Flea Market Finds

Frequenting flea markets has been apart of my Sundays since I can remember. My Mom and Dad would drag me around the San Jose flea market as a little girl where there were more often vendors trying to shove junk they collected over the years into your hands rather than anything beautiful or vintage. Sometimes my Dad would buy me a used McDonald’s toy, but my family never walked away with anything exceptional. The scorching sun and the hard concrete on my 5 year old legs left me exhausted and never feeling that these day long trips were worth the hassle. Not until I grew into an adult did I realize that there were flea markets with treasures that would cancel out the heat and pain.

One of those flea markets is at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA every 2nd Sunday of the month. Ramsey accompanied me this last Sunday and although he didn’t purchase anything other than my end of the day surprise (the red bird spoon holder I wrote about yesterday), he relished in checking out all the swag of yesteryear. Pocket watches. 1940’s staplers. $10 Leather jackets. Mid-century desks. The loads of characters strolling around captured his eye even more than the antiques. A slightly pigeon-toed middle-aged man fully clad in a dapper barber shop quartet white and peach plaid suit. A blue suited man on stilts doing a little jig here and there.

*1950's Vintage pink, peach and brown dress from Stella Dallas in Greenwich Village (NYC), vintage white braided leather belt from Jetrags (L.A.), peach shoes from Urban Outfitters.

Although the people watching and the browsing made for a pleasant day, I couldn't help but leave with a few pieces. My first was a scarf that I bought for the functionality of covering my neck and back from the sweltering sun, but the other two were completely unnecessary. I bought a stylish large brimmed 1950’s black straw hat for only $5 that I’m incredibly excited to wear this summer, and a chic 1960’s orange hat that I will don this coming autumn. Flea markets may have been a destination my parents once dragged me to, but now I have to be dragged out.