When do you dispose of a piece of clothing?  And do people only recyele 14% because the rest is unusable or are they just not educated to do so?

It got me to thinking: When is a piece of clothing truly at the end of its life?

• When it is dangerous:  A clothing item may have been damaged in a fire.  There could be a chemical spill from an accident or a science class experiment gone awry and it cannot safely be washed, it is eaten away, or is dangerous to handle.  Then yes, please dispose of it properly
• When it is unwearable.  No, I think many damaged items can go onto another life.  A dress with a ragged skirt, depending on the quality, may be able to live on as a top, or a replacement bodice for another dress.  A damaged tie may live on as a fabric piece in a project. Quilting, anyone?  Am I really pushing it here?
• Mold.  This kind of goes under the dangerous category.  Some people have tried to salvage things that have black mold on it.  It is dangerous.
• Too worn out.  I have seen athletic shoes so “well worn” that they could walk by themselves.  They become threadbare and not usable after so many years.  However, could they be used in a theatrical production where a local theater group needs a character to be disheveled, a college student who doesn’t shower, or homeless?  Do they need a pair of shoes to beat up even more for the character?  Ok, maybe it is a stretch here too.
• Bad Memories.  Some people throw out cufflinks, or a dress that reminds them of an ex or an ex owned or gave them even if they are perfectly new.  Don’t do it!  Donate it!

I think i need some therapy after that.  Maybe I am a packrat, but I seem to really argue about not throwing things away!   Does anyone out there have any suggestions about when it is okay to throw something out, and when, despite naysayers, something can be reused or recycled?  Comment with your opinions!

Crazy Dog t-shirts has a shirt that I wished I had seen before Christmas, but I think I will put it away and give it to him before hand next year so he can wear it all through the holidays.  It reads: “The Griswold Family Tree…It’s All About the Experience.”   That is exactly something my dad thinks all the time.  It doesn’t matter if you get anything actually done, does it?  When in doubt, tie your problems to the rough, right?  Trust me, there is just no possibility that he will see this shirt and buy himself before then.   He sometimes still just hits “reply” when I send him an email and doesn’t type anything back in response.   Online shopping is something we will have to work on in another couple years.

Actually, I did.  I thought i was turning to walk into my bedroom and I actually hit the edge of a book case.  It is an oldie with a protruding top edge (which you will see in the photo at left) so maybe I thought it was the door frame. Needless to say, I almost poked my eye out.  I thought I had hit my cheekbone so I put my hand on my face, thinkng erroneously that would somehow help, and I felt blood. Naturally I lost all composure.  My knees don’t buckle from the sight of blood (or just the feel of it since it was dark), but when you have an injury that you expect to bruise but not bleed, you have a brief internal freak out.  It is not like I picked up glass with my hands or anything. The mind did not turn immediately toward my face, but wondering how much lead paint was under the fifty layers that had been applied to the shelf over many, many years.

Anyway, I ran to the bathroom and saw blood coming out of my eye in the mirror like tears coming out the wrong corner.  It turned out that I hit the bookcase so hard that the protruding molding cut me!  I now have a cut so dangerously close to the side of my eye, the start of it looks like a natural line coming out of the outer edge.  No one gets a crow’s foot in that direction (though of course I have an unaged face with out a hint of any of that nonsense yet a la Dorian Gray of course!).

This morning I woke up with a black eye and a long line that has scabbed over that may be a scar but I am hoping not.  It keeps bleeding again throughout the day if I wince, smile or squint.   If it does scar, maybe I will just make up a story about an encounter with a shark or something where I almost lost my eye. Or maybe I will tell people that indeed my eye is fake, but is so realistic the way they are making them nowadays.

Bookcases made in the first half or quarter of the century do not hold a lot of good fortune for my immediate family, despite my love of books. When my father was a child, he broke both arms falling out of a built in bookcase. I can see having a bookcase fall on top of you, or fall DOWN frm a bookcase while you are climbing it for some strange reason, but falling OUT was new to me. He explained that he was playing hide in seek and crawled into the bookcase, but decided to hide in something higher than the bottom shelf where they were less likely to look.

The moral of the story is that nobody in my family should own a bookcase.  We should just have our books on a sofa table with book ends.  With the amount of books I have, I would have have them on the floor and around the entire room like a decorative border.

There is one thing I want to caution you on.  Some people get money hungry or are in a desperate situation and sell some artist made or vintage jewelry.  Be aware that sometimes items that are collectible or that are of a certain age, style, or rarity where they may be much more valuable than the mere value of the metal they were made of.  I remember a segment on the local news were people were bringing in Grandma’s silver and one dealer was conscientious enough to stop and educate a potential client that their Vicrotian tea service was worth thousands more than the silver that it was made with due to the age, condition, and maker.  You may not be so lucky.

So please, before you send in a ring that got passed to you from a relative that died before you were born, or an artifact from an old relationship gone sour, do your research.  It is a great service to be able to recycle some bits and bobs, but be careful.  Check with someone who is an expert on the era of the item you have.  Some may be worth more as gold, but many, many items have historical importance that you may not realize, and if you knew, you may rather pass it down in the family.

All the jackets have an artistic bent to them. Sometimes it is very obvious, such as hand painting of the leather, or the leather pieced together to create a specific pictorial design. Often, other times, even if a jacket is monochromatic, the tailoring and cut is very inventive. The jacket pictured, offered by designervintagelabels4u, falls into the latter category.  Pay special attention to the pocket design and how the front stitching/yokes play a visual part.  I would put the value at of course less than the louder and more intricate jackets just because people are willing to pay higher for a theme, but this one is also a very handsome example as well.

