Filed under: made in berlin, online stores, style | Tags: jewels, kvast, pooristhenewrich, vintage
oooooooo.
i <3 random flea market items as jewelry.
so let’s take it to the next level kids.
the ppl at kvast berlin online store had the (almost-twee-but-not-quite) stroke of genius to attach some little vintage toy animals to a loop in some way (tape, string…) and then DIP THEM IN GOLD. precious.
but 219 euro? COME on. respect the recession. use bronze or something.
are you thinking what im thinking? yes this should be done with a dinosaur.
Filed under: clothes clothes clothes, DIY, made in berlin, music, style, vintage | Tags: bags, Boxhagener Platz, fabrics, Flea Markets, friedrichshain, jewels, Mauerpark, pooristhenewrich, prenzlauer berg, shopping, threads, thriftstores, vintage
Here I am, sheepishly awkward, feeling sort of like I should, like, recant some things I’ve said not so long ago. To wit, that is, the thrift stores I said some more or less nice things about. This is not say that they aren’t excellent stores in their own right, nor do I necessarily mean to eat my words, so to speak.
I REPEAT I am not hating on vintage stores. I <3 vintage stores.
too much, probably, it has been argued
BUT. but. I’m onto them. i used to assume that vintage store owners had some mysterious monopoly on cool cheap shit, some esoteric relic pipeline or maybe a timemachine but this is not true, not in Berlin. we all have access to the raw materials. all. all those with free time on Sundays.
FLEA MARKETS friends, where these shops clearly get their goods from, then turn around to sell at KUH-RAAZYYY inflated prices. Now I know the secret. There is no going back. Irreversible and existentially hazardous as your own long ago personal unmasking of the santa claus/stork mythology. Truth.
Exhibit A: Mauerpark
I’ve heard some prissy bitches say things like, Mauerpark is crowded expensive etc. blah.
I don’t know what they mean by this, except that probably they hate pretty things and people.
Mauerpark is a huge park in Prenzlauer Berg. Every Sunday the flea market claims like half of it.
Mauerpark flea market is a big-kid party, highlights include -outdoor karaoke madness:
*yes these ppl are ALL watching one tragically brave individual under the technicolor beach umbrella interpret Britney into a microphone, whipping around periodically, boozily to read words off the prompter located, meanly, inexplicably, behind his back. karaoke 2.0*
-lawn-lazing:
-and a wide selection of nourishing refreshments:
then this cool lady will make you a tortilla or something:
maybe you will find your way back to weird mementos of a lost childhood:
maybe you’ll weirdly laugh at someone else’s lost mementos:
but in the end you will have a prize: buttons, baubles, batteries, timekeepers and stuffholders ruthlessly bargained for and proudly won. i got all this stuff for less than 30euros. you may not understand, but they are treasures
Mauerpark is magic. just you try naming something you’d rather do with your hangover on a Sunday afternoon.
Exhibit B: Boxhagener Platz
So what is homeboy in the photo at the very top of this post so surprised about?
perhaps it’s because my eagle eyes picked up a dark relic i wasnt sposed to find?
*but why was it for sale? i like to give ppl the benefit of the doubt, specially ones with cool glasses, so let’s say for now that he didn’t know*
even tho, volume-wise, it’s just not fair to compare it to mauerpark, boxhagener platz is one stellar flea-vendor.
scary dubious old photos aside, trawling this little magic one-block radius on a goalless Sunday is like panning for gold. among utter junk, there are festive festoons and softly scintillating baubles>>
and then there were things of true beauty>>
this jewelry was so cool, and definitely original, but the guy at the booth had zero information to give: I don’t know who made them/how they were made/if there is more. alls i know is I want the chandeliers.>>
yea.
there’s a weird mix of vendors who are clearly antique/vintage dealers and know what their stuff is worth(/suffer delusional fantasies about what their stuff is worth), and random ppl who just throw cool shit at you for pennies
so the other rad thing i noticed bout this plc is the plethora of receptacles on offer. i love to put things away, so boxes and purses and cabinets are what i need to feel happy and zen.>>
speaking of receptacles, the end of the adventure is that i found a shadowbox and left in ecstasy.
plz note also my other wonders, acquired for nearly nothing. not pictured is a shirt that was free and a plaid wool skirt for 30cents.
THE end
?
Filed under: boutiques, clothes clothes clothes, made in berlin, style, vintage | Tags: dresses, garage, memory, pooristhenewrich, scarves, shopping, threads, thriftstores, vintage
This right here is a work in progress. Since thrift store shopping is just something that happens to me, like a tornado in a trailer park, a sinus infection, there is as little way to avoid its happening again as there is of knowing when and where it might wrap its sludgy tentacles around my brain
Already discussed in an earlier post, previous occasions have seen me at the likes of Lindt 2nd hand, in Kreuzberg, and Humana, in Friedrichshain.
