Pbenjay's Blog

You know I’ve thought about this for the last couple of years;  it started when my daughter and a whole bunch of her friends were getting engaged and planning weddings – there were so many showers that year it was like April for 12 months!  That was the year I coined a phrase describing this soon-to-be wedded Y generation as the PBCB Generation stands for Pottery Barn Crate & Barrel Generation.  Everyone of them HAD to be registered at Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel and you could throw in Williams Sonoma too.

At my own bridal shower in 1968 I received many beautiful new household items; Pyrex mixing bowls with an Early American motif surrounding the nesting bowls,  a cookie jar in the shape of a monk,

Thou Shalt Not Steal

and pots and pans and gadgets so typical of the 60’s like; an electric frying pan, an electric can opener, an electric ice crusher, an electric knife.  I received a hand-held mixer – I would never  have been caught dead with one of those big white mixers with their white bowls! I guess every generation thinks their parents’ stuff is old-fashioned

These days I’m a collector of vintage things and I especially love having and using my many pieces of vintage kitchen ware.  As the years went by, I  realized that I loved the bowls, canisters, mugs and all the gadgets and unusual pieces from the 1940’s and ’50’s.

Now I bring this up BECAUSE my daughter like lots of  other offspring I know, just pooh-pooh  anything her mother had and used because it was too old-fashioned, lol.  She turned up her nose at owning the vintage kitchen ware I collected and used.  AND I bring this up BECAUSE as I wended my way through the above-referenced Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel looking for gift items in the registries,  I couldn’t help but notice and remark that many of the featured items were reproductions of the very vintage items I had!

That’s right – There I was in Crate & Barrel looking at a set of nested Pyrex mixing bowls in a contemporized color version of the hallmark 1940’s yellow, green, red and blue set ( I have an original set).

The REAL thing

Oh and they seem to be sitting on a reproduction round oak pedestal table (that I had when Chiara was growing up).  There were repro retro sugar shakers,  flour sifters, dish towels with a vintage cherry pattern, mason jars, repro jadeite coffee mugs ( I have all of those but mine are real) …in the furniture department I saw small side tables with pie crust edge, sleigh beds, even high post pineapple post beds!  Lots of Arts and Craft period Stickley-like desks and bookcases and chairs – ALL reproduced and at SUCH prices!!   I loved the little electric fans, the martini shakers (yes, mine are vintage)  and glasses and fondue pots (got one of those avocado green originals)!

Let's Have a Fondue Party

I tried to tell her that she could still get the REAL THING but she wasn’t hearing any of that.

In Pottery Barn, the wave of reproduction rolled through too.  They even have a department called Vintage Finds!! Reproduction seltzer bottles (mine are original), woven wine bottles (remember burning and dripping candles in those Chianti bottles?), soda crates, pickling jars and wooden rakes.  Apparently in the past couple of years, nostalgia has been king, and even the Y generation appreciates it – that is, as long as it came from PB or CB!! I buy my stuff at Flea Markets and yard sales  – They love RETAIL!

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