Toni's Vintage Trips: December 2013

Yesterday, I met my good friend, Kathy, in downtown San Francisco and we walked through the city to Sacramento Street. Everything was very festive and the streets were crowded with Santas, visitors and last minute shoppers. We boarded a bus in Chinatown and headed up to Pacific Heights. I wanted to visit some designer/consignment shops in that neighborhood. Unfortunately, one of them was closed, but I hope to visit it again next month. We had a great time admiring beautiful clothes and taking photographs. One of the stores, Goodbyes Consignment, had two stores to visit. The second store (across the street) had only sale items. There were many nice designer clothes there from $10 to $35. I am definitely going back to Goodbyes Consignment to do some serious shopping after the holidays. The other store I visited on Sacramento Street was The Designer Consigner, owned by Brenda Alessandria, which had a mixture of gently worn designer clothes and some very good vintage pieces, such as the Chanel jacket featured below. The third store I wanted to visit in this neighborhood was Vintage A La Mode, which looked amazing from the outside. All I can say is, I'm sorry it was closed, but look forward to taking photographs of this store in the future because I will be going back.

We walked down Sacramento Street several blocks to Fillmore Street where we visited Repeat Performance, which is run by the San Francisco Symphony. It is a high-end thrift shop and reminded me of shops I visited on the Upper East Side in New York. Some of the clothing was very reasonably priced and I especially liked the jewelry. Everyone working in the shop was very friendly and helpful. It seemed to be a neighborhood favorite. After our visit to this amazing little store, we turned onto Pacific Avenue and walked towards Polk Street to Firehouse 8, a pop up store filled with vendors who sell their own crafted clothing and some vintage clothes, including a little black dress by Balenciaga.

Since the day was so beautiful, we continued our walk down to the Wharf. I'm including some photos of the adorable seals at Pier 39. Please notice that one of them wanted to be alone (just like Greta Garbo), but loved modeling for the crowd. Hope all of you have a safe and merry Christmas and New Years. I'm now planning some future trips for next year that I'm looking forward to sharing with you in 2014.

Happy Holidays! Toni