Toni's Vintage Trips: Venice Recycled Beach Chic

I traveled to Venice Beach this weekend with my friend, Kat, to search for vintage clothes and to check out a place where we lived in our 20-something years. For those of you that don’t know, Venice Beach is in Los Angeles, California and is the most eclectic place on earth. It is their beach of choice despite Malibu. And though it was only in the high 40's in the Bay Area, it was sunny and warm (80 degrees) in Venice. This Northern California girl basked in the sunshine. The first thing I did was buy a hat and ended up wearing it the entire weekend.

I had planned to visit at least 5 stores that were near the Venice Oceanfront area. Unfortunately, 3 of them had closed. But I was able to visit 2 fantastic vintage stores near the beach. Animal House (66 Windward, Venice, CA (310) 392-5411, animalhousevenice@gmail.com), which is only a half block from the Oceanfront, is a wonderful store. It combines the spirit of the Southern California beach scene with vintage clothing from various eras. And the prices at Animal House are very reasonable. Most of the dresses, coats, etc. that we found and admired were $20 or less. I would definitely recommend that you check out this store.

After our visit to Animal House, we had some lunch at the Sidewalk Café, which is an open-air restaurant at the beach. It has excellent food and is next to a bookstore that has survived over the years. Most of the entrees and sandwiches at the Sidewalk Café are named after authors and artists. It is always fun to have brunch or lunch there because the parade of people walking by is very entertaining and there are always performing musicians along the Oceanfront Walk.

After lunch, Kat and I continued walking down the Oceanfront Walk to seek out more stores. Sadly to say, 2 of them were MIA. We did find Gotta Have It Vintage Clothing (1516 Pacific Ave., Venice, CA (310) 392-5949) on Pacific Avenue, the street that borders the beach. This was a fab vintage store with clothes from the 1940’s through the 1980’s. They also had a great collection of costume jewelry. Best of all, they told Kat and I that the Rose Bowl flea market, that we planned to go to on Sunday, happened last weekend. But there was an even bigger one in Long Beach, so we went there on Sunday. I will be talking about that later. Enjoy the photos!