A much needed impromptu getaway!

Tony has been traveling up a storm this month for work, in fact, by the time November is over, he will have taken four separate business trips, including one (back to) San Francisco. Talk a busy month for my uber hardworking chap!

The last jaunt of the month is closer to home. In fact, it's to that most gorgeous of Pacific Coast cities, Vancouver. It’s a drivable journey of just 4.5 hours and as such Tony asked if I'd like to tag along with him. Umm, super-duper yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



{Vancouver always hums with excitement, energy and culture, points all captured in this wonderful nighttime shot from 1951 of Granville's theater district at the time, and I can hardly wait to get back and experience that sense of vitality again. Vintage image via Museum of Vancouver.}


We just made plans to travel together a few days ago (and it is fully a business trip for him) and will be leaving early tomorrow morning, so unlike usual I didn't have time to save up my pennies in advance like I usually do when we take trips. That means I won't be doing scads of buying, be it for myself or my Etsy shop, but it being Vancouver, there's no way I'll come home empty handed. There are too many cool shops, be they vintage or otherwise, in that thriving city not to pick up a few must-have goodies. :)

As Tony will be working most of the time that we're there - which is until November 30th December 1st (the final date of our stay was changed during the trip itself) - I'll be taking my laptop along and getting some work and usual blogging related activities in, too (including posting this month's new vintage blogger interview and 2015's Vintage Holiday Shopping Guide). Though I also hope to make/have time to sightsee, do a little of that aforementioned shopping, perhaps visit a museum and/or gallery, and perhaps most importantly, simply unwind and relax as well.

While this isn't a full on vacation for either of us, it is as close as I'll come to one this year and I need it something fierce. I haven't done any traveling since our trip to Vancouver Island at the start of fall 2014, and as someone with a perpetual sense of wanderlust, this is such an awesome way for me to (very nearly) wrap up a year of incredibly hard work and no (prior) getaways.

So my sweet dears, this very morning (originally we'd thought we'd be leaving on Tuesday, but another work event arose for Tony tomorrow, so we're leaving today on the 22nd instead), I'm off to one of my favourite cities on the face of the earth for a week of fun, productivity, moments of tranquility, and hopefully a great vintage treasure or two as well!

If you want to tag along with us on this trip, be sure to follow me on Instagram, where I'll be posting lots of delightful snaps from our travels to good, ol' Van!

A vintage photo filled look at the history of the PNE

A few days ago we shone the spotlight on the wonderful square dancing that is an integral part of Penticton's annual Peach Festival, and today, I'd like to chat about another fantastic British Columbia event. This one is both significantly larger and arguably far better known than our town’s peach centered celebration: The Pacific National Exhibition, better known to British Columbia locals as the PNE.

Marking and ushering in the second half of August for decades now, the first Pacific National Exhibition was held during the heyday of the Edwardian era back in 1910. It was opened by none other than Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier (who image graces the $5.00 Canadian bank note) and was a hit with locals and others from throughout the province and elsewhere along the Pacific coast from the very get-go.

So what is the The Pacific National Exhibition you may be asking, especially if you've never heard of it before. Good question! The PNE is actually the name of both the multi-day event and the non-profit organization runs that an annual seventeen day summer fair each August. This exciting event features live performances from musicians and other entertaining acts, tons of great food, various exhibits that cover such things as art, agriculture, and technology, amongst others; a huge home show, a nightly fireworks show, the Pacific Spirit Horse Show, and the pièce de résistance for many, especially the young and young at hear, who attend, a massive seasonal amusement park (the biggest in the province and one of the largest anywhere in Canada).

From day one, the PNE, which has always been held at Hastings Park in Vancouver, has been the largest annual ticked event in British Columbia, today drawing in more than 900,000 visitors (which is all the more impressive when you stop and consider that B.C.'s entire population is some 4.4 million people) and stands as a great way for locals and tourists alike to wrap up summer (for all intents - this being Canada after all) on an incredibly fun note.

As a youngster, my family lived in B.C.'s Lower Mainland area, so at least one trip to the PNE was a highly anticipated occurrence each year. I can still picture those early days at the fair with crystal clarity. There was face painting, petting zoos, the ever present (and incredibly enticing) scent of fried onions and cotton candy, the squeals and screams of folks seated on the more fast paced rides, the sizzling heat of the late August air, the feel of the powerfully thick layer of sunscreen my mom would coat our young skins in, and the incredible thrill of both jumping on the rides themselves and also simply being a part of the huge, happy PNE going crowd.

