Austin vintage, meet the high waist!

So I've been thinking a lot about vintage and recycled fashion lately, probably because it's Mothers Day today. Growing up, my badass mom harbored a deep and abiding love for thrift stores, a quality I've only truly come to appreciate in my 20s. As a teenager, you see, my tastes needed a little....refining. But not in the way you'd expect.

"Alright honey, what would you like this year? More than anything in the world?" asked my mom on my 12th birthday.

"I would like -" brief pause to summon the Adult Voice required for such a situation - "a DOONEY AND BOURKE PURSE."

"What?!" she laughed. "Oh honey. A Dooney? You don't want to look like everybody else. Trust me."

And trust her, I did. Thank God. Can you believe 12-year-olds ever walked around carrying purses that looked like, um, this?:



These - THESE! - were the hottest thing going at my school in 1993. While many of you carried Lisa Frank Trapper Keepers, the 6th graders at my school toted...these. What was the goal here, exactly? To pretend we were 45? Many of my friends had a Dooney and Bourke, and God, I wanted one so bad! But Mom stated her case simply and decisively. I never got the Dooney and Bourke purse. And I never regretted it, either.

Fast-forward to right now. I've been out of town in NYC for work this week, and on Friday, I got to meet the lovely Danielle Ganek. When I told Danielle I was from Austin, she said: "oh, the home of vintage!" It left me quite giddy, especially since I was openly OGLING this necklace she was wearing:

That actually isn't the exact necklace - just the closest one I could find online. It was a moveable, shiny fish pendant, dangling from a long gold chain. When I asked her where it was from, she said, "the 70s!" I forced myself to stop staring - both at it, and this delicious, giant, amber cocktail ring perched on her finger - and filed Danielle's effortlessly cool look away in my mental bank.

Later on, I was telling my work colleague about the necklace, and about how great it is to meet women with an appreciation for vintage and/or thrift. We've talked here before about Austin vintage shopping, but I'm one of those people that tends to patronize/stalk ONE vintage store (Buffalo Exchange on Guadalupe) and not venture further. So vintage lovers, I want to know: where do you go shopping here in ATX?

Although I'm not sure how good this looks on me, I've been in a high-waisted mood for the past month and have been obsessively tucking everything in. I've found a few high-waisted goodies at various vintage stores, both bricks-and-mortar and online. Observe:


Me! (TOTALLY KIDDING - I wish). Love this girl's whole sassy look, and it comes from Austin's very own Laced With Romance.

Let's see more:










(P.S: I found all of these by going to eBay and entering the search term "high-waisted." The Vintage District is one of my favorite eBay vintage stores, and the source of the last three goodies.)

Austinites, can you feel me on the high-waisted thing? I know it's not a terribly new trend, but I'm just now embracing it. You guys?