Hello, dolly...fans, that is!

I'm sort of moved in and now I have to set up the doll room. The stuff is all therein, but in boxes, bags and piles, with mitg -- more in the garage -- to be sorted, culled and transported to the doll room once I have the furniture put together and/or arranged. I have a large workbench/counter with shelf and what used to be a pot rack when it was in my kitchen, with a bar stool sort of chair that turned it into an eating area when I had a piano and teaching area in the living room and no place for a table! To get it out of the room at the old place, into the truck and out again, then into the new house and doll room, I had to take it all apart. Now two of the support pieces have gotten buried somewhere and I have to wait till I find them to put the whole thing back together again. Hope it doesn't turn out to be another Humpty Dumpty!

But I now have the desk with my computer, several of my bookcases and lots of my doll and fashion books, not to mention the Vogue magazine collection (one issue from each year with a three at the end of it, i.e. 1913, 1923, etc. up till I get the issue for next year: 2013.  I wonder if the magazine and I will be around for 2023!  Someday, I will try to scan all the covers and post them here. There are ten of them now (not counting the several extra ones from my favorite fashion years, the 1940s) with one more when I choose the 2013 issue. I buy the ones I like and then make the selection at the end of the year.

They are such fun to look through and read. I was born in 1938 so I have always wondered why I wasn't drawn to the "X8" years but the way it started was I discovered an old 1953 issue in my stuff when I went back home to go to work for the Panama Canal Company in 1963. I had bought an issue that had a lovely photo of Jean Shrimpton, a very popular model at the time, on the front and the 10-year-old issue I found had such a different feel to the cover that I saved them both for the interesting contrast only 10 years could make in the culture of the country, let alone fashion and even more important, the status of women. Then I kept an issue from 1973 which was another wild shift, and then, after the one from 1983, I just kept on going.

When the internet showed up and eBay was born, I realized I could go backwards in my collection as well as forward. So I filled in 1943, 1933, 1923, and finally all the way back to 1913. I think there was a 1903 issue, but I couldn't afford that year...it is sold as an antique at the going prices of rare books. Not in my particular bank account league!

I promise to share soon!