Australian pop star Kylie Minogue shopped here during her last visit to Berlin, choosing this particular shop among many to buy an amazing load of vintage goods. Although Berlin boasts a reputation as a wet dream for junk hunters and vintage fashionistas, there’s a lot of crap on the market. To run a vintage shop with substance behind it takes wisdom, taste and competence on the part of the merchant. Andrea boasts all three. She moved all her precious junk (with husband and daughter) from Paris, where she ran a similar boutique, to set up shop in Prenzlauer Berg.
Memory offers items she’s been collecting over the years, and the results of her mum’s indefatigable skimming of attics, cellars and warehouses in southern Germany. You’ll find sewing paraphernalia (cool 1960s-1970s buttons, Burda patterns, etc.), one-of a kind lamps (a touch-sensitive lamp for €40) and retro furniture (tables, chairs, one sofa), tea and coffee sets (a few art deco pieces). There are selected items of women’s clothing (a Sonia Rykiel sweat shirt, funky blouses, and even a bridal gown!), jewelry, watches, shoes and accessories like Moschino belts, 1970s metal necklaces and lots of clips. It’s paradise for handbag fetishists – no wonder, the owner is a self-confessed one herself. Add to that adorable skirts, dresses and shirts for kids and retro toys (1970s Barbie furniture, 1960s dollhouse items, board games). And a few curios: like those funky yellow plastic Berlin bears with a TV tower in their arm – a charm that Ossis used to hang from the mirror of their Trabis – or an original plastic 1980 Moscow Olympic Games bear – more plastic Ostalgie memorabilia.
