grandmother had expanded all of her knick-knacks in multiple nook and crannies. I was thinking about this the other day when I was storing Christmas table clothes and cloth stockings in the drawers in my guest bedroom. These drawers happened to be in the dresser that once resided in my mother’s bedroom growing up and later stored Grandmother’s table clothes and cloth napkins. Now this furniture is in my house.
To most grown women this would not be any big deal, but to the imagination of a little girl digging through old hats and coats and closed toe heels was a great way to spend an afternoon. Matching old purses to shoes and scarves was like playing grown up the way my grandson wants to pretend to drive the lawnmower.
As a young girl I would marvel at the older ladies on Sunday mornings at church. Ms. Moore is the first to come to my mind. She walked through the halls of the Sunday school classrooms with Ms. Bea Garret matching from head to toe and bright lipstick marking their big smiles. Little girls could not wait to grow up and fill these classic shoes so in the mean time they would pretend.
At one point I actually dug out my mother’s old high school dresses and had them refitted to wear in the 80’s. One brown satin dress I even wore to the Homecoming dance. They were much longer on her, but thirty years later the length had changed to fit my long legs. Styles come and go over the years and what was old becomes new again making what we consider vintage cool.
I write this because recently our last future daughter-in-law to join our clan was given a bridal luncheon at Galatoire’s restaurant in the French Quarter. My mother and I were invited to be introduced to her large extended family of precious ladies from the south shore. The theme of the luncheon was “Vintage”. Her tables were decorated with the little vases of ladies with flower arrangements bursting from the open hats and handmade place settings with ladies gloves.
It was charming, but in the preparations I was extremely perplexed as to what on earth my mother and I would wear to this event. I reached out to a couple of my daughter-in-laws for advice knowing they are up on the current trends, even the current trends of old. To my surprise the pictures they sent me made me laugh. It seemed pretty much everything in our closets, yes we also both have those multiple closets like Grandma had once the children were grown.
Most everything in our closets could be considered vintage or could be fashioned to look vintage. Our jewelry, shoes, boots, coats, hats and scarves. It seems we ourselves are indeed vintage and proud to be so. This only tells me my closets are ready for future granddaughters to spend the afternoon digging while the grandsons tromp through the woods with Papa Clay!
