Hi all,
It’s a year since we closed down the Gertrude Street shop and set up in the wonderful Mitchell House in the city. I’m loving the new location, with its beautiful high ceilings and Deco features, and the vibrancy that comes from being situated on a main intersection.
It was scary closing the shopfront, and losing all the passing trade as now people have to come up to the first floor but like any business, Circa has to adapt to the changing marketplace. It’s a continuing journey as the clientele has changed a lot and now we’re doing a lot more online and also for film and TV. There’s also the repairs, restoration and alteration side of it as well, which I’m enjoying as we’ve been able to work on some amazing vintage pieces, including the “Gypsy” costume of Natalie Wood – I’m still feeling warm and fuzzy over that one!
My book “Love Vintage” has almost sold out now, and so is no longer available online or at other bookshops, but if you’re quick, there are a few copies left at the salon. I’ll be sad to see it go out of print, but I’m working on another book, which builds on the vintage theme but takes it further: more news on this to come.
The new book requires a little restructuring of how I spend my time, so I’m reluctantly changing Saturday hours to “by appointment” only. There is much to do with both writing, and with the webshop that is expanding this year to 2,000 unique vintage items – it already has over a thousand, making it it the largest vintage webshop in Australia by a long shot, and one of the largest one shop vintage webshops worldwide – actually, I haven’t found a more extensive collection of vintage for sale online so it may be the largest.
Making Saturdays “by appointment” only also means that I’ll be able to do more weekend events, like this Saturday’s Strictly Vintage at the Northcote Town Hall. Circa will be closed this Saturday as a result.
In other news, this week I picked up a fabulous collection of vintage clothing from Lyn Gardener of Albert Park institution Empire Vintage. Lyn has exquisite taste and her beautiful pieces will soon be available from Circa, online and in-salon: these pics are a few sneak peeks from this week’s photo shoot with Saint Clare.
If you like these snaps, you can see more at Circa’s instagram – and more pretties can be found at Circa’s pintrest. Don’t forget that I’m doing a free talk on Marilyn Monroe and her costumes, tomorrow night at ACMI – hope to see you there!