Gradually, perilously, my experience with Berlin thrift swells like a water balloon left unattended on the hose in the backyard as you run inside to answer the phone and then its just AT&T wanting to talk about your long distance plan (do those still exist?) and the heat makes you forget about whatever sinister plans you had for the balloon and you get a popsicle and check your email and then you drip purple sugar water on the keyboard and have to wipe it off with ur sleeve &then youre like ah crap that was dumb now i have to change my shirt…
What all this means is that the other day I decided it was thrift store day.
having nothing else to do, i gave myself a mission: make a list of thrift stores, hit as many as you can. my scavenger hunt began at this randomly selected an- und verkauf (buy/sell) place in pankow near S+U Schönhauser Allee, found by googling, which turned out to be called “Dies&Das”, in addition to having been permanently closed and gutted since an indeterminate time ago.
its (was) on the corner of schivelbeiner&malmöer str., but dont go there, obv.
still, the visit wasn’t a total waste of time since I had some adventures on the way.
on shivelbeiner str. i discovered a miraculous arachnid.
& all this time i thought spiders were just being rude when they ignore me asking them to fucking stop building homes in the corners of my room.each day brings new facts into my world.
Then on the way back to the train i went into a little chinese dollar store where the elderly chinese shopkeeper talked to me (topic unclear) in what may or may not have been german, but a sweet man, generally. i bought 4 jeans zippers in different colors for 1euro each and considered, but finally abandoned, some peacock feathers (50cents). is that a good deal for peacock feathers? I have never tried to buy them before.
At u2 senefelder platz things really got started; here I visited Memory (Schwedter Str. 2; café next door, same owners; +49 160 650 14348), a vintage store I can confidently recommend.
As hand-picked vintage goes, this is an impressive little boutique.
If ur looking to dig up cheap treasures from piles of junk (my favorite activity, but rare, at least around here) u best look elsewhere. the polyester, bakelite, leather’n'silk, orange, brown and candy-colored assortment here has clearly been pre-selected and priced accordingly, though it’s still remarkably affordable, comparatively.
Scores the highest points in the accessories and household items category, with lots of retro pitchers and tea services and sweet, brightly colored plastic jewelry–a jar of shark bangles in red and blue (4euro each) caught my eye, and some creepy little DDR dog/cat/owl pins were kinda cool too (also 4eur)
if you ever decide you dont have enough pink egg cups….
The selection of clothes, handbags and shoes is small but careful. White button-up YSL corset top for 55 euro? Check. (see pic above). had to make mental list of other things worth 55eur to keep from making it mine immediately.
The owner is a really personable and helpful lady, and happily put my precious SHARP GF-800 weird ghettoblaster device on hold for me for several days while i thought about how my life would be different if i had one. i went back first thing the next day and i’ve never looked back (ended up putting me out 65eur, but worth it). I can even hook it up to my ipod/macbook. also, now i can finally play tapes.2tapes.
also found this cool treasure chest of plastic and metal which i ended up not buying, woulda cost 12 euro, which isnt THAT bad, but still.
Chat with the owner revealed that the vintage business is rough these days, surprise, as most others are too, so help them out! buy weird retro pitchers and not weird IKEA ones.
In this spirit i continued my journey, down to U1/2/3/4 Nollendorfplatz, Kleidermarkt Garage (Ahornstr. 2).
So far, this is really the closest Ive found to quality salvation-army-style shopping in Berlin, with plenty of junk and items of questionable quality to sort through in search of diamonds and rubies and golden emerald treasures.
Items are roughly divided into two separate pricing categories: some are hand-picked and individually-priced; anything without a specific price designation costs 13,99 euro a kg. (30% off “happy hour” on wed. 11am-1pm) (have to say the hand-picked stuff is clearly better, for the most part, but the quality of vintage can be pretty random, natch)
If you for some reason happen to be looking for a vintage fedora your search is probably over. Bins and bins of hats abandoned by old lonely German men seem to be the theme here, about 10 euro each.
Also home to a vast rainbow of bright pouffy, ribbony taffeta 80s-style party dresses.
But I was there for a long time, and somehow in the end the only thing out of the armful of randoms I was carrying around that I couldnt put down was this (prtty xlnt) military-style scarf event (4,99eur)
they did have a lot of scarves, which gets them extra points. sort of makes up for all the abercrombie garbage.
dont be sad! theres more to come.
Filed under: boutiques, clothes clothes clothes, made in berlin, style | Tags: dresses, fabrics, friedrichshain, leche, pooristhenewrich, shopping, threads
trundling thru boxhagener kiez yesterday I encountered a treasure of the kind you want to share w/EVERYone, but u don’t want ANYone to know about it because then it won’t be treasure just for you. so here i’ma share it, just to get this secret weight off my proverbial chest.
the enchanted store is called leche.
