The Great Mid-Century Furniture Bonfire

My first vintage purchase was a pair of second hand Levi 501s when I was 13. My sister and I planned this purchase for months and made a of day of it, which meant taking mum and nanna on our adventure, given we were such babies and we lived five million miles and two train lines from the city.

Even though mum drove us and likely paid for the recycled jeans, she was not the inspiration for my vintage love. These are some direct quotes from mum about vintage:

• “I hate all that old stuff.”
• “We had stuff like that and we couldn’t wait to get rid of it.”
• “Do you remember the time we had a bonfire to get rid of all that mid-century furniture?”

A MID-CENTURY FURNITURE BONFIRE! WHAT! Are my family secret Nazi style art destroyers? Are they ISIS members destroying artifacts? Who are these people?

Luckily, I won’t have to do a Ben Affleck and cover up my families secret shameful past, because they were just really into 80s stuff at the time. They hated what everyone currently loves and so they burned it. On a bonfire. And made a night of it with some friends. To make way for a pinky vinyl shell shaped monstrosity which I felt super proud of, because it was such a trendy couch.