Azulejo inspiration

I was rather pleased with myself last weekend at the Upper West Side Housing Works thrift store. I spotted a beautiful blue handpainted pitcher that had a vaguely familar look. I turned it upside down, and there it was: "Made in Portugal". I promptly paid $6 and proudly brought it

home.

I'm Portuguese you see, and we are pretty much obssessed with blue and white ceramics. We have a long history of making pottery and the Portuguese have the most beautiful handpainted tiles. Yes, tiles. You will find them decorating walls everywhere, churches, rail stations, houses, monuments, etc. They often depict historical scenes and are a major part of Portuguese architecture and history. They are called Azulejos (I love this word). The name is derived from the arabic (from back in the day when Portugal was occupied by the Moors), and the word azul - also means the colour blue. They tend to be blue and white but you may also find yellow and some other colours.

My favourite azulejos are the ones on the church (Igreja do Carmo) in my home tome of Porto. Absolutely beautiful.

And of course the tiles of Porto's railway station Sao Bento, also a beauty.

The Green Lady

On my thrift wish list is a print of the wonderfully kitsch "Chinese lady' by Vladimir Tretchikoff . I love its gaudy colours and it reminds me of the bright pop art that painters like Andy Warhol immortalized. It is lovely in a vintage nostalgic kind of way and above all - it is fun and doesn't take itself too seriously.

The 'Green lady' was painted in 1952 (when Tretchikoff was 39) and became the world's biggest-selling print. In effect, Tretchikoff was the world's first mass-market artist. The 'Green lady', described as the "Mona Lisa of kitsch", hung on the walls of half a million suburban homes around the world. I remember seeing her in restaurants and homes of friends' parents decorating otherwise dark and drab places. She was everywhere.

She is actually a real person. She was called Lenka and was Tretchikoff's lover, they met in a NYC restauraunt in the late 40s. Apparently Lenka had a fascination for all things paranormal.

Although Treatchikoff wasn't taken seriously by the big art collectors after he went for a mass market approach, his print sales made him the most highly paid artist in the world after Picasso.

My wishful thinking is that someone somewhere in NYC will decide that they canot live with the Green Lady anymore and will give her to a good home....I will find her in a thrift store, dust her off and hang her on my living room wall. She'll look perfect.

For more vintage goodness, see Vintage Thingies Thursdays

Autumn/fall 2009

Winter coat - Glasgow, Scotland, Marie Curie Cancer Care thrift shop
Skirt - Goodwill, East Village, NYC
Shoes - Salvation army, Williamsburg, NYC
Autumn leaves - Central Park

Polka dotty

Rainy days ask for a splash of colour to cheer us all up. Here are some polka dots from those trendy people at lookbook:

• From Berlin, a vintage dress and a handbag from a London fleamarket.

• Thrifted polka dot skirt
• From New York City, thrifted dress and belt. Love the peeptoes.

A Brooklyn beacon

Beacon's closet in hipster centric Williamsburg is a must go destination for any New York thrift shopper. Although this isn't your classic thrift store - the funds don't go to support a noble cause - Beacon's closet is definitely thrifty, with plenty of bargains to be found.

The shop is located in an old warehouse space and is ginormous. It is arranged by colours - see the pretty photos - and has a great selection of clothes, vintage and modern. The shoes are fabulous and there is a good dress selection if you're looking for something with a little va va voom.


Men need not feel neglected at Beacon's, there is a good men's selection and there are some comfy chairs at the entrance where they can read a newspaper as they wait for their girlfriends. Alternatively, you can park your manfriend at the record store a couple of blocks away. Happiness all round!

Do you want to indulge in some new shoes but cannot face eating cheese and toast until payday? No worries, swap your old threads for cash or Beacon's closet store credit. Keep in mind that the cash you get for your clothes depends on:

- How fashionable/desirable are they? Would anyone want to wear them?
- Are they in good nick?
- Are they designer? However, see first point. Nobody wants your nylon purple mesh Versace trousers.

Last time I was at Beacon's, I bought a huge, girly dusk pink silk scarf - for $11. I love this place!

For the love of thrift rating (from 1 to 10):

Selection: 9

Presentation: 9

Niceness of staff: 7

Bargain factor (ie pricing): 8

Thrift turnover: 9

Something old, something borrowed, something blue

Moving into a completely empty apartment with nothing but a couple of suitcases filled with clothes, was, I admit it, a little daunting. However, in a city filled with thrift shops, and in the country that gave you Craigslist, I quickly realised that the process of making a home was going to be a lot of fun.

In NYC, there is no reason to go to Ikea or other similar mass-produced, yawn-inducing stores. I want a home with personality. A home where things have a story about who they belonged to, the house they lived in, or how they were hunted down and found. And I'd rather not have to assemble my furniture – lego for grown ups is simply not my thing.

Each day, after we'd moved in, L and I obsessively scoured the Manhattan furniture section of Craigslist. This is one of our early finds and one of my first ‘home’ projects. The dresser had the exact shape I was looking for and in its shabby, off-white state was going for only $30. I dragged a grumbling L miles down south to the financial district.

We followed our map through an anonymous part of town but then found ourselves in a funky apartment where the owner sat us down, poured us tea, and wanted to know our life history. Hmm, we were buying a dresser, not considering an adoption. Nevertheless, we chatted for ages and she kindly sold the dresser to us and volunteered her reluctant boyfriend to deliver it to our door. Success!

From the very beginning I knew I wanted a brightly coloured dresser in my living room. And so I transformed the dresser from its orginal sad white into this gorgeous blue beast, and finished it with these sleek burgundy drawer pulls from Anthropologie.

Thrift for Traviata, Vintage for Verdi

Amongst Manhattan's array of thrift stores, few have the quirk and charm of the City Opera Thrift Shop. This Bergdorf Goodman of secondhand stores lures you in with it's gorgeous window displays - courtesy of the students of the nearby School of Visual Arts - and offers up an assortment of upscale designer wear.

The collection of dresses, women's shoes and men's suits make it an excellent place to shop for a special occasion. The styles on offer cater nicely for all ages; I can imagine bringing my mum here (and her squealing in delight at the velvet jackets and silk dresses). There are plenty of clothes for us younger types too, when I was there last a young woman was trying on a cute fitted leather jacket. If you want a Dior jacket this is the thrift store to visit - but if you're looking to stretch your last 20 dollars as far as you can you might want to steer clear.

It's not just having art students dress the windows and the designer threads that makes this place so New York, it's where the thrift dollars go - here is a clothes tag:

Hmmmm, my shoe indulgences have contributed towards Madame Butterfly; Candide; Don Giovanni; Tosca....

The New York City Opera supports groundbreaking opera and has 25% of tickets priced at $25 and less - now that is thrifty.

For the love of thrift rating (from 1 to 10):
Selection: 9
Presentation: 9
Niceness of staff: 8
Bargain factor (ie pricing): 7 (if you're looking for designer wear)
Thrift turnover: 8

The New York City Opera thrift store is on East 23rd Street. As well as women's and men's clothes and shoes, they have furniture, books and often opera records and posters.