In the years since my family moved further north in the province to the Okanagan, and I myself have lived both elsewhere in B.C. and the country alike, I've not made it to the PNE many times. I don't think it will happen this year either (the last time I was there would probably have been when I was 13 or 14 years old), so to help quell some of the longing I'm feeling to attend (this year's PNE will kick off on August 16th), I thought it would be plenty of fun in its own right to take a virtual trip there with all of you, my dear online friends, via some delightful vintage PNE photographs.

Strap in (to your roller coaster seat), grab a corn dog, pull up a folding chair under the firework illuminated night sky, and come along as we photo hop our way through some of the exciting events and early to mid-twentieth century history that have helped make the Pacific National Exhibition the wondrous annual shindig that it is today - and always has been.




{Extra! Extra! Read all about it! An ad from 1910 for the inaugural PNE, which at the time was called the Vancouver Exhibition, as it appeared in a local paper. Admission to the fair was $0.50, a price that would, rather impressively, remain in place all the way until the 1960s.}




{Canadian Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier seated in a Napier car in front of the CPR Station on August 16, 1910, the after day he opened the first ever PNE at Hastings Park in Vancouver.}




{An early, undated photo showing a musical performance being given at the Canada Pacific Exhibit at the PNE. Over the decades, the PNE has played host to some of the most talented musicians in the world, including Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Tom Jones and Stevie Wonder, amongst many others, and continues to headline hugely popular acts every year.}




{A circa 1920s group of 4-H club members showing off their calves at the PNE. Live animal events and competitions have been a big part of the PNE since its earliest days and remain so even now during the technology fuelled days of the 21st century.}





{Two of the most popular rides at the PNE during its earliest decades, the Giant Dipper seen here on the left and Shoot-the-Chutes log ride on the right captured here during the roaring twenties.}




{A photo from 1929 of the entrance gate to both the Vancouver Exhibition, later renamed the Pacific National Exhibition, and the amusement park Happyland, which was a predecessor to today's Playland, which resides on the grounds all year round and is open from May until September.}


{Three bathing suit clad 1920s beauties atop a very large cow named Bossie, with a fourth standing to the right, at the PNE. Then, as now, agriculture, farming, and animals have always been an important part of the exhibition.}






{Children and adults alike gathered to watch this fun outdoor puppet show in 1930. The fair has always made sure to involve children and provide numerous rides, events, and other activities catered specifically to them.}




{An exhilarating (or stomach churning, if lofty rides like this aren't your cup of tea) 1932 view from the top of the Giant Dipper, one of the first amusement rides to built on the PNE grounds. It is said to have a drop that may have been as high as 90 feet and he ability to reach a top speed of 58 miles per hour. Like many early PNE rides, the Giant Dipper no longer exists, as it was torn down in 1947.}




{The first in a longstanding line of show homes that was built for, and raffled off during, the PNE. This tradition, which began with the lovely 1934 home seen here (which was valued at $5,000 - a very substantial sum during the Great Depression), still continues and is a big draw for many who attend the fair.}




{A shot of the crowd making their way down the PNE's midway, circa 1936. Unlike many other things around Vancouver during the challenging years of the Great Depression, the PNE not only survived, but thrived, as people flocked to the fair to escape their troubles and enjoy some good, old-fashioned fun at a reasonable price.}




{Hungry fair goes make their way to food pavilion building in 1939 to find just the right special treat to quell their rumbling stomachs. A wide array of delicious food has been always been one of the PNE's biggest stars.}




{The PNE has long served to connect locals with business and products that are relevant to their needs as British Columbians, as this c. 1940s B.C. Telephone Co. both demonstrates.}




{The PNE has always prided itself on being comprised of both educational and informative booths and events, as well as more lighthearted attractions like the amusement rides. In this undated c. early 1940s photo, we see a booth set up to attract fair visitors to join the Canadian Army by promoting the fact that the military would provide education to its members.}




{Over the years the Pacific National Exhibition grounds have seen many buildings come and go, including the impressive looking Manufacturers’ Building shown in this 1942 photo, which was constructed back in 1913.}




