Homer and Langley's Mystery Spot
Brooklyn Beautician Laura Lee Williams is pleased as punch with her new vintage chapeau from The Mystery Spot, a snappy, floppy, tasseled Forties suede hat called (we kid you not!) The Humdinger ($45.)
Our good pal author Stephen Dubner (Freakonomics), and daughter Anya stopped by The Mystery Spot for a visit the other day, and while they were here they picked up a few vintage additions to Anya's wardrobe. Anya was thrilled to take home this adorable 1950's baby blue girl's dress with white eyelet trim ($30.) and extra-long beaded necklace ($20.) as well as a bunch of other goodies!
   
  Our very good friend Io Flower is five (where does the time go?) and placed this pair of jaunty ceramic dog salt and pepper shakers ($12.) at her feet for her photo in this lovely Fifties vintage gray and white pinstripe cotton frock ($30.).

Every now and then the perfect vintage Sixties worn-in leather jacket ($125.) meets the perfect owner, a bell rings, and an angel gets its wings.

Jacket, meet Melissa.

Melissa, meet Jacket.

Melissa is 23, lives in Brooklyn, and is a certified mixologist. Jacket is 37, has authentic Woodstock hippie provenance, and is so happy to have found a home and be worn again.

We've known journalist/author Judith Matloff since we were twelve years old. She's travelled the globe as a war correspondent, but has never come across anything quite as scary as Petey The Piranha. Husband (and fellow journalist) John Von Schaick and son Anton agree.

Here at The Mystery Spot we have a secret shop within a shop: Homer's Books d'Arte, tucked away in the back room, where you can find everything from a Garry Winogrand first edition to this Sixties paperback of Lolita ($6.). Io Flower, wearing a 50's plaid and eyelet ruffle girl's dress ($24.), reminds us how important it is to R-E-A-D.

Emily, Tess and Samantha are spending their seventeenth summer as counselors at the YMCA Frost Valley Camp in the Catskills, and stopped by on their day off to pick up some summery fashions. Emily is wearing a vintage cotton print sundress ($28.) with a Fifties white straw basket purse embellished with mesh butterflies ($48.). Tess took home this utterly mod Sixties green and white polka dot sleeveless tent dress ($29.), and Samantha couldn't live without this awesome Fifties Little Red Riding Hood novelty print sundress ($28.) which she accessorized with her own belt and a Sixties wicker and leather box bag ($28.) Oh, and they said to tell you that they're having a great summer!

Tony's been a regular visitor to The Mystery Spot since he was nine years old. He's now fourteen and has fantastic taste in music. He saves up his chore money (mowing lawns and what-have-you) to buy vintage vinyl. Here he adds some mint copies of The Who's Tommy (on our recommendation, since he liked Quadrophenia so much!), The Doors and some classic Led Zeppelin to his ever-expanding and very impressive record collection.
Nick and Nicole Miller are both New York schoolteachers and long-time customers of The Mystery Spot. Nicole manages a smile for the camera as she's secretly thinking, "I'm going to throw him out if he keeps collecting stuff!" But even she agrees it's impossible to turn down such a cool and colorful abstract chalkware mid-century Fifties lamp for only $20.! Not to mention a classic hand-screened Mystery Spot T-shirt ($10.). What the heck, maybe she'll keep him too.
Io Flower looks positively Jazz Age in this Twenties cotton gauze child's day dress with colorful striped trim ($55.) and vintage green felt flapper cloche ($22.).
Wilhemina model Jessica Chalkley is twenty-one years old, hails from Virginia, likes to bake brownies, and has a weakness for thrift store shopping. She took this awesome deadstock Seventies Climax label floral halter hostess gown ($55.) back home to New York City, where she will no doubt be the Belle of the Ball!
 
Another Young Miss falls for the charms of Timmy, The CPR Dummy Factory Reject. Azalea, age six months, expresses her love for Timmy by trying to eat his big molded rubber head.
Legendary book and CD designer Beth Middleworth (Bats4Bones Design) happily models this mint condition vintage 1950's Ruby Fire Department red jacket ($65.) which - of course! - went home with her.
   
Filmmaker Lloyd Handwerker and food stylist Leslie Siegel are good friends of Le Spot and always have interesting projects up their sleeves. Lloyd is making a documentary film about his grandfather, Nathan Handwerker - (yes, that Nathan, of Nathan's Hot Dogs!) - and was thrilled to pick up a copy of Lou Reed's Coney Island Baby ($5.). Leslie is putting the finishing touches on a book about pies, and nabbed this 1960's clock/radio ($20.) to use as a set prop.
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Tallulah wants to be a clothing designer when she grows up, and Chiara wants to be a detective.

