The Sleeper Awakes
I have lived in Local Town for eighteen-and-a-bit years. Today I went into a shop in Local Town that I have never been in before. It's not hidden up a side street or otherwise inaccessible - it's right there on the High Street, just across from the Chemist and next to the bank. It is the Drapers Shop.
Yes, an actual Drapers Shop. When was the last time you saw one of those? And WTF is a Drapers Shop anyway? According to Wikipedia, a Draper is "... is the now largely obsolete [citation needed] term for a wholesaler, or especially retailer, of cloth, mainly for clothing."
This doesn't accurately describe the Drapers Shop in Local Town. It doesn't sell cloth - there's another little cloth-and-sundry-sewing-requisites shop just a few yards further up the High Street, and it was into there that I first ventured, seeking out my requirement. The nice lady in the cloth shop informed me that they didn't stock those, and that I would have to go to the Drapers Shop. This was quite exciting, used as I am to getting all sorts of unrelated Stuff from Tesco. It was just like the Old Days, when you had to go to specialised shops for your meat, fish, vegetables and 50" flat screen TVs.
So I trotted a few yards further down the High Street, and entered the Drapers Shop, which I have passed almost every day for the past eighteen years without ever going in.
Inside, it was the very essence of Drapery. It sold wool and knitting needles, and woolly jumpers if you didn't fancy knitting one yourself, but the woman behind the counter obviously did, because there she was, knitting away, and sensible trousers and hats. And it sold Doreen Bras. Of course it did! Somewhere has to. I knew they must come from somewhere, and now I know. It also had a very slightly musty smell to it, as if the shop and its entire contents had been there for almost 50 years. Which it has.
As the nice lady from the cloth shop had predicted, it sold what I was looking for. I like the idea that the Cloth Shop and The Drapers have a sort of Mafia-like agreement about who will sell which particular type of haberdashery equipment. I had previously purchased this item of haberdash from John Lewis's in Aberdeen, but it had turned out to be the wrong size, so I was delighted to discover that I could get a different one in Local Town, and not have to wait until the weekend to go back into Aberdeen again.
What all these adventures in haberdashery are about must remain a mystery for now. Suffice to say that it is a Super Sekrit Project involving traditional wool-based skills and the unspeakable horror of the Great Old Ones. If it comes to fruition, I shall post pictures!
Yes, an actual Drapers Shop. When was the last time you saw one of those? And WTF is a Drapers Shop anyway? According to Wikipedia, a Draper is "... is the now largely obsolete [citation needed] term for a wholesaler, or especially retailer, of cloth, mainly for clothing."
This doesn't accurately describe the Drapers Shop in Local Town. It doesn't sell cloth - there's another little cloth-and-sundry-sewing-requisites shop just a few yards further up the High Street, and it was into there that I first ventured, seeking out my requirement. The nice lady in the cloth shop informed me that they didn't stock those, and that I would have to go to the Drapers Shop. This was quite exciting, used as I am to getting all sorts of unrelated Stuff from Tesco. It was just like the Old Days, when you had to go to specialised shops for your meat, fish, vegetables and 50" flat screen TVs.
So I trotted a few yards further down the High Street, and entered the Drapers Shop, which I have passed almost every day for the past eighteen years without ever going in.
Inside, it was the very essence of Drapery. It sold wool and knitting needles, and woolly jumpers if you didn't fancy knitting one yourself, but the woman behind the counter obviously did, because there she was, knitting away, and sensible trousers and hats. And it sold Doreen Bras. Of course it did! Somewhere has to. I knew they must come from somewhere, and now I know. It also had a very slightly musty smell to it, as if the shop and its entire contents had been there for almost 50 years. Which it has.
As the nice lady from the cloth shop had predicted, it sold what I was looking for. I like the idea that the Cloth Shop and The Drapers have a sort of Mafia-like agreement about who will sell which particular type of haberdashery equipment. I had previously purchased this item of haberdash from John Lewis's in Aberdeen, but it had turned out to be the wrong size, so I was delighted to discover that I could get a different one in Local Town, and not have to wait until the weekend to go back into Aberdeen again.
What all these adventures in haberdashery are about must remain a mystery for now. Suffice to say that it is a Super Sekrit Project involving traditional wool-based skills and the unspeakable horror of the Great Old Ones. If it comes to fruition, I shall post pictures!