{A crowd waiting in line at the main Gate of the Pacific National Exhibition to purchase their tickets back in 1947. The PNE has drawn massive numbers of participants since day one and is a beloved favourite with locals, residents throughout British Columbia, and others from even further afield who travel long distances to experience the almost magical joys of this annual event.}




{A group of young children during the summer of 1949 enjoying the classic merry-go-round that was part of Exhibition Park at the PNE. A similar (to the best of my knowledge, it's not the same one - but if anyone knows otherwise, please tell me) merry-go-round is still one of the most popular rides with youngsters attending the fair to this day.}




{Vendors selling food, products, and services alike have been a mainstay of the PNE since its 1910 inception. Case in point, c. 1940s-1950s photo showing a wonderfully mid-century shaped stall called Percy Tutti Engraving and Gold Lettering both.}




{As with many fairs, big and small alike, the generously sized PNE was quick to include beauty pageant in its earlier days, the winner of which got to wear the coveted title of Miss PNE for a year.}




{Year after the year, the show homes at the PNE, as touched on above, draw in major crowds of hopeful raffle participants who try their luck at winning the modern home of their dreams, just as this crowd did during the 1950s.}




{Another beautiful mid-century Miss PNE winner, this time the sash sporting winner from 1958 (don't you just love her charming summer dress?).}




{A colour photo, the only one in today's post, of just some of the large crowd as seen from Forum building that would have attended the PNE on this sunny day in 1957. This year remains a standout in PNE history because it was one that saw none other than teen heart throb and major rock star Elvis Presley perform to a packed crowd. A legend persists that Elvis got all of one song into his act before a riot broke out, however sources such as the Elvis Information Network claim that such did not in fact happen - as probable as it may seem given Elvis' incredible popularity.}




{Vancouver Sun reporter Joan Healey and PNE amusements manager Dave Dauphinee on the roller coaster at Playland in 1958. Rides of all sizes are unquestionably one of the most enjoyable elements of the Pacific National Exhibition, as well as being a substantial part of its ongoing popularity with visitors of all ages.}

{To learn more about a specific image, please click on it to be taken to its respective source.}

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Save for a four year window between 1942 and 1946 when the PNE was closed and the grounds used as a military training facility, as well, in a very dark chapter of this province's history, as a processing and internment location for Japanese Canadians from across B.C., the PNE has been in continual operation for the past 104 years. In the decades since, the Momiji Gardens (Momiji means maple in Japanese) on the PNE grounds have stood as a powerful and very important reminder of the events that the province's Japanese citizens endured during WW2.

If you ever have the opportunity to attend the PNE, I truly cannot recommend it highly enough (ditto for the similar East Coast event held in Toronto each year called the Canadian National Exhibition, or CNE). Cliché as it may sound, there truly is something there for everyone. While the rides, which are a part of the seasonally operated on sight amusement park called Playland, are a bit part of the PNE, they certainly are not the only element of this fabulous multi-day event in the slightest.

You can catch live music acts, sample amazing world cuisine and fair food alike, go shopping, attend the home show, and myriad other things over the course of the fair's two week span (it wraps up this year on September 1st). And should you be game for the rides, you'll find everything from a peaceful ferris wheel to a wooden roller coaster, the Atmosfear (an areal swing ride that lifts you 218 feet into the sky and then spins you around in a complete 360° at 70 kilometres an hour multiple times) to the Flume, a classic log ride.

The PNE is, and will always, be the epitome of late summer Canadian fun for me, no matter if I'm able to attend each year or not. The mere thought stirs up a plethora of terrific memories and makes me yearn to be knee high to a candy apple stall again.

Or, on second thought, perhaps not - after all, I wasn't tall enough to ride all the rides back then, and that's something I definitely look forward to doing (well, most of them at least) the next time circumstances do permit me to hightail it back to Vancouver for a long overdue reunion with the grand, glorious, and always giddiness inducing Pacific National Exhibition.

Five awesome highlights from our trip to Vancouver

Though I'm still very much in the throes of recovering from our awesome jaunt to Vancouver (traveling always does a total number on my health - but it's well worth it!), while the memories are still fresh as the first daisies of summer in my mind, I wanted to share a selection of happenings that really jump out at me from our week spent in British Columbia's largest city (which, interestingly enough, despite its size, is not the province's capital, that honour goes to the elegant city of Victoria on Vancouver Island).

