Treasury

My Heart Belongs to You

Roulette’s first treasury on Etsy! Featuring amazing designers from Carrboro and surrounding areas.

Have a great weekend!

Etsy Sale

Since Valentines is just around the corner, we thought it would be fun to have a little sale on Etsy. Etsy is a great place to shop when you are out of town, can’t sleep, at work, or snowed in:)

One of our very favorite dresses.

1940s suit to fall in love with

Also if you come into shop, vintage dresses on sale floor are 20% off until Saturday!

I Heart Mondays!

Hey Y’all,

Happy Holidays everyone!

So, what I heart the most about this Monday is… this Young Tradition’s coat! I walked in this morning and instantly feel in love.  It’s not going to be here for long, so if you love it as much as I do, come see me.

It’s perfect for weather like this- add a little color to a grey day like today!

Love,

Me

fall fashion 102

At Roulette, we love bright colors, boots and blue jeans!  There’s no need to go all drab for fall.  Think of all those great fall leaf colors.  Burgundy, red, yellow, orange and the blue of the sky.

Pillowcase Dress Kits

You know those great little pillowcase dresses we carry at Roulette? Well now you can make your own! Designer and chief seamstress of Riverbasin Outfitters, River Takada-Capel, has created DIY pillowcase dress packets.  Everything you need to make your own dress is there.  Hand dyed and screen printed fabric, elastic, ribbon for the straps and easy to follow instructions.
You can buy one for yourself and give one to a friend.  Have a sewing party!
$25 each, in a variety of colors and 2 sizes: S/M and M/L.

Photo Contest!

As part of our 5 year celebration of Roulette Vintage, we’d like to celebrate our customers too.  You’re all so wonderful and have made Roulette so fun for us that its hard to call it work.  We’d like to invite you to submit your favorite photos of you and/or your friends wearing Roulette Vintage.  We’re calling it a photo contest but its really all about the love.  There will be multiple categories, some of which we may make up as we go along just because we got an amazing photo that deserves an award.   We plan on sharing them with everyone.  So show us what Roulette is to you!

Love, Kara and Rebecca

Categories(so far):  Best Vintage outfit, Best locally designed outfit, Best Group Shot, Best Band photo, Most Likely Drunk when this was shot, Most Original Location, Most Interesting photo and more…
Entries are accepted throughout the month of July!

And here are some photos that we’ve been sent in the past and faves that we’ve taken at the store to inspire you.

Best of Local Band Fashion contest!

In honor of our 5 year anniversary this July, we will be celebrating 5 years of supporting local music at Roulette Vintage. Did you know we have lots of great local band t-shirts? Yep! And We’re doing a Best of Roulette Vintage and Local Band Fashion contest this July. We’re taking nominations for all categories through July 4th.  So make sure you nominate your favorites!

Here are the categories:

Best Band tee design: You can check out the local band tees we carry here on our Flickr, we will be adding more close ups of the tees this week.  Nominate your favorite design!

Best Dressed Local Band:  Who is the best dressed in vintage and local fashion?  We’re looking for a band that sets the stage for fashion in the Triangle.

Best Mustache: Local musician with the best mustache.

Best Hair: Do ever sit in the crowd and wish you have a certain local musician’s hair?  I do!  Nominate the hair you love!

Local musician who looks most like a 60-80′s TV star: Think your friend looks like a vintage TV star?  Nominate them!

To nominate a band or musician, you can shoot us an email or comment here on the blog.   You must include your first name.  Photos or links to photos help but are not necessary.  Please send any photos as attachments to emails.  YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED OR SHARED.

Local bands are also invited to submit band photos to us for our Coolest Band Photo contest!  Most of your band must be wearing vintage or locally designed clothing in the photo.  

If you are a local band and would like to carry your t-shirt at Roulette, you can email us here.

Mattaponi Queen

Our friend, Belle Boggs, has just had her first book Mattaponi Queen published. Rebecca and I have known Belle for a few years, and think she’s absolutely lovely.   She also has great fashion sense!  The three of us share a love of 50s vintage dresses, southern rivers and books.  I read Mattaponi Queen this past weekend, and I have to say: “Wow. I know this amazing writer?”

Now, southern can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and the Southeast encompasses many, including transplants, natives and immigrants.  I went to college in Virginia, have lived in NC for 11 years and originally hail from Louisiana.   Belle Boggs hails from King William County, Virginia and tells the story of her South, the Mattaponi River and its people.   Belle’s stories make  a black and white photograph of a Virginia county movie reel into the colors of life.  She turns her characters and their lives to face the river, and lets the light bouncing off the water show us what we overlook in the people we see every day.

I think I’ve fallen for Skinny, a  Native American car mechanic, dying of Hepatitis C, with a love of cooking shows and a strange home perched above the Mattaponi River.  Skinny appears in 3 stories, one through his own eyes and and 2 others intertwined in other character’s lives.  What I love about Skinny is that though he lives on the reservation, you cannot define him with a Native American label.  Belle reveals the man and the Reservation beyond the labels of our society.  You can cast Skinny as the  romantic hero; a dying man, who cooks lovely meals for his friends that he can’t eat, yearning for a lost love or any love he can just sit down next to.  Or you could see him as his ex-wife does; an alcoholic, estranged from his 2 kids, who lives in a collection of shacks, with a bunch a junked cars in his yard.   Skinny is not the flat image we expect to read, but a man that we can accept as human with all his splendid faults, quirks and loves.

What strikes me most about Mattaponi Queen is that it is not just a collection of short stories, it is a kalidescope of lives, seen through many characters’ eyes, yet always in the background, we catch a glimpse of the Mattaponi River.

You can meet Belle in person at one of the following readings, and buy her book at these stores.  Everyone should read this book.

Tonight,  June 3rd 7 PM at the The Regulator in Durham
Saturday, June 5th 7 PM at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill
There will be free jam made by Belle and her mom at both readings!  Yum.

Fly into Spring!

Spring is here and so is our new Flytrap mini-boutique!
Flytrap  is created and screenprinted by Jody Cedzidlo.   Jody has a unique way with screen printing which can be not only precise but also artistically  rough.  We love this juxtaposition of style and textile art.

Flytrap has been a long time favorite at Roulette Vintage and we’re really happy to add a special section to the store that features all of Jody’s great prints.  She’s got some great new ones as well as the old favorites.  Here are a few photos of some of our spring picks, and you can check out more  on our flickr or stop by the store and try them on for yourself!

Our favorite vintage book is now at Roulette!

Last year, I was wandering the aisles of a cute little bookshop and came upon The Little Guide to Vintage Shopping by Melody Fortier.  After I read it, I then passed it on to Rebecca.  We both love this book and think its the best vintage guide that we’ve read. I am very happy to share that we are now selling this book at Roulette.

Not only does The Little Guide to Vintage Shopping help you decide what vintage is, it also has a great decades guide with bits of fashion history.  My favorite section of the book deals with fabrics.  Not only how to determine what fabric your dress is made of  but Melody Fortier also provides a chart for care and cleaning.  So cool and so useful!

If you love vintage and want to know more about your favorite clothes and future finds, come in and get one of these little books.  It also makes a great gift for a friend who loves vintage.

-Kara