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Right from over-branded, crowded
and noisy Shenkin St, hides the alley leading to a safe haven – Gauloise
– an island of courage, a delight to the eye and the strictness on the
small details, just three steps away from the heart of the
mass-production clothes of the chain stores.
And indeed, the strictness on
the small details is what characterizes the clothes-picks of this
vintage store. Here you wouldn't see "just" pretty sequin dresses, but a
sequin dresses of which every stitch was thought about endlessly towards
the final product. Here it is hard to find "just" 70's shoes, but some
70's shoes that it seems that their wooden heel was made by god himself.
Maybe the heel was made by god,
but it was Zoe Grindea, the store owner, who brought it to Israel. Most
of the items gathered together at the Gauloise were collected from all
over the globe to this store. "I am trying to be as picky as I can", she
says.
Zoe opened Gauloise just three
years ago, but before that, she had many years of experience. 11 years
old and already exposed to the idea of second hand clothes, she said she
started buying and selling to stores in Jerusalem.
Years after that she decided to
open a second hand clothes shop of her own, but in contrary to the
common stores of that time, she decided to give it an appeal of a
boutique. "All of the stores looked like warehouses – stinky, unwashed
and crowded".
"I decided to give the second
hand clothes a more pleasant shopping experience", says Zoe and
realizes: on the wooden squares hung on the walls hide masterpieces with
the form of clothes, shoes and bags.
"It's not just clothes from a
certain period", tells the store manager, Millie Nahum. "It's simply
what turns us on at that moment".
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