We left town bright and early on the morning of the 4th and were guided from the very first to the very last minute of our drive with picturesque sunshine and ideal road conditions. Upon arriving in Vancouver, we made a beeline for our hotel, the immensely posh Fairmount Hotel, aka the Hotel Vancouver, on West Georgia Street (which stayed at thanks to Tony's company). This majestic building nestled smack dab in the heart of downtown Vancouver was built in 1939 and is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.

Elements of late art deco and other types of mid-century design can be seen all throughout the hotel, from the grand lobby to the suites to the halls - and even the onsite mailbox itself (which, being the most gloriously pretty Canada Post mailbox I'd ever seen in person, I couldn't help but take a photograph of the moment I first laid eyes on it). Naturally, I was in my vintage loving element in our swanky digs.

In the days that would follow, I didn't get much in the way of the "rest" in R&R that I'd hoped for before we left, but even at its most hectic of moments, there was a certain sense of relaxation to my own time in Vancouver because my days were spent doing things that I truly loved and which were frequently well outside of my usual routine when I'm home in Penticton.

The following is a selection of five that will linger in my mind for a very long time to come, each different but united by longtime loves and the same magnificent city.


1. The Vancouver Aquarium: As one might imagine, aquatic life abounds at the famous Vancouver Aquarium, which is renowned not only for its diverse, beautiful creatures of all sizes, but for the important scientific research, as well as its rescue and release program, that take place within its gates. A true favourite destination of mine for as far back as I have memories of Vancouver, a trip to the city just isn't the same for me without a visit to the Aquarium, very much including saying a hello to the ultra adorable otters (otters being one of my all-time favourite animals). Though it was raining on the day we were there (Murphy's Law, I say, as it was raining the last time we were there all the way back in early 2007), we still had a blast and took in three great outdoor shows on top of seeing all of the exhibits indoors.




2. Vancouver Flea Market: An absolute institution in the city that is known province wide (and no doubt beyond!), the Vancouver Flea Market, in operation since 1983, is an indoor event that takes place nearly every Saturday and Sunday of the year. Housed in a large red barn, this large flea market plays host to more than 250 vendors selling an array of antique, vintage, and modern items, including absolutely no shortage of beautiful vintage jewelry in a wide range price points (vintage clothing was almost nonexistent there though, save primarily for a few fur coats). Admission is just $1.00 and you can get your hand stamped, which will allow you to come back for free again later the same day, if so desired.

I got up early on Saturday morning specifically to make the flea market my first stop. I was there for over four hours and highly suspect I still missed at least a few stalls, simply because there was so much to see and so many delightful sellers to chat with. Though I did find some of the vendor's prices to be on the steep side (something that is, objectively, true of most things with price tags on them all throughout the city), a bit of sleuthing and bartering landed me a few good deals on some really lovely antique and vintage pieces, nearly all of which will be headed straight to my Etsy shop in the coming summer weeks.


3. Mintage: While I had the great pleasure of visiting a number of vintage and thrift stores in Vancouver during my lovely week there, none stand out in my mind quite like Mintage on Commercial Drive. Though it has been in business for nine years now, this was my first visit to Mintage and to say that it was love at first sight would be understatement. Unlike many of the vintage (and thrift) stores that I visited, Mintage's prices were fair and well within the means of my personal shopping budget and as a result, I came home with two good sized brown paper bags loaded with vintage skirts, dresses, scarves, handbags and my second ever Mexican Tourist jacket. Whereas most of the other vintage items I bought in Vancouver are destined for the shop, these particular beauties now reside in my own closet and are some of the first vintage pieces I've bought for myself this year, as I've been devoting as much of my funds as I can to sourcing for the shop, not myself.

In addition to having good prices, Mintage is chock-a-block with early, mid-century, and more recent vintage finds for gals and gents alike, all of which are well currated, intuitively laid out, and watched over by some of the absolutely friendliest staff you could ever hope to encounter. In fact, I was having such a ball selecting, trying items on and talking with the two employees (Alex and Mitchell, both pictured below in an photo I took of them that day) that I spent more than two fabulous hours at Mintage and will making it one of my very first stops from here on out whenever I'm in Vancouver.





