Cora Burnette sweeps shoes off the plush red couch inside the door of Little Miss Vintage, her treasure-trove of clothes and accessories that span the decades from the Great Depression to Great Recession. Her two kids an eight-year-old daughter and soon-to-be-five-year-old son had dropped by the store after school the previous afternoon. Theyd played dress-up with the shoes until it was time for Burnette to lock up and walk home with them.
Its mid-afternoon on a hot, tiring day and Burnettes glad for the chance to sit down. Before she indulges in such a luxury, she puts a suitcase in front of her. Its full of items that a woman who often supplies her with clothes wants to sell her; Burnette pulls them out as she talks, giving each piece a critical once-over as she mentally prices them. She had spent part of the morning on a similar search for one-of-a-kind finds on a movie set and the frenetic pace of day is starting to wear on her.
Customers drift in and out of the stores open door, including a young woman celebrating her 32nd birthday by going shopping with a friend. Burnette prices a vintage silk dress for the friend not in her budget and a wool hat for the birthday girl, who takes it home. A woman shopping with her teenaged daughter asks if she can try on a pair of sunglasses outside. Sure, says Burnette, who instinctively switches into mother hen mode, reminding the older woman not to look directly into the sun.
I worry about everything, she says after her visitor remarks that she sounded like a vintage teacher giving dire warnings about how to watch the eclipse of the sun. I mother everything and everyone because its all a big disaster and it will likely kill us.
She says this with such droll delivery that even the most serious subjects can sound funny. It happens so often that when she later describes herself as kind of crazy, you cant help but think its the type of thoughtful craziness that comes from feeling like the only sane person in a world run amuck.
(When she talks about how she and her husband Chris, who by night are a folk/rock group called The Burnettes, absorbed the responsibilities of parenthood by simply bringing their kids to gigs, she says I dont trust anyone else to raise them as I see fit. If anyones going to corrupt them, its going to be me, damn it.)
Its this dark sense of humour that got her into the vintage clothing business in the first place.
She does comedy improv at corporate shows and constantly needs costume changes. She believes in shopping second-hand as an ideology as well as a passion. Eventually, however, her husband gently suggested that perhaps she had just a bit too many clothes filling their Commercial Drive home.
At first she tried selling the clothing on eBay. I hated it, she says. Living online is pretty yucky.
Then she found a retail space on the Drives 900 block. It was less than 300 square feet and suited her perfectly until she got pregnant with her second child; morning sickness plus the food smells coming from the donair shop next door were not a happy combination. She approached the owner of the store where the shop is currently located and they switched spaces.
Being a second-hand store on the Drive, its... tricky, she says. Her type of store is exactly what helps give the Drive its flavour, but in making the neighbourhood such an appealing destination, its also made it a more expensive place to live and have a business.
Every cost is rising and its incongruent with the way we live, she says. She loves the neighbourhood as a be-yourself place where you can run around naked and not be judged and live the way you want to live.
But how can you do that when the price of real estate and rent keeps climbing as demand for housing pushes the downtown boundaries. Call me a communist but I think the government should be stepping in [with real estate price controls.]
Since she cant imagine living anywhere else in Vancouver, she, and others like her, have to make it work. Theres nothing comparable, she says. Theres no other neighbourhood that makes me feel like I can do this. Theres very little religion any more for people to follow, apart from what Miley Cyrus is doing, and you need a community that makes you feel you can carry on like this.
For now its working. I fight for it. I do what I can to affect and change and my store is part of this.
As she gets up to help a customer, she tidies up an errant pair of shoes. She gives that little smile and says, I will always have nothing, but its okay. Ill have lots of shoes.
On Sept. 20, The Burnettes will be part of a show at Railway Club other East Van bands: East Van Scoundrels. The Rustic Sinners and Christie Rose.
