Very, very, very slow fashion

The tale of a 1980s Gaultier shirt.

The garment appeared in my life after I bought it a second hand clothes shop in Birmingham in about 1985, then it continued to feature in my wardrobe until last week, September 2026. I'd worn it a few times each summer but after more than forty years! maybe I'd grown used to it just hanging there and other garments had taken preference. So, I put it on Vinted and someone in Spain bought it. 

Made in France, re-sold in Birmingham, worn in the Uk and all over France, and now, new life in Spain.

Just goes to show, an originally, no doubt, expensive garment lives on, decades after anything Fast Fashion would have hit landfill. Vive second hand!

Update . . . didn't stay long in Spain as the woman complained that it was a bit old . . . Vintage with a very small price tag for a Gaultier shirt! Anyway, it was returned with no hard feelings on either side. 

I think it is a sign. It wants to return to me. In fact the main reason why I stopped wearing it was that there are no cuffs, and it's not possible to roll up the sleeves. I don't like feeling trapped in garments when it's hot. The solution - I will alter it with my weird needlework abilities, or perhaps my soon-visiting expert seamstress cousin will have a go at it. To be continued . . .

Rafistolage

A delightful French word for 'bodge.' Apparently the origins of the word bodge comes from a bodger, or wood-dweller/forest worker who would have been very adept at making things and making do, so not really fair to throw the word around to imply something cobbled together badly.

We are good bodgers, probably veering more to the derogatory sense of the word, but still with a certain skill learnt over time, and an eye for making things look good - from my years as a stylist working to camera - hence things look good but you might not want to look too far behind or round the back of said thing.

The weirdest part of our new (old) fairly weird but lovely house was the area we now jokingly call the East Wing, which was a sort of laundry room with attached small and grim bedroom. By squinting and using my imagination I could see it would work as a B&B - for more quirk-embracing folks.

About eight months on, some help for the more tricky bits and much trawling of junk emporiums we're pleased with the result, and have had our first guests who were delighted (phew).

The building and especially the afore-mentioned wing, rather resembles a long boat, and as we are at the top of the hill, overlooking the river which, in former times, would have been filled with flat-bottomed wooden barges transporting all the essentials into town, I'm thinking about naming the B&B: La Péniche sur la Colline, or, the Barge on the Hill.

Unfitted kitchens and jam cupboards.

Personally, I like kitchens to feel unfitted - a friendly slightly chaotic jumble of loved crockery, pictures, furniture and - depending on the time of year - garden/gathered fruit or veg waiting to be made into jam or frozen for the less abundant months. I think all the kitchens I've ever owned or shared have had these elements, even the more squalid rental places - maybe not the ex-student share in West Norwood . . . there were natural things in that kitchen, but not things one would want to eat, raw, cooked or otherwise . . .

Our current kitchen is the best so far: large, heated by a sturdy wood stove, interestingly shadowy and cosy in the winter months and very cool in summer. We added flea market sofas, the table that has been with us in various houses these last twenty years or so, and built basic units adding recycling emporium cupboard doors and marble work tops. The huge and ancient dresser came from le bon coin, a very useful second hand site, and was said to have been hauled out from a chateau in the area - true or not, it certainly has great age and is so heavy I doubt it will ever move from its new home.

The latest addition is the strangely slim and tall dark wood cupboard which now resides next to the fireplace. I spotted it in 'Aspire' a charity emporium in our local town, and knew immediately it had a mission to become our jam storage facility. This years crop is filling its shelves: blackcurrant, strawberry, peach, spiced blackberry and marmalade. Next up: pomegranate and fig.

Peach bottling - experimental....

One man's rubbish . . .

Is another woman's gold. Or in this case, two, not at all valuable but highly serviceable objects that I narrowly stopped said man hurling into the 'tout venant' - general rubbish - at the tip/dechetterie/dump a couple of days ago.

I'd swerved the car to a Starsky and Hutch style halt as I'd seen an arc of unwanted glassware glinting in the afternoon sunshine headed for the afore-mentioned container, and ran up to the man to ask -as politely as possible - if he could stop throwing useable glasses away. He'd smiled benignly and said, too late. 

You'll want to keep the basket, I'd said, assuming he would want to keep a handmade, good nick whicker basket. 

He shrugged: Non - c'est pour le poubelle aussi . . . you want it? 

Yes.

And this old wooden box?

Indeed. The old wooden box was actually a purpose made and delightful carrying container for holding new plants to be planted out. I briefly peered at his car that was full of less interesting stuff.

Ah. Shame he said, noting my surreptitious glance, I have many more things like this which will come here.

Due elsewhere I stopped myself asking for his address and a RDV in order to trawl his house, and unloaded my car of real dump garbage - unusable bits of plasterboard, broken glass, damp cardboard etc and set off again wondering why he hadn't bothered to take the useable items to our not-far-away excellent emporium of second hand everything; or at least leave the things to one side for someone else to re-home. 

Judging by the employer at the place however anything that was left would be swiftly binned anyway, unlike at the dump I had tried to go to before getting my dates mixed up, where they positively encourage folk to re-house stuff and recycle absolutely everything from china, sinks, all different types of plastic, paint, furniture and of course, perfectly serviceable whicker baskets...