Flashbacks

Yesterday I tried to sell a load of my mom's old "groovy" dresses from the 60's at Wear It Again Sam, which is a vintage clothing store on 5th Ave in Hillcrest. It's located where the Blue Door Bookstore used to be (I'm showing my age since they closed awhile back!) and next to the old Guild Theatre (that's closed too!). The owner said she only bought vintage clothes from the 20's up to the early 60's, stopping at the Jackie Kennedy era. My mom's dresses were mid to late 60's, so therefore it was beyond the era she sold. I remember seeing some of those dresses in old photographs when she still was a teacher in the Philippines. They were tailor made for her and boy, they are impossible for me to fit into!

My mom tried to make me wear these dresses back in 6th grade. Now, this was a long ass time ago. We're talking 1980 here. Despite my protests that the dresses were WAY out of style, I gamely tried on these dresses to make her get off my back and found that I couldn't even pull them past my hips. Damn, how skinny was my mom? She was only 85 pounds when she got married in 1967. Sheeyit, I was in 6th grade and I'm pretty sure I weighed more than 85 pounds! Plus, I was already taller than my mom (she's 5' 2") by the time I got to 6th grade.

Sooo, after the owner from Wear it Again looked through my pile, she suggested that I take it over to Flashbacks which was just a few stores down. If my memory serves me right, Flashbacks used to be the site of the old Off the Record used record store. The owner sold it due to increasing rent and I think it's since been resurrected on University Avenue in the North Park area. Flashbacks is also a used clothing store which carries stuff from the 40's up to the 80's and a few fashion forward (the salesman's line) pieces as well. They jumped on those dresses and out of the 15 I brought, they chose 11 of them. I could either get in store credit or 30% off the total offering price. Since I was selling these for my mom, I didn't think she'd want the in-store credit, so I took the cash (they actually cut her a check) option. The total was $99.something but with 30% off, it came to $68.95. For 11 dresses, that was about $6+ a dress. I'm sure they'll mark those up big time, but considering my mom hasn't worn these in decades, that's an extra $68 she can use for other things and it leaves more room in her closet for her other stuff. I can't believe she saved all those dresses.

I wish I took photos of them, but they are all pretty much mini skirts with sleeves above the elbows, some with Peter Pan collars. There was a sleeveless A-line in there in a hideous mustard yellow and pink floral print. There were a few funky prints in there as well. Good luck to whoever buys those dresses because you have to have a sub-zero size body to fit into them!

Side note - on our short walk to Flashbacks, we passed by a tattoo parlor. This heavily tattooed guy was standing by the door and he said, "Hey how's it going!" to me so I replied, "It's going all right, thanks". What floored me was his next comment, "Hey, I used to see you a lot at the Costco!". When I asked him which Costco, he said he used to work at the one on East H Street for nine years. Yep, that would be the one I go to. I told him he had a good memory. He apologized for possibly freaking me out, but I actually wasn't too freaked out. I don't really remember him though - he must have been one of the ID checkers or maybe one of the cashiers.