Before
It was going to be a day to remember and so she asked for a dress to suit. To begin with there was the material – the first step in the process to finding the perfect dress to be worn on a day she would remember in vivid colors for the rest of her life. When people over the years asked her to “think of a time that you were happy” a snapshot of this day was already loaded and ready to play on the projector in her head. The material was thin pale apricot cashmere which was then expertly sewn into a simple dress with long sleeves and ended up at the clients’ beautiful slim ankles after shimmering around her hips which were accentuated with a perfect dart that heightened their curve.
The event itself was a book launch which was held in a beautiful restaurant that was known for two things – their food and of course their gardens. The gardens began about three steps away from the dinner tables located on the lower deck. Visitors will take two or three steps towards the rose bushes and jasmine trellis which you can only see via the shade of the subdued lighting. Once you get to your fourth step you realize that the restaurant has completely disappeared and you are now in a magical place visited by few.
The garden weaves it way around corners with steps going up and down. In fact, everywhere you look there is something to see and the various scents from the blooming gardens around you will never be bottled because it would be too much if transferred into perfume. All you know is that you want to spend as much time in this enchanted place as you are allowed.
So it was that our lady in the apricot dress found herself on her knees smelling a climbing jasmine when she heard quick and insistent steps behind her. She stood up too quickly, lost her footing and then stepped back into the path of the hurrying patron.
Their reactions mirrored each other and so when they both got themselves together and then looked for the other, they realized that this was not just a moment – it was the moment.
During
The dress arrived in a large shopping bag which was full to the brim with delicious dresses, hats, scarves, jackets and some faux diamond jewelry that was so good Mrs. Hope doubted few people would be able to tell the difference.
One of Mrs. Hope’s favorite things to do was dressing the various mannequins which were dotted throughout her emporium. She had two very old ones that dated back to the 1910-1930’s which could only be dressed in the things that were size 8. Women in those times ate simply, walked for miles and spent hours outside enjoying picnics, hikes and gardening. Because of all of this they tended to be much slimmer than the women of today. The very old mannequins tended to be sturdy and were actually very easy to dress while those from the 1950-60’s appeared to have been built to fall apart. All of them had a hand or foot that didn’t quite fit which is how they had found themselves part of the stock at the emporium.
The mannequin that is attached to this story was named Doris – she had lovely short blonde hair but the split between her waist didn’t fit properly unless it was kind of kinked into the right side of the left bottom section. Once you had that mastered Doris was easy to dress, it just took your average person 5-8 years for that to happen and so Doris was permanently dressed by Mrs. Hope herself and was set to some kind of schedule which only she understood.
Some dresses got weeks on Doris even if the outfit itself were incorrect – a short sleeved dress in mid-winter or a bathing suit in early August. However, they were all maddeningly purchased by someone about to travel to the other side of the world or to a wife of a businessman who was going to a hotel with an enormous swimming pool. She just seemed to know things the rest of us don’t.
On this particular day Mrs. Hope was found to be dressing Doris on the carpeted floor of one of the windows. It really was a rabbit warren both in the store and out the back and all of this was on purpose. According to Mrs. Hope when people felt that they had truly found an item i.e., they had needed to bend down to find it or turned a corner and there was - something they had always wanted but had not known about until the moment they saw it. Mrs. Hope believed that they were in that moment truly found.
Mrs. Hope had a tingling feeling about this dress, to be fair she had a few tingling feelings but even with all that and because of it – she just had a feeling that this dress was special.
She often thought about her stock as people and knew that most of them would have three stories each of which would designate a line in their lives, the ones labelled before and after. She imagined that each item had a before story – how or why they were made, were they hand made by only one master craftsman or did they go through multiple hands before they were fully formed.
And then there was the first owner – again why did they choose that object or item or did they commission a one-off piece made either for themselves or for another.
They would also have a life of sorts in her very emporium, some of her things waited years to be redeemed and the things they saw and heard within the magical walls of that shop of shops would leave a mark on their provenance in later years.
And then finally there was the person who found their way to her shop, on that date and feeling this or that way. Some came in every week as they were locals and could quickly identify any new items because they knew her stock so well. And then there were others like the man who needed to get a stone out of his shoe, he leaned over his bike to do that task and then raised his eyes to the emporium shop window. His eyes alighted on the most incredible sight he had ever seen. For him the divide between then and now was as the distance between planets in differing universes. Remind me to tell you that story it’s a good one.
Three different lives she supposed that could be written down for remembrance but as she said to Mr. Hope that evening over dinner – “I only know most of their life in the shop and sometimes a bit of where they are going or why but it’s just not enough to fill a book with is it?” Mr. Hope replied that he thought that Mrs. Hope was already doing the very thing she was born to do and not to give it another thought. She tilted her head up, looked deep in his eyes and said “You really are my person” to which he replied “Of course I am”. They both continued eating while looking just a little bit smug.