&its very special.
i walk in &already a tiny irish hipster has put his leather msssnger bag down so he can wave his arms around, thats how excited he is, the poor designer(yea, owned&operated, kids) tryin to keep up with his lghtspeed questions&suggestions; they make some deal, he puts a piece on layaway, will come back & have it tailored, scampers, ‘gotta go gotta go’ like the white rabbit out into the street L8 for some very imprtnt art opening.
meanwhile im like hypnotized by this dress obv made of like mothwingdust not only is the color sthg like feeble rays of last evening sunlight after a thunderstorm but the fabric feels like your dads tshirts from the 70s beersoaked and washed again till the threads are spidersilk slender& elastic. i pull it on right there on the floor before she can even say hold up thats the only one and i say, this is my favorite dress how much. it fits like a cloud.
aaa see the prfct little pockets, bottom front
she thinks for a minute, 65? i dunno, i still have to cut the hanging threads off and sew a tag in (!)
cool cuz thats like XXactly how much money i have. sometimes being poor is awesome.
she is maria corvera, the designs are her answ to berlin. mostly she makes the clothes but a few exceptions, theres some long knit sweaters in overcast tones in the store made by sum1else (also tiptop)
i need to kno where the fabric is from, she sayz türkischer markt, maybachufer, but i like cleaned them out.
türkenmarkt has hellafabrixx
ok but fuck if im not going there like now anyway, gotta be more where that came from. i cant wait.
NE way its clear she built the design around the fabric, let it hang& drape itself, its lovely & shes talented.
the website is a little outdated, the designs here nothing special if u ask me. better try the myspace. pics here are way better rprsentative.
kopernikusstrasse 21. been there for just under a year. go there b4 it gets expensive.
Filed under: bar, club, getting dancey | Tags: CdV, drinks, partyy, poetry, pooristhenewrich, prater
Well so now we are in Berlin for good land of adventure home of the trashy chic sexy poor, purportedly at least. They (ehh, Newsweek) say, incidentally, it’s a luminous bastion of stoned optimism and impromptu dance parties in these times of economically induced global existential gloom because nobody here ever had money anyways and nobody cares.
And so the adventures have begun.
Last night was about my boots, really.
Red geometric marching machines. Cleveland thrift treasures.
It began on the U5, the motley girlcluster across from me obviously indicating them, chattering about them in Portuguese (?) I’m sure they said they were awesome and wouldn’t it be nice to have such a pair of lovelies?
Yes and then to Prater because we had some USA guests and Prater is where to take USA guests. I had never been, not being a beer lover obv but it was a nice night and so a nice place to be although a little chilly and honestly not much of a crowd. Perhaps more lively in the daytime hours?
After that the question was zu mir oder zu dir ODER zu that nameless websiteless BAR on Pappelallee (KdR, as it turns out) in what seems to have been a second floor storefront with the globular orange lights like a 1950s spaceship (ie Berlin). SO we said both and KdR was first because I had been wishing to go there ever since they went there in a stupid episode of Berlin Berlin and I remembered cigarette-burned benches and Slavic dooormen and the question how sweet jesus do you get IN answered: fire escape. E had been wanting to go there since last time when a crazy lady passed out on the bar. Yes and so we asked no questions when there was a 1euro cover, no questions when the crowd was sitting ominously spectatorially before the DJ and a projector (BEAMER ha) was turning the far wall into an advertisement for surfpoeten.de. Ahem. So I learn too late that this is a weekly Wednesday ritual, who knew. We sat through a poetry(?) reading–one man’s conversation with a goofball God about doing strange things to animals such as hedgehogs and frogs, God, he explained firstoff, not being able to attend that night but having given permission for the poet(?) to read in his place–before agreeing hey didn’t somebody say something about zu mir oder zu dir that was a good idea.
So off we went, the place full of Americans of course it being a soccer night meaning no European would leave their house to go anywhere not having a TV, the closest approximation of which at zu mir being a wall-sized projection of the view through a rotating kaleidoscope. And so we drank Aldi wine from IKEA glasses and participated obligingly in (retrospectively random) promotional games administered by strapping young representatives of Philip Morris, eg, without asking questions, the loot of which finally being free tickets to a party at CdV & Freischwimmer on June 5&6. hm
Some new South African and Russian friends, a gay techno dance mistake and falafel later my boots were echoing their way through the empty Alexanderplatz arcades looking for the night bus stop that never materialized, and finally having decided to get a cab I fumbled coins from my purse and dropped the change that should have been the tip but didn’t feel bad after the driver dropped me heartlessly a block from my WG at the beepy insistence of the kurzstreckometer. Thinking, well so he can just find it himself. Undressing at the birds’ first sleepy tweets, a clink on the hardwood; it had fallen out of my boot.