4. Giving an impromptu presentation at New World Designs: A shopping trip to New World Designs, a wonderful Vancouver vintage reproduction and rockabilly clothing shop resulted in one of the coolest vintage related experiences I've ever had: giving a 100% unplanned, on the fly presentation on vintage hairstyles, makeup, clothing, and blogging to a group of about a dozen terrific ladies who had initially planned for an evening with a professional hairdresser who was going to show them some vintage hairstyles. It turned out that that lady ran into some issues (I don't know all the details) with her flight back to Vancouver and was delayed, so as a result the shop's owner was thinking she might have to cancel or alter the evening she had planned.

By sheer coincidence, I was in store as this was unfolding and after chatting with the owner for a little while, giving her my card and explaining who I was and what I do, she asked if I'd be interested in filling in for the MIA hairdresser. I explained that I was neither a pro at hair or makeup, and that fashion, history and blogging were my specialties, but that I'd be happy to do my best at demonstrating vintage looks (on a model from the audience) and discussing those topics in general. Mere minutes later I was in front of a crowd doing precisely that for the better part of the next two hours (which happily, I pretty much had free anyways, so the timing couldn't have been better).

It was an exhilarating, fantastic experience and I loved receiving and answering a slew of diverse, intelligent, downright cool questions from all of the lovely ladies who had shown up for the evening's previously planned presentation. I've never spoken to a live audience in person before about vintage (kind of hard to believe at this point in my life, I know), and despite my epic shyness, I've never had a problem with public speaking (in fact, I often prefer it to one-on-one or super small group discussions with strangers), so I was able to wing it and based on the feedback from the shop's owner and some of the audience members at the end of the night, things seemed to have gone great (phew! :)).

In fact, two of the gals (close friends) in the audience invited me out to a pub down the street afterwards and though I don't drink, I was happy to sip ice water while the three of us kept chatting about vintage, blogging, Vancouver, and many other great subjects well into the night. I had no idea when I first stepped foot in New World Designs late on Monday afternoon that not only would I soon be presenting on vintage to crowd, but also that before the evening was up, I would have two new friends from Vancouver. It was an almost surreal chain of events and one that has me seriously thinking that I should - with actual planning involved - give similar presentations on vintage here in the Okanagan, if I can determine that there would be enough interest from the public in them.


5. Just being in the city again: Some people are squarely a city or country person, I however fall into the camp of those who find they adore both and can only go so long in one without greatly missing the other. As awesome and genuinely important as small town living and outdoors serenity both are (a point I delved into earlier this year in this post), I still need a solid hit of city living every now and then few places in Canada can deliver that with the gusto, passion, and beauty as Vancouver. I felt especially alive, recharged and joyful while there and know that it will help set the mood and pace for me throughout the coming summer months, as I power straight ahead with my blogging, Etsy shop running, and day-to-day life.





{All photos in this post were taken by me with my iPhone and can be seen in my Instragram stream - where you can view lots more fun and exciting photos from Vancouver, including some of the vintage outfits I wore while there.}

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Though it had been nearly 7.5 years since my last journey to Vancouver, I can say with great conviction and hope that I don't believe it will anywhere near as long before the next - in fact, I hope to make it back there again at least one more time, if circumstances will permit, before the year is out.
 
I'm wild about Vancouver. I was born a stone's throw away from this vivacious city and truly felt like a powerful love for it was rekindled in a new and exciting way during our recent week there. Though I have a long way to go before I know it like the back of my hand (the ways I do, say, Calgary, where I lived in my late teen years), as we were driving out of town on our way home, passing streets such as Robson, Main, Terminal, and Cordova, I couldn't help but smile gleefully to myself over the fact that I now have a much better an idea of where they are and what they house. I know also that each subsequent trip to Vancouver will help me further piece together and get to know this lively, action filled city on the sea.

Though my bags are unpacked and my purchases tucked away, a bigger part of my heart than ever still remains in Vancouver and it will be all I can do not to start crossing off the days until we just happen to find ourselves saying hello to the otters, hitting up the flea market, and shopping at some of the city's coolest vintage stores again. Oh, how I can scarcely wait!!!