After
Rachel Anne had gotten her first job in an office and she needed some clothes to wear. She had interviewed for a role as a receptionist and would be saying “Hello, Armed Forces Canteen Council, its Rachel how can I help you?” 30-40 times a day and she was very excited – mainly because she had never worked in an office before.
Her mother was an op shop expert and she could literally have written a book offering tips and suggestions to those who might want to find a bargain or who loved unearthing treasures in the most unlikely of places - in plain sight. In your local second-hand store they will charge you $5 for a genuine, one-off piece that will never be replaced or bested. As Rachel’s mother often said “you almost have to feel sorry for them, don’t you?” She was referring to those who did not practice the religion of second-hand shopping on a regular basis.
Rachel had gotten a letter in the mail informing her that she had secured the job on a Friday morning and she was expected to start at 8.30am on the following Monday. She didn’t have a moment to waste and she didn’t know where she should go to get clothes for such a job. Her mum sat her down at the kitchen table and said this – if you want 1-2 nice pieces we can go to the mall and find those for you. However, if you would like to get 4-5 items then we should go and trawl around the local op shops. What do you think? Rachel thought 4-5 was a lot more than 1-2 so she said “take me to your op shops!”
Sometimes you find yourself in a moment that you didn’t know was going to be special before you got there, you then realize that it’s happening as you are breathing, seeing and smelling your surroundings - it’s actually happening now. Because you identified the feeling – now you will always have a sharp and detailed recall of that moment, the moment. Rachel could have told you the smell of the stores would be forever seared in her mind and nose. Whenever she found a shop that smelled that way again, she knew that she was in a tiny sliver of heaven.
This was Rachel’s first real interaction with a second-hand store. Don’t get me wrong she had visited many stores over the course of her short life but at most of them her Mum picked out items, for her and sometimes got her to try things on. Mainly stuff would just arrive in her wardrobe as though there was a personal shopper in the house who looked out items that looked interesting or which matched her complexion perfectly.
This was her first because these would be clothes she would chose for herself, she knew she would need to like them as they would have to last a while and they were being paid for with her very own savings and that meant something.
During Rachel’s first time she visited four stores, two in one small country town and two in an adjacent country town. Her first purchase was a blue coat – it was that blue that you never have a name for but which is usually referred to as turquoise. It was a long coat that ended just above her feet and which had long arms that somehow still managed to look effortless elegant. At the neck the coat had two splayed collars which sat on top of another but again did not look forced or too much for the simplicity of the coat was its main feature. It was so simple and cut in such a way that not a centimeter too much or too little had been used in its creation. When Rachel picked up the coat while it was on the rack, she had her first very small but powerful reaction – her hands tingled slightly and so she took a second look at the deceptively simple coat on the rack and then she pulled it out from between its foes so that it could be seen on its own. Another first then occurred – Rachel made an audible noise that in essence should be translated as “I want to own that very badly”. Terrified that it would not fit Rachel took it from the hanger and slipped it on. She finally believed in her mother’s second-hand angel – it was a perfect fit as though it was made just for her. She found a blouse and belt in the second store and really wanted some grey shoes with a tiny heel that she adored in the third. Her mother was concerned because these would be the first high heels Rachel would wear but she was encouraged by the tiny heel and hoped that would make the transition smoother.
At the fourth store she saw the dress before she even walked in the door – it was being dressed by a lady who was having issues getting the mannequin to do her bidding. She had just stopped to catch her breath and then she looked outside the window just as Rachel looked in. The connection was immediate and felt by both parties, Mrs. Hope began to dismantle the dummy again because she recognized that the owner of the dress was about to come and collect it. In return Rachel quickened her step so that she could get to the item sooner. The dress was slipped over her head and pronounced flawless, it was then passed along for boxing and wrapping. Finally, money was exchanged and a very excited young lady left the store. Her mother knew that she had just passed along one of her most favorite things to do – to find those things that needed a second life and gift them exactly that.
Monday morning arrived and Rachel was careful to get up and dressed with time to spare just in case she had not accounted for something. She walked four blocks from the train station to her new office which was situated in a brick building opposite the local council offices. The day flew by, there were so many names to remember, and they put on a morning tea for her which included an actual tea lady and a plate of delicious scones. In the afternoon she did some training and by 4.30pm she was ready to get back on a train to home and some much-needed rest. It had been a perfect day and almost everyone had commented on her dress and asked where it was purchased. Because the dress had an interesting story it was easy to keep conversations going and she made two friends almost immediately. These ladies also adored op shopping and promised to show her stores that were easy to get to during a one-hour lunch break at this end of the city.
Rachel would haunt many an op shop during her lifetime and it was unusual for her go more than a week without wandering into one but the experience of the apricot dress would stay with her forever.
Unfortunately, the grey pumps with the tiny heel had been incorrectly labelled. They should have been tagged as some kind of torture object, they were worn twice and during the second time they were placed inside a local rubbish bin because some things do not deserve a third life … let alone a second.