a vintage delight

As a seriously long time lover of op shops and all things vintage and preloved, something I hold high on my list of 'wonderful things to do' is digging/trawling through piles and piles of vintage clothing. It delights me, pure and simple, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy and all smiley. So you can imagine my joy when we were casually offered, by our new dear friends Ben and Leisa, to help sort out some of their pallet of European and American vintage clothing that they just received for their new shop. Uh, wooohooo, 'yeah okay'.  Ben and Leisa, well namely Leisa, once owned a little vintage clothing shop on the Central Coast called Pumpanickle Vintage and now, lucky us, they have not only moved across the road but they are opening up the, soon to be second, vintage clothing shop in town, Kaleidoscope. Let me just say, there are a lot of excited people about town at the moment. And soon, as a town we will be sporting quite an array of totally awesome vintage gear from onesies, caftans, mexican tops and Tirol dresses (busty yodelling dresses) to cowboy boots and awesome retro shirts. Oh yeah, tourists may just get the impression that they have somehow been weirdly transported back in time (note to self, must organise some kind of main street vintage flash mob dance sequence, to really freak them out).

The shop, as of yesterday was starting to look like a real and very beautiful shop, as we started to sort and hang clothes, admire little details and have our eyes glaze over at the beauty of it all. Ben and Leisa have both put in such an amazing effort with so much lightness and joy. These two folk are very impressive humans and Bellingen is very lucky to have them. I have been honoured to watch as they affectionately and easily joke and delight in each others company and watch as potentially stressful situations simply fail to arrive. And guess what, as if all that isn't enough but they are parents to two equally awesome humans and when I say 'parents' these people exude so much love and respect for their children, as parents they dazzle. Yeah, they do make you feel vaguely inferior at times but then you get too caught up in laughing with them that you soon forget about those green tinged feelings.
Here is a little sneak peek but there will be more snaps to come. And for those who don't live in Bellingen and might be feeling a little left out, have no fear they will be selling online as well.

Here are a couple of shots from the second shoot we did at Vintage Nest for The Mid North, unfortunately we only had less than an hour to shoot Scott, Scott and Cath and then the whole band, whilst trying to unsuccessfully manage a three year old who was snotty and not feeling great and wanting lots of attention before the band scooted off for sound check. Yes, need to think more about doing things in the spur of the moment.  Needless to say, despite positive feedback from the publicist, I wasn't as happy with this shoot. Hmmm. Third time lucky?