As I write this I’m standing in a queue for a vintage fair. I have chipped nail polish and smudged eyeliner. My phone is about to die. I reek of stale cigarettes and I am looking far from the bombshell I usually try to embody. In fact I look more like a heated-up corpse right now. BUT this is all for a good cause. I’m here for the annual National Trust vintage fair - a Melbourne gem (which you need to go to next time.)
My week thus far has included skinny dipping, dancing after midnight, and finally closing the door on a toxic friend (long overdue, though the heartbreak is real.) I’m also hunting for more work so this flexible schedule of mine will be over very soon. In many ways I feel really good. I’ve been working hard and making strides with my freelancing. I’ve also been exercising, meditating, and working on myself in therapy. I have ALSO been spending a lot of time having a lot fun with my friends.
Last night was genuinely spontaneous. A casual dinner with an old friend turned into going to a gig, which was followed by an all night dance party. I probably had about two hours sleep before awakening myself for the sake of good vintage. I knew I had to get to the market as soon as it opened in order to get the real gems too - I was a professional, after all.
As I woke up, I pulled myself together as much as I could, and en route to the market I was lured in by the smell of grease, wafting out of a hipster cafe. After I ordered, and in this spent some of my shoe money on a brekkie burger, I walked outside to wait for my food. I then bumped into a couple of slightly older friends, who were very earnestly having brunch together, reading the paper and all. They looked on at me with a gaze of admiration (and disdain). After this (rather embarrassing) interaction I hauled myself to the fair and here I am.
It’s weird being single and 29. I do have that sense of this chapter coming to a close and that it’s time for me to act more maturely. Also being free from a ball-and-chain for a while means I’m acting rather Carrie Bradshaw right now. Half of my friends, the ever-so-slightly-older set, are shacked up and generally pretty sensible these days (much like the above example from the cafe bump-in.) The other half, the ever-so-slightly-younger set, are still footloose and fancy free. Yet I am somewhere in the middle, in both a literal and figurative sense. To use contemporary language, I feel that I am in a final “wave” of fun right now. Dating, drinking, dancing. They say it’s bad for you to overindulge but honestly I feel so great for having had some proper fun of late.
This also feels like a last hurrah of sorts. I was always a bit of a party girl, and was especially wild in my early-to-mid teens. So much so that it was a key part of my identity for a long time, and even a bit of a descriptor for me. I’ve since spent the last few years being very serious. And now I feel I’m combining it all, because I’m not just a party girl or a deep thinker, I’m both! I’m made up of many complexities and I intend to embrace them all (whilst wearing various vintage outfits, hence this bloody market.)
The party girl in me may be a little wild at times but god is bringing her out again bringing me joy. So, what to do? Keep partying or hang up my dancing shoes and grow up a bit? Actually, no, instead of answering that, why don’t I give you some advice instead… Should you have another martini? Should you pash that slightly younger, totally gorgeous, musician after the gig? Should you go vintage shopping after an all-nighter of dancing to The Doors in a stranger’s living room? Aunty Charlotte says fuck yes! Should you go out in public looking appalling? Ideally no, but occasionally it’s OK. Should you start smoking again as I seem to have? Fuck no. Should you involve drugs in any of this? NEVER!
Anyway, thank goddess for face masks, for protecting us of course, and for hiding one’s face in moments like these. Also I bought a Schiaparelli handkerchief IN the original shocking pink packaging for $5 today at the market, so it was all totally worth it!!!
If you’d like to read more vintage fashion content by me then check out my latest article for MamaMia on Vintage Shopping Tips.
Image of SJP in SATC, via Pinterest.