Coats of many colors

My friend Susan who has the desk next to mine has written a wonderful story on vintage coats. I have a few!

In the hip crowd I run with, nostalgia is big. This nostalgia includes the old Buffalo department stores as detailed on my friend Steve Cichon's Web site. My nostalgia for Buffalo department stores is such that I am even in touch with members of the Hens family. As in Hens & Kelly. Remember my Hens & Kelly hat boxes?

One of the treasures of my personal collection is  a black Flint & Kent jacket I found at Salvatore Armani's out on Transit Road. My father told me that Flint & Kent was so upscale that they had employees screening customers to make sure the customers were dressed well enough to shop there.

I also have a coat with the L.L. Berger label. And last winter I acquired a J.N. Adam fur.

I have a couple of vintage evening coats I love. There is this one, it reaches to the floor and is trimmed in fur. I bought it in Toronto.There are not that many places you can wear such a coat but one Christmas I wore it to Midnight Mass at St. Louis Church. When I made my entrance, at 11:30 p.m. when the choir began its pre-Mass concert, everyone in the church turned to look at me!

I smiled at the congregation and swept to my pew.

The joys of owning a vintage coat!

The gals in Susan's story do not have coats quite old enough for my taste. I prefer the 1940s and '50s to the '60s and '70s. Sniff, I say. I bet they would be the type to pass up a Leonard Pennario record at an estate sale. But that is all right because this way we do not compete.

There was one sale I walked out of with a vintage evening coat, a string of pearls and "Pennario Plays." I am set, I remember thinking.

This is all you need in life!