The life and work of Foncie Pulice: Vancouver's best-known street photographer

Long before the world got wind of Scott Schuman (better known to millions of fashionistas as The Sartorialist), many who lived in British Columbia, especially in and around Vancouver, were familiar with their own local street photography celebrity, Foncie Pulice.

Unlike most of the street photographers - be they household names or otherwise - of today, Mr. Pulice wasn't in it for the fame or fortune, he wasn't trying to land his snaps in the pages of cutting edge fashion magazines, score a book deal, or trend across the blogosphere.

Born to Italian immigrant parents early in the century, it was during the thick of the Great Depression, while working as a house painter, that young Foncie (just twenty years old at the time) decided he might have better luck earning a living as a street photographer (an art and profession that had had come to vogue in many cities across the globe in recent decades).

Foncie was able to land himself a job at a local camera shop (that was rather charmingly named Kandid Kamera, located on West Hastings), where he was put to work taking street snaps of interested passerbys on the corner of Hastings and Main Street.




{Foncie Pulice pictured with his sister Ermie, circa the mid-1930s.}
  Business didn't exactly boom in that area however, and after a while Foncie moved further down Hastings (which, to those who are familiar with Vancouver, B.C., was a very different street in those days than what it developed into as the decades rolled on) to a spot right near the lovely part of town that is of Granville.
 
Though a stint in the service during WW2 temporarily saw Foncie leave his beloved Vancouver, after the war he quickly bought a photography studio on Granville and launched his own street photography operation, which he dubbed Foncie's Fotos. Coupled with his wife, Anne (who looked after developing and printing her husband's snaps), Foncie worked long hours and absolutely adored his job.

Once an interested party (or parties) had enjoyed having Foncie capture their image on the street, they later returned to his Granville studio to collect their photographs. Over the years Foncie - whose pictures were sharp, lovely, and often did a very good job of capturing a person the way they wanted to be seen - developed many return customers who were always eager to have him snap their photo, either on the street or in his studio.




{A snapshot of Foncie and his young son, Anthony, taken - more than a little fittingly - on one of Vancouver's streets in 1953.} 


Over the course of an impressive career that spanned from 1934 to 1979, Foncie Pulice shot thousands upon thousands (if not millions) of photographers of people on the streets of Vancouver. His work was not biased, jaded or staged, merely - like all the best street photographers - a candid, accurate representation of exactly how a person looked for one split moment in time.

As the 1970s came to a close and the art of street photography was, at the time, declining in popularity, Foncie and Anne retired to the sunny Okanagan, settling in the city of Kelowna, B.C. (which, coincidentally, is a mere stone's throw away from where I live). Though I never got a chance to meet Foncie (who passed away at the age of 88 in 2003), his wife or children, I like to imagine that he and I would have hit it off swimmingly.



{A portrait - I wonder if it was a self made one - of Foncie during the 1970s shortly before his retirement.} 


We would share in common a deeply rooted love not only taking pictures, but also of the exciting craft street snaps, and by extension of the preservation of British Columbia's history through the medium of photography.

Thankfully, today, The Knowledge Network (a B.C. public broadcast station) has embarked on a project to gather and continue to preserve Foncie's work, and by extension, Vancouver's history through an online website, called Foncie's Corner. This site is devoted solely to his fantastic work, so that past customers and new fans of Foncie Pulice's photography alike can continue to enjoy seeing his terrific snapshots for many more years to come (you can learn more about the project and how you can contribute here).

Over the years you've heard me discuss in numerous posts (such as this one) the fact that I have an extremely deeply rooted passion for vintage Canadian photographs and history. Should they happen to feature my home province of British Columbia, I adore them all the more and am always eager as can be to share a snippet B.C.'s fascinating past with all of you here.

In that spirit, I hope that you’ll all enjoy the following selection of Mr. Foncie Pulice's engaging, split second time capsules of Vancouver history, captured through his humble, yet masterful, entirely lovely street photographs.