If you see an East West Musical label, it is definitely worth taking a second look at the item.  You will more likely find them on the west coast, but of course, as anything, people migrate with their possessions.  If you are a vintage fashion collector and you spot one at a steal, check the condition of course, but try not to hyperventilate.

The money donated is not tax deductible, as it goes directly to the purchase of gift cards rather than going to a non profit organization. Gift card amounts are divided up evenly among all the registered families. Of course, there are other programs that donate items to families. However, this way, the parent that is caring for the children back in their home towncan buy exactly what they need. They can purchase the size and style and the item that they need the very most. Some of the top Wish List items that families hope to buy are shoes in a range of children’s sizes, and pajamas for both boys and girls. They just grow so fast and need those items every year. Sometimes good, solid shoes are a larger ticket item too.

How do you help? Go to the Sears Heroes at Home on the internet, or go to the register at your favorites Sears store, fill out a slip, and make your contribution.

In honor of Mr. Blackwell, I would like to weigh in with a personal opinion.  Maybe Karl Lagerfeld, at left, doesn’t merit a spot for the entire year, but he certainly made an interesting statement a few months ago.  White on white on white can look extremely elegant. However, I don’t quite get the fingerless silver gloves.  Fingerless gloves are “in,” but on men it can only be usually pulled off if you have a motorcycle, if you are going for the Steam Punk look, or if you adopt one of Johnny Depp’s prior styles that evoke the image of an elegant vagabond.

The “my outfit matches my hair” also makes Mr. Lagerfeld look like one of the characters from “This Island Earth.”   Is that a cumberund over the table cloth- patterned shirt? Also, I am noticing a “double belt” look.  I don’t usually make fun of people, but for someone who has designed things for the rest of us to wear, it is constructive criticism, or in other words, he can take it.

I am wondering if it his personal statement, or is it a sign of things to come for a future line of clothing?  I can only imagine…

In honor of Mr. Blackwell, who stands out this year for their misses, rather than their hits?

Recently, I had to retire a torchiere lamp that I had that always served as great mood lighting for winter reads, and spied one that was made by Elk Lighting that rather reminded me of a street lamp of sorts.  Maybe it would be more likely found in the Big Easy than in Chicago, perhaps. It also reminded me of the exhibit at the museum in Milwaukee that had an indoor section made to look up like old neighborhoods, complete with streetlights, stars, and a creepy lifelike lady sitting on a rocker on her porch. It was made by the same folks who made the “dioramas” behind glass of explorers that were a much more realistic than mannequins that were just accessories to dramatize the museum’s artifact collections.

Of course, it is a bit more delicate than an actual decorative streetlamp for a little downtown or touristy area, but if you are recreating the look inside a house, you would want to merely evoke it. The “real thing” may be too heavy handed or just plain too heavy!   I converted the photo to black and white just because it put me in more of a film noir mood.   This is something that might just fit the shoes of my torchiere.  I will keep you posted on what I decide!

I spied some tails on Ebay. The labels reads Stein Bloch, Inc., exclusively for Henry C. Lyttons & Sons. Around 1870, Nathan Stein founded the wholesale tailoring business that would become Stein-Bloch, a staple of the Rochester, New York clothing trade. Up until this point, retailers typically would self label garments that had been made for them. The teputation of Stein Bloch became so prestigious that stores found a great boon in double labelling garments with the maker’s name. Arounf 1929, Stein-Bloch merged with one of its retaikers, Weber & Heilbroner, and Fashion Park, Inc., another similar quality tailor. The conglomerate than was known as Fashion Park Associates.

The store that sold this suit, Henry C. Lyttons $ Sons, opened up shops starting in 1887 with “The Hub” in Chicago, which eventually was eight stories. It expanded by leaps and bounds. A second store opened in Gary, Indiana, and over the years several other locations including Joliet, Illinois. In honor of Mr. Lytton’s 100th birthday in 1946, the name of the store was changed from “The Hub, Henry C. Lyttons & Sons” to Lytton’s. This, by using the label alone, dates the suit to before 1946 without a doubt. It is true that sometimes you cannot pinpoint an item to an exact year sometimes by a label because a maker might have decided to use some extras up, but since the name change was such a big milestone, the labels listing the longer name was probably better orchestrated. Mr. Lytton died at the ripe old age od 103 in 1949. In 1961, Lytton’s was purchased by a conglomerate.

The auction will end on Ebay December 26th in the morning (EST), so please hop to it if you are interested. There are no chest measurements given by the seller, but there are shoulder and other measurements. May be good to buy even as a display piece.  Check it out HERE.

In the UK, an IVA is very popular way to consolidate or look at your debt. An “Individual Voluntary Agreement” is an agreement made between you and everyone you owe money to and is legally binding. It puts everything in writing and you can see what you can reasonable afford to pay in a 3 to 5 year plan.  Services are available to help.  Even if you don’t have high debt now, using this principle to keep track may help you from getting into a jam you can’t get out from under much later.

What do you think about this?  Do you think it is REALLY what every woman dreamed about or do you think even then the guy would get a slug in the arm for romantically presenting it.  You will have to check in at Kitchen Retro to see what all the hubbub is about.