The French flea market (in the heart of the Berry) went on for many kilometers, featuring everything from appliances and La-Z-Boy chairs to a Soviet era sailor's hat perched atop a smiling bust:
Also items that might be filed under objectifying, colonizing, exotic, racist or just plain bizarre--a lamp in the shape of a beautiful black woman slung with pearls:
plus piles of cartoon books featuring stereotype after stereotype. But mostly one found the usual: plates, cutlery, books, dolls, clothes, shoes, boots, fireman hats, lamps, furniture, pots, pans, cotton tablecloths and napkins, and two other gems before I get to my favorite, namely a French press coffee pot for two euros and a rice cooker, complete with rice paddle, for five. (Both fully functional)
There came the moment of revelation. I clapped eyes on a wonder: Hanging from a rack in the breeze, surrounded by chipped furniture and scratched-up children's toys, a rich brown in the warm morning sun, swung a mouton fur jacket. Here she is after I got her back home:
Her vintage (I surmise from the label inside) c. 1942. In the pocket I found a gum wrapper I deemed to be of the same era. Naturally, she reeked not of Chanel no. 5 or Emeraude Coty but of somebody's basement.
But a fifth-and-a-half of Vodka later, she smells almost normal. Like fur. No, I didn't drink the stuff. I sprayed it on--in this photo the neck area hasn't quite dried. Sprayed the lining too, including the arms. Will follow up with one more treatment, but believe me--she's cured!
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