You know, even though they’ve become hideously overpriced in recent years, Goodwill does sometimes shake down with a few nice items. To wit, remember how I’ve been agonizing about whether or not to make a new costume for World Fantasy, and how I was going to be on the lookout for cheap fabric? Well, I didn’t find any cheap fabric, but I did find these beauties for $20 …
They’re all-leather Laredo laceups, roper toe, like new condition (it looks like they’ve been worn outside maybe twice.) Twenty bucks! I know they’re not absolute perfect period boots, but they’ll do in a pinch. So in my mind, that settles it. That is all the message from the Goodwill Gods that I need. The 1870s bustle costume must be made in time for my launch party at WFC 2010. I will be posting progress here.
(The ironic thing is that these *aren’t* the kind of shoes I would wear with the evening gown I intend to make … rather, I need a pair of dancing slippers, something like this, dyed to match the fabric, sans the twee little bow. If the Goodwill Gods ever blessed me with a pair of those, however, I would be well and truly gobsmacked.)
But speaking of gobsmacked, let me tell you about my real super awesome find! It was a quartet of hand-colored Victorian fashion lithographs from La Moda Elegante Ilustrada, which (as far as I can tell) was a Spanish equivalent to Godey’s. The lithos do not seem to be reproductions (I haven’t yet had them out of their seemingly original gilt-flecked plaster over wood frames) but I’m going to take them down to my local framing lady and get her opinion on them.
Sadly, they’re mostly of fashions from the Second Bustle Era (not my favorite bustle era, as careful readers will have by now discerned) and I’m not sure I really have a place for them. So I may end up selling the lot. We shall see.