Tallulah and Chiara are both 8, both live in NYC, and have been best friends since they were two. They have impeccable fashion sense, as evidenced by Tallulah's choice of a vintage white satin smocked bed jacket ($18.) over a simple white slip ($10.) and Chiara's 60's orange striped sheer minidress ($15.), Twenties green felt cloche hat ($20.), and and Sixties electric green patent leather handbag ($26.).  
 

A former doula with 22 births under her belt (and now in nursing school), Kate Maples made a major fashion score when she picked up this awesome vintage Balenciaga-like Fifties black and white houndstooth wool tent coat ($85.) with a truly amazing collar which you can't see in this photo but take our word for it, it's fabulous!

 

 

Yes, it's the Fabulous Fungus Family! Thierry, Amy, Julien and Claire Farges are not only nice people, but they're really fun guys! (Get it?). They import exotic mushrooms from all over the world, and we always love to compare notes about our favorite secret chanterelle patches up here in the Catskills. (They also have terrific taste in illustrated children's books!
 
 

Finally, we meet! We've been travelling in parallel orbits with Duplex Planet mastermind David Greenberger since the early 80s, and lo and behold, one fine day this summer David and his lovely wife Barbara Price walked through our door and introduced themselves! If you don't know about the Duplex Planet empire, we strongly suggest you check it out. Kind of how David and Barbara are checking out this pair of vintage leiderhosen ($38.) and our new picture book, Honky-Tonk Heroes & Hillbilly Angels: The Pioneer of Country & Western Music.

Photographer Ben Caswell thinks fondly back on his childhood and his favorite toy, the Erector Set ($28.)  
Six year old Balthazar is one of our best friends, and a brand new Cub Scout! He's been a Tiger Scout for two weeks now, and has already sold more caramel popcorn than practically anyone else in his den! We're so proud of you, Bal! (And sign us up for two more boxes of the sweet stuff!). Here he gets ready for his upcoming camping trips with a super big vintage aluminum flashlight from the 1950's ($10.).
 

 

 

Pimp and ho Robert Peacock and Rie Norregaard are better known in their "cover jobs" as a book packager and a creative director. Rie works the corner of the Boardwalk and Main Street in a vintage belted white wool trench coat ($65.) and Sixties fluffy white lamb's wool hat ($25.) while Robert protects his favorite moneymaker in a Holstein cow pattern faux fur jacket ($68.) and fuzzy faux leopard fur hat ($24.).
Our friend, writer Mark Dorrity, is a serious thinker who reads serious books. Preferably in the original tongue. He was quite taken with this vintage 1950's French pulp style paperback edition of Andre Malraux's La Condition Humaine ($8.).

 

 

Lovely Asia models this fetching vintage Twenties green felt flapper cloche hat ($20.).

 
Our new NYC friends, animators Aaron Hughes and Lisa LaBracio stopped by to say howdy while they were in town for the Woodstock Film Festival, where Lisa's animated short film, Sideshow, was playing. Texan Aaron felt right at home in this vintage Lazy-H embroidered Western shirt ($38.) as his lovely filly Lisa did prairie justice to this mod Sixties polka dot sleeveless dress with pleated chiffon collar ($25.)

 

Theater director Josh Hecht and L.A. hair stylist Rick Gradone were thrilled to take home this pair of carved wooden elephants ($50.) and a 1967 Vogue ($10.). Rick told us his recent clients included Billie Jean King and a stint at the Playboy Mansion with Hef and his three girlfriends. Sometimes we wonder if there's more to life than working behind the counter here at The Mystery Spot....?
Well, it's almost winter once again, so out come our favorite Snow Bunnies to model the latest in Phoenician cold weather fashions. Viva's in our favorite coat of the season, a vintage belted white wool trench coat ($65.) and Sixties fluffy white lamb's wool hat ($25.). Sylvia's in a monstrously tall 60's white faux fur hat ($35.) and cropped Macintosh faux curly lamb jacket ($85.) and Asia's in a green suede and shearling hat ($25.) and Sixties white faux fur jacket ($65.).
 
Sylvia channels Veruschka in this monstrously tall 60's white faux fur hat ($35.) and cropped Macintosh faux curly lamb jacket ($85.) .
 

 

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