Today was a new experience for me, which happens rarely after 6 years of living here. I had to go button shopping!
Thank god for the “dressmaker’s paradise”! This is an odd funny little store which came in handy for two things here..
1) when there was no other option for bringing up wedding bands besides using a frilly little cushion thingy for our wedding. When the church said I had to have one, I was clueless! Where do you buy something like that here? An old woman pointed me to the PARADISO DELLE SARTE (the dressmaker’s paradise)!
2) Today I needed buttons to replace on a coat of mine. Where else but this dressmaker’s paradise!? (sorry i just love the sound of that) All kinds of buttons! Too bad I didn’t have the guts to take a picture inside.
I found out that this kind of specialized store is called a “merceria”. Then I started wondering what in the world would this kind of store would be called in English? It was different than an arts and crafts store… after all, they sold a bunch of bras too! Well thanks to word reference I discovered that it was a HABERDASHERY! Another great word! But what exactly is a haberdashery? A dealer in small articles for sewing like BUTTONS, zippers and ribbons!
I loved this haberdashery dressmaker’s paradise experience this morning!
"mercerie", maybe it would be called a hardware store, but the old style hardware store (not home depot). i have faint memories of one with all sorts of stuff that my grandmother would rummage through.
haberdashery is a fantastic word!!!! i never knew what it meant before either. i cannot wait for some conversation to arise where i can use my newly acquired language!!! i may just walk around saying it.
thanks haley! yea.. i never really knew what that was before either.. i always thought it had something to do with Hats! are there any haberdasheries where you live?