Melbourne Vintage Shopping: Part 2 of 3

Click here to read Part 1 of Melbourne Vintage Shopping

While perusing the vintage shopping delights of downtown Melbourne I stopped in a tiny cafe tucked in one of the wee laneways for a coffee. Near the cash register there was a beautiful black & white postcard stuck to the wall with a lovely vintage-looking woman and the name 'Circa Vintage Clothing' and an address underneath.

And thus my next mission was born.

After getting directions from the cafe owner to the suburb of Fitzroy, I set off in search of this mythical vintage clothing shop.

Gertrude Street, Fitzroy
Fitzroy is a short walk (or even shorter tram ride) from downtown Melbourne, and it's a lovely spot. The words 'funky', 'kitsch', 'vintage' and 'eclectic' all spring to mind. This is definitely a neighbourhood with character up the wazoo.

Gertrude Street is one of the main shopping drags. I spent most of a day on just one block between Brunswick and Smith Streets (which are also full of shopping opportunities, which I'll cover in Part 3 of my Melbourne Odyssey).

I arrived a tad early and most of the shops didn't open for another hour. Top tip: when shopping in Melbourne don't bother leaving the house until at least 10am - most shops open at 10 or 11am, and sometimes not til noon! Those Melbournians really know how to live!

I got excited walking along the street because even a lot of the signage was beautifully old-school. I killed some time at a cafe called Birdman Eating, which I chose soley based on the fact that I liked the retro typeface in their signage. Turns out that you really can tell a cafe by its cover because the asparagus and olive oil soup was delish!

I recommend the soup...

It's hard to get mad about shops being closed
when the signs are so art deco-ly pretty

Top Pick:
Circa Vintage Clothing
102 Gertrude Street
www.circavintageclothing.com.au

Dresses and handbags and suits, oh my!

Thank goodness I saw that postcard! Circa is the top highlight of my vintage shopping forays on this particular trip. When I entered the shop I swear I could hear angelic music go "La LAAAAAAAA!!!!" because obviously I had stepped into heaven.

And the angels sang... stepping into another

time and place in Circa Vintage Clothing

The interior of the shop is lovely. It's a little like Anton's, only the clothing is vintage instead of new. There is a huge array of stock, including a decent amount of menswear (including things like tuxedo tailcoat suits). Gloves, handbags, scarves, jewellery and accessories are all presented beautifully. It's a joy just to enter the store and soak up the atmosphere. And they're happy to let you do so - I spent AGES in there trawling through every rack, trying on a few things and rifling through their collection of undies and sewing patterns. You'll never want to leave!

Men are well catered for.
You could buy a top hat and tails!

All the displays are artfully put together
and beautiful to behold

Jewelry, accessories, and frilly things

You know how you can find a dress in a vintage/thrift store and think "It looks 1940s-ish, but is it really from the 1940s?" Well in Circa they can tell you. Proprietress Nicole Jenkins is passionate about all things vintage, having started out in costuming and working for film and theatre. She's been collecting vintage items for most of her life and really knows her onions when it comes to identifying the real era of vintage garments from their style, fabric type, fasteners, etc. All the garments in Circa are labelled with their actual vintage, so you know you're getting a 1940s dress and not a 1970s one.

Evening gowns, including quite a few from the 1930s-40s.
Prices range around $145-245

Three original 1930s dresses,
including a satin wedding dress

Frocks and day dresses - prices range from A$145-185
That one in front is an original 1930s number in mint condition

Circa has been going for five years, and for the past two years Nicole has also been hard at work distilling all her knowledge about identifying, collecting, caring for and wearing vintage clothinginto a book, to be launched in about a month's time.

Nicole Jenkins' forthcoming book on collecting vintage clothing

I'll see if I can arrange a Diamond Dame book review. In the meantime, I recommend you wander over to Nicole's blog and have a read, especially if you're based in Australia.

I spent tons of time in Circa, and could have easily stayed there all day chatting to the lovely shop assistant Victoria, but alas I needed to explore the rest of Gertrude Street and beyond. Victoria gave me some names of other vintage stores to check out; one place she sent me is the highlight of Brunswick Street, which I'll cover in Part 3 of my Melbourne vintage shopping odyssey.

And I didn't leave the shop empty-handed! I nabbed this glorious 1940s sewing pattern for A$25.

My new not-even-preloved 1940s dress pattern.
I love the two-tone version - what a humdinger!

It was still sealed in its original envelope, in pristine condition. I've already nabbed the sleeve pattern piece to add 1940s-style sleeves to a different dress pattern I'm making - but that's another story!

