I’m getting quite a few visitors from We Sew Retro at the moment, and my guess is that many of you don’t read Swedish. Perhaps there are other non-Swedish readers, as well. Hello, and welcome anyway!
This isn’t just a retro sewing blog. I also write quite a bit about perfume and fragrance, some of it vintage; about my home decor projects, flea market finds and vintage shopping; about being a lover of old things, old-fashioned aesthetics and old-time manners as a contemporary woman, and occasionally about fashion and fashion history, gender, uniforms, opera, music, books and art. My own personal life also makes an appearance every now and then, although I try to keep it in the background.
A great part of the reason this blog is in Swedish is that I enjoy writing in and toying with my own language. I wanted to stretch, exercise and polish my writing style a little, and this will probably always be a blog written primarily in Swedish. Writing in English is not an effort for me, though, and I am thinking of doing posts related to sewing and vintage style in English every now and then, or possibly solve it the way several of my fellow Swedish bloggers do and add English summaries, or even translations. Would you be interested in reading them? Do tell! I would love to hear your opinions.
And for those of you who didn’t get here from We Sew Retro, I do post in English there. My archive is here.
03 03 2012 kl 23:35
Hi! I found you via WeSewRetro and LOVE your style! Also I’m very impressed with your perfume collection too – I’m also very much into perfume and like to take gambles by buying things I’ve never heard of online – its paid off quite well and I’ve found some great stuff.
English summaries would be nice but I’m happy to translate from Swedish using the old” google translate. It might not be perfect but I should be good enough. Thanks for posting on WeSewRetro so that you could be found :-)
04 03 2012 kl 11:47
Thank you so much! I mostly gamble with vintage bottles found in thrift stores, but that often pays off, too – I have a couple of dull ones, but I have several gems that more than compensate for an inexpensive bottle or two of uninspiring fragrance. What are your best finds?
I think I will start doing summaries, at least sometimes, or entire posts in English perhaps, but I will have to think about which ones, how to pick the subjects that are better done in English. Oh well. Thank you for writing!
08 03 2012 kl 9:44
I’ve not had much luck finding such things in vintage stores here – and ebay is too much of a gamble in that respect – I’ve heard stories about average swill being put in vintage bottles.
My favourites, though not all were pot-shots are…Jean Charles Brosseau, I’ve tried the Ombre Bleue and Ombre Jasmine. They’re quite light but so remind me of spring.
Maître Parfumeur et Gantier, Fleur des Comores is great for summer, its quite a boozy vanilla.
Lalique Flora Bella is probably my greatest ”pot-shot” – off StrawberryNET, its definitely one of my favourites. If I run out of my first bottle and repurchase with a 100mL it’s definitely a fave! :-D Kind of milky and sweet and totally awesome (I’m pretty terrible at describing notes!)
And my absolute most favourite of all time is Parfums de Nicolai, Sacrebleu – it’s ME all over and it was a bit of an investment. I bought that off Lucky Scent after trialling it. They do great deals on samples and is the best site for niche perfume. I’ve tried quite a few things from there and have a lot on my ”want to buy” list – for whenever I get the money…Including that amazing CDG Stephen Jones one and The Garden Party, Wistaria.
Wow that’s quite a comment! I shall have to dig through your archives to find which are your favourites. As you can see, I’m really into heady florals and gourmand scents! :-D
08 03 2012 kl 12:20
I found an unopened bottle of Chypre de Coty a while back, and a large, almost full bottle of Donna Karan Chaos at a flea market a couple of years ago. I have also found a vintage fragrance called Fleur de Tabac by a house that I can’t find any information about, Guelvy, which is fantastic; a sweet, heady floral oriental with a prominent tobacco note, vintage Chanel Nº 5, very vintage Krasnaya Moskva, vintage Fracas and vintage Cabochard. Lots lof luck, I suspect.
I’ve also bought some really good stuff on Ebay, all authentic and smelling glorious so far; vintage Bandit, vintage Youth Dew, vintage Shalimar, vintage Bal á Versailles and vintage Miss Dior. There probably are bad bottles, yes, but there are ways of avoiding them.
I love Nicolaï’s Le Temps d’Une Fête. Haven’t tried Sacrebleu, but it’s something of a relative of L’Heure Bleue, isn’t it? My taste is rather broad these days, but I’m generally drawn to orientals, chypres, leathers and green florals.
31 03 2012 kl 17:03
I vote for sewing posts in English. There is a widget of some sort you can use. I was unable to make it work on my own blog but blogger Sigrid is the one that popularized it.
Her blog featuring this : http://sigridsewingprojects.blogspot.com/2008/01/finished-klaar-01-2008-125.html though it seems she stopped using it.
If you email her, she can send you the code. Hope is works for wordpress too!