Raging Rivets

Seventies Walter Steiger metal platforms $5

You don't see a lot of seventies stuff on this blog. Not for me the Ossie Clark frocks and the polyester maxi-dresses and all wide-collared points between. An ABBA track on the PA won't get me boogying in the supermarket aisles, and I've never felt the slightest inclination to start collecting brown ceramic things or oil paintings of big-eyed children. Even in the last known full-scale seventies revival (early-mid nineties) my involvement was limited to one black sheer body shirt, and one very ill-considered pair of front-lacing purple velvet hipster flares. All of which makes the purchase of these heavy metal babies the other day from the RSPCA Bargain Barn quite unexpected.

As of right now I could probably get away with wearing them, the platform thing still raging out of control as it is, and they do fit me, but really I think I bought them just for the sake of the tiny little rivets holding the metal onto the platform. I didn't get a photo of them, but somehow that tiny little detail of pure insanity was enough to get my five bucks. Vintage platforms are a bit of an endangered species too, a lot of them fell victim to the seventies theme party era (remember those? People used to have them before the eighties parties took over, I dare say the youths are having nineties parties now) and ended up thrown in swimming pools or spray painted with purple glitter and consigned to the racks in suburban costume hire shops, only to be thrashed to death by footy players on end-of-season drag jags.

Also an endangered species: things in op-shops (or anywhere) not made in China.

In a slightly odd coincidence these weren't the only pair of metal riveted shoes to fall into my lap that day. I got home with my Steigers and found a parcel had arrived containing one of my very occasional random Ebay impulse purchases - a matching Charles Jourdan eighties leather bag and shoes with little metal panels here and there. No one else wanted these, so I ended up paying $6.50 for the set. Perhaps the very idea of a set frightened people away, matching shoes and bags being (except for the Chloe Paddington frenzy of 2005 or 2006 or whenever the hell it was) more or less extinct. Perhaps I should alert the National Geographic about this set?

It's a sort of dull metallic gunmetal grey with silver metal.

Of course the secret (you'll be ASTOUNDED by this) is to wear the bag and the shoes separately. I know, I know - believe me, it's hard work being this ingenious. The bag is terribly cute, the base is a sort of squishy triangle shape, with more of those dear little rivets. Every time I look at them I get the urge to wear the bag and the shoes both at once and look like I'm on my way for a night of "raging" with various Vulcans and whatnot in the Holodeck. Did anyone other than Australians call nightclubbing/partying "raging" in the eighties? I might have to try and bring it back...

I need to get some Silvo or something onto the metal bits of both pairs of shoes and the bag, there's some heavy duty smearing going on, the origin of which I do not wish to speculate about further. If anyone has cleaning tips for this kind of stuff I'd love to hear them.

The "Made in China" tag is so ubiquitous at this point that I can get a tiny thrill when I see something marked "Made in Turkmenistan" or "Made in Australia" in an op-shop, even "Made in Taiwan" seems exotic now. I'm sure all kinds of awful crap are made in Italy or France, but it still impresses me, gauche little culturally cringing Aussie that I am. Those shoes had to come right around the whole world to get here, and then survive 20 or 30 years of raging to get to me!

xx

Skye

PS. Do you match your shoes and bag? Is it verboten or is it coming back? Does it matter?