Other places of interest on Gertrude Street:

Moustache
124 Gertrude Street
Moustache is a small shop with an unassuming air. It doesn't have the same gloriousness of presentation that Circa has, but a black flowered dress on the mannequin just inside the front door caught my eye and I ventured inside.

Moustache Vintage Clothing

The interior - not huge or fancy, but cheerful nonetheless

After rifling through a few dresses I noticed nothing had price tags. Figuring this to mean "if you have to ask, you can't afford it", I was pleasantly surprised to discover the shop has a one-size-fits-all pricing policy - all dresses are A$65. How refreshingly simple!

I was rapidly succumbing to vintage shopping fever and broke one of my cardinal rules of vintage clothes shopping. Due to my never-ending pile of 'home sewing projects' that never see the light of day, I try to be very strict about refusing to purchase any vintage clothing items that need adjusting or altering, unless they are truly dirt cheap (less than 20 dollars).

However, the fresh Aussie air must have got to me because I purchased two dresses in Moustache that I really rather liked and mostly fit me, more or less. I really liked the fabric of each and I'm sure I can alter them to suit.

This is the dress from the mannequin that initially caught my eye...
(modelled here by Daphne, my trusty sewing dummy)


See the pretty butterfly sleeves!

This dress is a smidge big on me and I don't care for the elasticated waist, but overall it's got loads of potential. Ideally I'd like to take it in a tad, get rid of the elasticated waist (bleah!) and add a belt and some decorative buttons, like this 1930s dress pattern:

I will probably forgo the UFO hat.

Here's the other dress I bought from Moustache:

It's similar to black dress above, but with a sleeveless design,
buttons insead of a side zip, and more fitted/less blousy
in the bodice (and no elasticated waist!)

I totally fell in love with the fawny color and pretty retro-style pattern of the fabric. And it's got POCKETS! It fits me everywhere except it's just a tad too small in the waist, and does that thing where the material strains sideways and the button looks like it's about to pop off. I had to dial Daphne's wait in an inch just to get the dress to fit (her equivalent of 'sucking it in').

You can see how the fabric at the waistline
'pulls' against the button and gapes slightly

I have a cunning plan involving inserting some contrasting side panels to make the dress fit better - it's so crazy it just might work!

I'm pretty sure these dresses are from the 1980s or thereabouts, but I'm more of an 'in-the-style-of' girl rather than a stickler for 'actual vintage'. I prefer to be inspired by and pay homage to the past, rather than be a slave to it.

Faster Pussycat
120 Gertrude Street
www.fasterpussycatonline.com
If you're keen to rock your billy this is the shop for you. I'm not really a rockabilly type but sometimes I find the odd bit of clothing I like in these places so it's always worth a look. I tried on some Bettie Page-style wiggle dresses but nothing fit me very well. What's Bettie got that I haven't got?

Title
183 Gertrude Street
email: orders@titlespace.com
Music lovers and movie buffs will love this joint, for there are scads of hard-to-find, old-school, and rare-as-hens-teeth CDs and DVDs - jazz, soul, funk and blues; arthouse, film noir, classics and docos.

I just about fell over when I spotted something I'd searched for on Amazon but had given up on finding: a complete box set of Buster Keaton's short films .

Eureka! I found it!

Amazon has various Buster Keaton collections but nothing complete and definitive. I wanted ALL his short films in one DVD set. Thank goodness for the folks at Eureka over in the UK, who have done just that. I snapped up the Keaton box set knowing how much my beau and I would love it.

Dr Follicles
240 Gertrude St
This gent's barbershop is next door to the yummy Birdman Eating cafe - make sure you look in the window because it's filled with gorgeous art deco wooden furniture and looks like a Golden Era Hollywood set. This is the kind of place Cary Grant would get his hair cut I'm sure.

It's men only, I'm afraid. And you even get a cold beer with your haircut!

Dante's Cafe
150 Gertrude Street
The windows are plastered in kitsch movie posters, the interior is highly eclectic bordering on just plain strange, and the grilled lamb salad is outstanding.

Dante's cafe. And their many film posters.

That just about wraps up my wanderings around Gertrude Street. There are other vintage shops (look out for Curve and Ruby Red Dress), plus other various interesting artsy/eclectic/groovy places - too many to mention here!

Stay tuned for Part 3 of my Melbourne vintage shopping jaunt, when I reveal a gem of a place on Bruswick Street where you can purchase a real vintage Sally Rand-style burlesque ostrich feather fan ... or a real no-nonsense 1940s girdle!