My grandmother used to drive up from Florida, her station wagon stuffed to the brim with treasures she'd picked up during her favorite weekend activity, garage saling. Both her treasure hunting spirit and aversion to the store-bought must have seeped into me, because by the time I was in college, I too began eschewing the mall in favor of the thrift store. Relics of the past came to live in my closet, and became part of my life story.

Eventually a friend introduced me to Etsy, and in addition to becoming a customer, I decided that opening a store would be the perfect way to extend my love for vintage beyond my own bursting closet.

The shop has travelled with me as I moved from Nashville to Southern California and finally to my current home in the Midwest. Becoming versed in vintage clothing (as well as the occasional home good) has taught me a lot about how much our world has changed - how vintage clothes feel different, how they were by and large made by unionized workers here in the US until about the late 1980s, or even at home by women who perhaps didn't enjoy the choices that my mothers' generation won for us. The degree to which people were willing to experiment with wild prints has also ebbed and flowed over the years, and this ever-present need for novelty - whether expressed brashly or bashfully - fascinates me. Prints and styles act as a cultural choice that often transcends other types of borders between people.

As I look back on what I've sold over the past 5 years, I often wish I'd kept this, can't believe I found that, and remember the circumstances that brought each into my possession. I view each item in my store as a mini exhibition piece, with its own provenance both before and after I purchased it. When I send it off to you, the story continues!

One last thing - the shop name - "La Collectionneuse" is a wonderful film by the overlooked French New Wave director Eric Rohmer. In the film the "collectionneuse" collects men, but I am a collector of past fashions!