{Really, could her whole gorgeous look be any more perfect? Image of Marjorie Stuart Ashdown, who was born in East Vancouver in 1920, taken in 1936.} 



{A lovely young woman, then 20 years, who was in town from Innisfail, Alberta to visit her cousins in 1937.}

{Style and swagger abound from this nicely dressed chap (identified as Henry James Stewart and a bachelor at the time it was taken) while he was on Granville Street in 1937.}



{A woman and her daughter (Patricia) as they pass the Royal Bank of Montreal sometime during the late 1930s. The person who contributed this picture to the collection added that Patricia made all her own clothes, including the wonderful white coat she's sporting here.} 



{One of the things about street photography that I always really enjoy is picking out the interesting details in the background, such as the sign in this 1930s shot of a little girl and (I'm guessing) her father or grandfather, which says "Diamonds, English China, Souvenirs" - certainly your mixed bag of offerings there.} 



{Two cheerful, stylishly dressed 1930s woman - don't you just adore their hats?} 



{Four ladies (identified as Phyllis, Mary, Catherine and Rose) pause to have their photo snapped during a day of shopping.} 



{It's completely lovely fashions across the board on all three of these young women, whose picture was captured in 1939.} 



{More charming fashions, these time captured three years later in 1942, being sported by sisters Colleen and Yvonne Leveque. This photo was taken shortly before Colleen enlisted in the RCAF.} 



{Though the photo itself has seen better days, the image that continues to shine out from it still clearly shows a handsome young couple from 1946.} 



{Two mothers and their sweet little kids snapped in Stanley Park, during the spring or summer of 1947.} 



{A cheerful chap and two smartly attired ladies with lovely hairstyles, circa 1943.} 



{A beautiful close up shot of a smiling young 1940s woman identified as Dodo Mosses.} 



{Quite a few of the photos included in this collection include a little bit of background information about them. In the case of this particular image of a beautifully attired young woman, we're told that her coat was purchased for her by her husband who worked overtime before he shipped out overseas with the RCAF in 1944 so that she would stay extra warm while he was gone. What a heartwarmingly sweet memory.} 



{Between his well coiffed 'do and her stylish trousers, there's much to delight in about this fun shot from 1948.} 



{A woman identified as Dorothy Black walking on Granville Street in 1948. Love her crisp plaid blazer.} 



{A pair of smiling best friends, Hilary and Diane, shopping downtown in 1949. Both ladies were students at King Edward High School on 12th and Oak at the time, and both would later go on to become teachers.} 



{The elegantly attired members of a ladies bridge club. Fantastic hats and handbags one and all!} 



{Foncie didn't just shoot his wonderful street snaps during the daytime. Here we see a young 1950s couple named Don and Anne Kyle on the street in front of the Sky Diner at night.} 



{Two teenage gals having a blast at the PNE in 1953. The accompanying info for this shot comes from one of the ladies pictured here and says that pair earned pocket money by picking blueberries at a local farm. This point struck a touching note with me, because some of my own relatives ran blueberry farms during the mid-twentieth century in the Lower Mainland, too, of which my own mom worked on one of them to earn her own spending money as a teen, too.} 



{As anyone who has spent even a little bit of time in Vancouver will tell you, rain is a very common occurrence there, often necessitating the bringing of an umbrella wherever you go, as was the case for these two gals back in 1954.} 



{There's great fashions and happy faces aplenty in this charming shot of a 1950s couple walking hand-in-hand.} 


{Three beautifully dressed young women, two of whom were in town visiting from the Kootanies, on their way to the movies in 1954.}



{Love the fashionable wiggle dresses these two young ladies are sporting while photographed one day in 1958 while out on their lunch break from work.} 



{Smiles and style abound in this wonderful nighttime shot from 1958, which shows a young woman (who reminds me a little of Ava Gardner) and her date headed to a dance. The couple would later go on to marry and settle in the nearby city of Delta, British Columbia.} 

{All image used throughout this post are via Foncie's Corner.}

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These images speak of a time long gone, yet they seem squarely familiar and are so very easy to relate to. I've never had a street photographer stop and ask to take my snap, but I like to imagine that Foncie might have done just that, if he was still with us and out taking snaps today. After all, in these Canadian parts, a modern gal sporting the fashions of his youth wouldn't have been something that likely walked past Foncie's lens every day.

I hope that you enjoyed seeing a small snippet of Foncie's vast collection of photographs, hundreds more of which can be viewed online day or night, anytime you might be in the mood to enjoy a longer look at work of Vancouver's best known, and most loved, street photographer.