HOT: Salvos Store, 81 Victoria Crescent, Abbotsford

I know, I know, I’m becoming obsessed with charity stores and cheap glassware. But how could I resist when I cycled past what appeared to be the Salvos Store flagship? Endless rooms and shelves and racks of mustiness and potential treasure!
And treasure I did find:

large swathes of fabric remnants, useful as jar covers for home-made [...]

Ask the Doctor: Milliner for wedding hat

Help me Doctor!: ‘…Let me know if you hear of a good miliner/veil person, I think I’d really  like an interesting little hat/veil thing for my wedding.’ - Jenny T

Your prescription: Melissa Jackson, 195 Gertrude St, Fitzroy does some fantastic millinery. Not your Toorak ladies-who-lunch styles at all. Otherwise, I suggest vintage clothing stores for little hats [...]

HOT: Coco Avant Chanel, Sun Theatre, 8 Ballarat St, Yarraville

Gabrielle Chanel wasn’t just a seamstress who made pretty clothes. She deserves respect for being a canny and ambitious businesswoman who freed generations from corsets, crinolines and big patisserie hats. By doing so, she also helped bring forth the kind of feminist thinking that was ahead of her time.
Coco Avant Chanel covers the beginning of [...]

HOT: Vinnies Centre, 121 Johnston St, Collingwood

Yesterday a thought popped into my head that I should buy a baking dish.
Today I spotted the perfect dish in the window of my local Vinnies Centre. It was meant to be – a $2 white Corningware dish! My charitable contribution to St Vincent de Paul Society also extended to:

one clip-lock plastic container $1;
two glasses [...]

NOT: Tony the Tailor, 313 Smith St, Fitzroy

Tony the Tailor is one of the few old-school shopfronts remaining on increasingly gentrified Smith Street. The signage is chipped, the windows are dusty and overall it presents an indifferent attitude to the hipsters.
When RM’s pants needed mending, it was an opportune time to support a local long-standing business. I thought that despite the dingy [...]

HOT: Melbourne Design Market, Federation Square carpark, Melbourne

I adore markets, whereas RM isn’t so much of a fan of the hustle and bustle (unless it’s a book market, but there’s not normally a noisy scrum of people at those). However, I did manage to drag him to one of my favourite Melbourne events – the biannual Melbourne Design Market at Federation Square [...]

HOT: Dressed to Rule, NGV International, 180 St Kilda Rd, Southbank

The second half of my very informative (and one-on-one) fashion-focused tour with the NGV guide was to the Dressed to Rule exhibition.
I never knew that the NGV had such a well-preserved collection of Chinese imperial robes, and this exhibition includes robes worn by members of the imperial court and even the Emperor, as well [...]

HOT: Persuasion, NGV International, 180 St Kilda Rd, Southbank

I’m a keen devotee of BBC costume dramas and I’ve just finished a marathon screening of the delightful Lost in Austen – so I was pretty sure that Persuasion: Fashion in the Age of Jane Austen would be right up my alley.
The free exhibition is a small and well-curated examination of the fashion cycles that [...]

HOT: The Sartorialist at Cutler & Co, 55-57 Gertrude St, Fitzroy

The Sartorialist’s blog is so famous that even my mum follows him. So you can imagine the tsunami of anticipation that engulfed Melbourne’s fashionistas when Time Magazine’s top 1oo design influencers announced that he was holding a party to meet his Melbourne readers.
Oh dear, what to wear???
Given that most of my wardrobe was still in [...]

HOT: Stellini, 6-8 Howey Place, Melbourne

Dear Mum
I think I’ve just found my wedding dress! Five minutes after entering ever-reliable dress shop Stellini, the decision was made.
Every time I’ve needed a special occasion dress I’ve popped into Stellini ‘just for a look’ and come out with something wonderful, in exactly my size. And this dress? Well, it’s white and long and [...]