O Room Service, how do I love thee?

I am happy to report that this morning, an angel entered my email inbox, and she granted me a ticket to today's ACL (i.e. "Austin City Limits Music Festival" for the uninitiated)! So if you read yesterday's post - which is highly unlikely since most of you were - nay, ARE - at ACL already, then we happily have a crisis-averted situation on our hands. Thank you, interwebs!

Anyway. With a few free hours to kill this morning, I decided to have a little fun here in the neighborhood. You see, I have been so inspired by Sarah Dean over at The Year of Living Thriftily - who, if you haven't heard, is chronicling her year of wearing zero new clothes (as in....wearing all vintage, not wearing zero clothes, which I think we can all agree would be a different mission entirely) - that I've been itching to don more vintage duds myself.

Behold. I give you: Room Service!



Every time I walk into Room Service (there are two, by the way - one on South Lamar, and one on North Loop, the latter of which we shall be discussing here today), I freak out a little bit. Why? Well....look how pretty!!!



Now, in the name of objectivity, I should tell you that although Room Service consistently wins both MY love (pant! pant!) AND "Best Vintage" in the Austin Chronicle every year, not all Austinites drool over this comely, kitschy place.

Kelley R. from Yelp, you have the floor:

"I've never found anything here that I'd actually spend money on. It's pricey [O RLY?] and a lot of the stuff is just old crap [der, is resale]. Sometimes it smells funny too [that's actually a good point]. But I do looking at old crap. "

I'm gonna have to call shenanigans on this one, Kelley R. Hear you loud and clear about the smell - like an olfactory cocktail of rose, mothballs, and Grandma's closet - but then, what vintage store does not smell like that. Ditto the presence of "old crap" - is thrift store! A clearing house for old stuff!

But anyhoo, internet sparring aside, let's move onto what delectable items Room Service had in store for us today....


No, I'm not quite sure what that face in the middle is, but I did find a few cute things in this area to try on! These included: A polka dot turquoise skirt, patent leather green flats, and a couple of cotton '80s dresses - wrap-around, horizontal stripes - with shoulder pads happily removed. So with that, I schlepped it on over to the dressing room.

Now guys, correct me if I'm wrong here, but compared to most thrift store dressing rooms, the one at Room Service is downright thrilling. Normally the dressing room area in thrift stores is just a lame siphoning-off of existing floor space, right, with curtains draped in front of makeshift stalls. Not a proper room by any means.



But oh, what a difference we have here! The dressing room at Room Service is indeed it's very own, walk-in space, much more of a "dress-UP" room really. That's the mirror on the right, surrounded by silk scarves and HATS!

(PS - is anyone looking at that black and white number down on the bottom right, with what appear to be wings on the side? Just how much moxie do you have to have to pull that off? Not even the mannequin, it looks like, who has damn near covered her face with the thing.)

Anyway, took some pictures of myself in here playing dress-up. Unfortunately, I am pretty much a TERRIBLE photographer when it comes to taking pictures of myself:



Like I said.......terrible. Do you like how I'm trying to pose?

But at least I got a close-up shot of THESE lovelies!!



Aren't those sweet? I don't know what we would call that, exactly - sunburst? Sunburst on the feet? Either way.....yummy.

Exiting the dressing room, then, I decided to take a quick spin around for home wares. Now, Room Service excels in many areas, but they really outdo themselves in the lighting department. For example, check out this lamp, with what appears to be a sassy little Poseidon on the front:


Don't you love how he is working it against that wave? And, wait, look at his face:



Girlfriend is looking fierce here. In fact, as soon as I took this picture, I kept asking myself...who does that remind me of? I've seen this vestige somewhere?

And then, it hit me:



Ru Paul, of course! Oh Miss Paul...you have neva looked better.

Austinites (by which I mean, ladies), do you like to go thrifting? Is one of my favorite activities, but I don't go often enough. I am partial to Room Service (obvs!), but where do you all shop when you get the vintage bug?

Speaking of bug - I'm about to go brave the little gnats that cluster in big mating sprees outside my front door (isn't it funny/disturbing that gnats mate in orgy-like fashion?), and hop on a bike for this ACL business, yo!