Confession time. I waited until the day before tonight's RI Monthly Best Of RI event at the PPAC (That's the Providence Performing Arts Center, the gorgeous landmark theater in the heart of Downcity PVD.) to find something special to wear. And forget all those people telling me that I have enough clothes and that something already in my closet will suffice. This is so NOT the time to be shopping one's own closet, especially because no one (including me) wants to be caught wearing a 'repeat' on the Best Of red carpet. 

So, I'd already hit up my usual haunts and come up empty handed. Nothing. The merch was either too casual or too picked over. The whole experience was giving me agita (in case you called me yesterday & I hit decline). As I was driving around the Warwick-Cranston-Providence area yesterday tho, The Vault Collective suddenly popped into my head. The Backstory? Last year we did a blog at The Vault about shopping on a budget and vintage finds, featuring, and at the behest of, local stylist & artist extraordinaire Brooke Goldstein. I swore I'd be back to shop. Well, I wasn't lying. I went back. It just took a year and one serious fashion emergency. 

Things I like most (and you should too) about The Vault - It's super easy to shop (with plenty of room to move hangers and take clothes off the rack for  that crucial closer look), neat, well merchandised (Clothes are divided up into individual shops by vintage vendor.), and no awful musty smell. Having shopped retro clothes, furniture, and memorabilia throughout my teens and 20's, that smell (way worse than anything at your grandparents' house, believe you me) is now a real deal breaker for me, but I digress...

I ended up finding a beautiful cocktail dress from a certain Italian label (synonymous with style and quality) in mint condition in the Archetype Vintage area. (Follow them on FB & IG if you're not already doing so. They have some amazing items and they are all in top shelf condition, something I require since I don't crochet, darn, sew or otherwise repair garments ever.) Yes, it's black, but it's also different from anything else I currently own. Moreover, it was priced so nicely that I picked up a few other goodies including a small, navy summer bag (also from AV), a knit dress circa 1980's, from a now defunct line you may remember, with some pretty distinctive sleeves (courtesy of another vendor, Eleven Twenty Eight), and an a-line suede skirt I'm dying to wear once the temps dip below 50 degrees.

So, highly recommending The Vault, as well as Archetype Vintage and Eleven Twenty Eight, if you want to shake up your wardrobe a bit without having to dip into next month's mortgage, rent or grocery money. 

Ciao For Now,

Patty J

Photo Credits: All pics courtesy of me