Red on Grey

HOW many vintage furniture shops can one city (and its surrounding suburbs) sustain?

Well, if you are after a piece of mid-century furniture, then your choices are extensive.

Red rider vintage living, on St Kilda's Grey St, specialises in the best of the 1950s, '60s and '70s.

Clean-lined Danish sofas appear to be a specialty, as does Australian furniture labels Fler and Parker. 

The owner/proprietor was lovely and helpful.

Outside the shop. 

Grey St with a Danish and Australian foreground.

Lovely ceramics and glassware decorate mid-century wall units.

This gorgeous wallpaper was in the shop.
Four almost complete rolls of original '70s flamboyance.
We thought about the purchase over lunch, but the pink, blue, yellow and brown paisley floral pattern went 'round and 'round in my mind.
It came home with us.

Woollongabba gabba hey!

Mid-century modern retailers are the order of the day at Woollongabba. The city-fringe suburb is also home to the 'Gabba and the Brisbane Lions, but we went for the antique shops. The Woollongabba Antique Centre is the pick of the retailers, with a large array of shopkeepers with consignment spaces. Among the best on show were Danish sideboards,vintage lighting, kitsch naked lady art prints, '50s and '60s glassware, a lovely smattering of industria and plenty of vintage frocks, hats, bags and accessories. The fashion was steep, with most dresses in the $100-$200 bracket. Amazingly, I grabbed a great '70s jade polyester disco-stylised kaftan with silver glittery ric-rac detail for a mere $29.