A Wild Young Under-Whimsy

My fruitful visit to Savers Mill Park. Normally I would write about clothes on Footpath Zeitgeist, but then I would have to write something thoughtful, whereas right now I basically want to be like most fashion bloggers and boast about my latest bargains, amply illustrated with gratuitous photos of me modelling them and posing like an absolute goon.

So get ready because I am about to boast and pose like nobody's business!

I am still in the trough of an appalling months-long streak of poverty, but I did not let that deter me from going to Savers Mill Park. It's the newest Savers in Melbourne. After my first visit there, where I found it practically deserted, full of fantastic stock and absurdly cheap compared to Savers Brunswick, Savers Mill Park has acquired a legendary status in my mind. But I can only go there on weekends because that's when my monthly Metcard allows me to travel in all zones. Mill Park is in zone 2.

Today I wanted to see if they had a small, cheap clock that I could use as a base to DIY into a midcentury-style starburst/sunburst wall clock. I've recently rearranged my kitchen so the microwave is on the bench in the corner, hidden by the fridge, so I can no longer glance at the microwave to tell the time.



This one recently sold on eBay for $147.50. I really like the black and gold (the gold would match my coffee table), and the two lengths of starburst, but as for the price… Get farked!



I like the little balls decorating this one. (That said, I HATE the chunky hands on the George Nelson ball clock.) It's still being auctioned but has already attracted six bids, so I don't expect it will end up being affordable.

So I've been investigating DIY versions online. They mainly involve a small round clock with dowel rods or BBQ skewers hot-glued to the back and spray-painted to the desired colour. I think I could improve on that by using wooden chopsticks, which have the width of dowel but taper to a point. However, I also like the wider, 3D triangular pieces. The ideal material to make these from would be a broken, discarded metal venetian blind – I would cut out the triangle to the desired length, then gently fold it over a ruler to create the centre ridge. Sadly, all my venetian blinds are in working order.

I made a beeline for the Savers clock section and was quite disappointed by the selection. But I did find this clock for $3.99, which I kinda like as is – it's rather Il Modernissimo:



The clock is held together with screws in the back; when I unscrewed it, turns out the face is mounted on the back sheet of perspex. My main problem would be how to cut out the face from the surrounding plastic. Until I can figure that out, I can't proceed any further. But look what else I found at Savers:



These are promotional swizzle sticks for Absolut Mandrin. If I roughed them up a bit with sandpaper then spray-painted them, they are perfect for the clock.

Having procured these clock materials, I turned my attention to the rest of the store, even though I had said to myself earlier, "Just the clock! You don't have the money for anything else…" Well, I was lying to myself… but I made a fresh bargain with myself – I would only buy stuff that looked genuinely awesome and was very good value.




I think this '70s chiffon dress is handmade – I couldn't find a tag on it. It's a little motheaten – I wonder if I could attempt to fix the worst holes – but the dress is so diaphanous you don't really notice. It didn't come with a slip, so I am wearing a pale apricot petticoat I already own (purchased on a previous visit to Mill Park Savers; the gold sandals you can glimpse in the pic also came from that trip).

There is a certain magic when you try on a garment and it not only fits but also flatters and you look genuinely awesome. Boo-hoo, I tried on an amazing handmade Kelly-green '60s wiggle dress – total Joanie Harris stuff – but I couldn't zip it up, and there was another '60s hot-pink dress that I didn't even bother trying on because I could see it was too narrow in the hips.

I also discarded a few other dresses that technically fitted me but didn't look quite right. There was a lovely cotton print dress with sequins sewn to the print (perfect for summer weddings) that was just a little bit too big in the bust, a '70s dress in a gorgeous bright blue that was too baggy and shapeless, and another '70s shirtwaist dress (with matching belt) in an excellent Marimekko-style red poppy print but it had darts and tucks in weird places, and really far-apart buttons that gaped.

But then I put on the yellow dress and it was super-glamorous and some breeze somewhere in Savers puffed out the skirt… and best of all, it was $2.99! I would also like to draw your attention to this excellent watch pendant I also picked up… for $6.99!



The watch winds up (no batteries!) and it's upside down so I can check the time and admire my boobs at once. It's been so long since I owned a mechanical watch (I haven't worn a watch at all since 2005) that I had to look up how to wind it properly.

It's by Swiss watchmaker Buler, which was popular in the '60s and '70s. I can't find the precise one I have online, but judging from its similarity to this model, it might date from the '60s. I'm just so chuffed about this, as just recently I was enviously checking out a pendant watch my book club buddy Helen bought on Etsy.




But as you can tell from the dickhead look on my face, I wasn't done bargain-hunting! I also got this cotton Hawaiian-print shift dress that was actually made in Hawaii… for $5.99! All I need is more height in my hair and a flower behind one ear and I will be the very image of one of those 'retro ladies'.



This is a better indication of the colour. The dress is a little loose, but I figure that in the height of summer I will prefer it that way. The hem sits just above my knees. Look at my hilariously pasty, un-Hawaiian legs.

Also purchased and not photographed:

• a leopard-print pleated maxi skirt – vintage Target, judging from the old-school label (I know, "vintage Target", LOL!) for $3.99;
• three ruffled pillowcases in hot pink, canary yellow and sky blue for $0.99 each (I am building a mix-and-match collection of block-coloured ruffled pillowcases)
• Soulless by Gail Carriger for $3.99, a fairly trashy steampunk/vampire/werewolf novel which I was thrilled to find because when it came out in 2009 I begged Hachette for a review copy as Orbit is their imprint, but they said they weren't releasing it in Australia
• The Castlemaine Murders by Kerry Greenwood, the 13th Phryne Fisher book, for $3.99 – as a teenager I avidly read any and all crime fiction and thought Phryne Fisher was really glamorous and sexy. I thought it'd be fun to read another one before the ABC TV series next year.

There were so many other books I was tempted to buy as well. The shithouse novelisation of The Terminator which I felt I ought to buy as a franchise completist, but honestly the writing was just so bad. Both Sarah Waters' Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith. Various books-that-have-been-turned-into-films-so-people-bought-the-book-then-gave-it-away-because-they-really-preferred-the-film. Chiefly The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. (I know. That one doesn't make me proud.) But honestly, my house is stuffed with books already.

Wow. I sat down to quickly boast about my excellent haul at Savers Mill Park before I made dinner, and now it turns out I have spent most of Saturday night writing this blog post. What a rich life I lead.