Gadabout

GADABOUT VINTAGE

Snippets from the local shop of curiosities.

A series of photos highlighting Victoria’s antique collection at Gadabout. Her passion for collecting curiosities, memorabilia, fashion pieces, and just about anything small and interesting keeps art departments and production designers coming back to dress their productions — productions such as the Shape of Water and The Handmaid’s Tale, to name a few.

This is a playful ongoing photo series that is running on their social channels to pique interest in the collection — an appetizer for the eyes before the feast for the senses that awaits behind the little orange facade in Leslieville.

These decorative cats from Japan were mass produced and are representative of the late 50s - early 60s. You’d most likely see them placed on the TV set, before it was a slice of glass. As for the top hat, it was manufactured in England by the Tress and Co Hat Factory around the mid 1800s. It was made with beaver pelt, then treated with arsenic to give it its sheen, which is where the myth of the mad hatter comes from (the more you know 👀). The factory shut down 100 years later, and it’s where the Mad Hatter Hotel is located. Very fitting 🎩

The ladies. The head vase lady is quite special. There are well over 100 styles of this figurine, with different faces/styles/hair-dos, but they’re all about a 3rd of the size of this one. This is the largest Victoria (Gadabout’s owner) has seen in her 40 years of business. Something she said in passing that I love is she considers her job ‘an archeological dig’ — even the process of walking through the store as a visitor feels like going through layers and layers of history. It’s wonderful.
The other lady, the one inside the frame, was illustrated by Coles Phillips. If you haven’t heard of him, look him up. He popularized using negative space in illustration and his work is brilliant. This piece in particular is called ‘Reflections of a bachelor’. If you look up close, you’ll see a man’s reflection in her pupils 👀

This crazy fruit tower was made in Italy in the mid 50s. Usually they’d come in pairs, to be placed on the dining table as a centrepiece or on a console table by the front door. Very Rococo. This piece had been sitting in the store for over 10 years, and the week I returned it after the photoshoot, it sold. I like to think I helped some magic happen. Or the less exciting story: dusting it down helped.

A little anachronic tea party 🫖🍵🌸 teapots and cups from all over the 1900s.

A woven blanket from Greece, striped flats from the late 70s, and a cute pleated lamp shade from the early 1900s.

(1) A vintage pie bird or pie funnel used to let out the steam inside a pie as it bakes. Some pie birds whistle as the steam escapes 🐧 (2) A handbag from the 60s (3) A women’s shoe with the 60s signature square heel and round toe, and two-toned style inspired by men’s spectator shoes from the 19th century (4) Driving gloves dating back to the inception of cars — these types of gloves were usually knitted at the back, had cutouts at the knuckles, and were made out of very thin leather to help keep a firm grip on the steel steering wheel (5) silky/buttery French curtains 🧈

Tomato ware 🍅🍅🍅 These were labelled ‘Made in Occupied Japan’ — which means they were manufactured between the summer of 1945 and the spring of 1952. Throughout those years, the Japanese had to label around 50% of exported goods with ‘OJ’, ‘Occupied Japan’, or ‘Made in Occupied Japan’ as part of an agreement with the Allies.