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by Rosemary Lee Potter
Special to Tropical Breeze

First there was delightful three-year-old Sonia Katarzyna Kotusinski whose sense of time and fashion taste clearly was shown early in attire and even the way she posed in a 1930s hat with an ostrich feather in it and a string of beads. Enjoying watching Katherine Hepburn movies with her folks, she got to wear 1960s and 1970s clothes her mother had saved and vintage items she selected. She wore them to school, even when nobody her age was doing any such thing.

By choice Sonia gravitated toward deco and ’50s period chic clothing, photos, kitchen items, accessories and jewelry once so popular, revived now by collectors—and Sonia.

The result, this strikingly statuesque, slender young woman, vintage-glamorous right to a 1940s brightly-colored hibiscus flower in her deliberately deep dark hair, makes quite an impression!  For years, fine-tuned to fashion detail and extremely particular choice, no wonder she catches and directs attention to her detailed fashion choices and much else today. Certainly her middle school students in home economics (now called Family and Consumer Science) are fascinated by her taste in kitchen and advertising vintage objects in her classroom, even her tattoo of an antique sewing machine.

Furnishings in her own home — everything from Kewpies and 1950s dishes and to divans and photos — are set off with vintage posters and photos each with a special story or related collectible.

Enter then, John Duggan. He met Sonia at a concert in Tampa’s famous Ybor City—long an historical Cuban-styled district, noted once for Cuban cigar-making factories, still for delicious Cuban food, and now for lively night life!

John and Sonia, each looking at life with an artist’s eye, found in each other their eye for love as well and planned a lifetime, beginning with the flair fun of a vintage wedding, which is so much them! He designed invitations and they first went with 1950s as a goal — the clothes, details.

Sonia found the perfect 1960s gown in luminous crème chiffon and tulle, soft pink gossamer-like in the back detail. It was brand-new, at a vintage gown house, La France (Ybor), this one with a price tag of $450. Sonia purchased it for $30! Then the six bridesmaids found the perfect vintage dresses, too. However, in an autumn house fire, all of the attendants’ perfect gowns were destroyed!

Restarting the gown hunt, the whole wedding party went to Old Florida as a theme. Sonia and John booked the Ybor City Historic Museum for both the wedding and reception!

Take it from there. Picture now new vintage pink and black bridesmaids dresses; bridal shower magnets in the style of brightly-colored Old Florida postcards; colorful cigar box centerpieces filled with coffee beans and a vanilla fragrance candle; RSVP envelope postage stamps with an intricate 1930s-like heart design; John wearing a James Bond style black shirted, formal attire; Orange Blossom wine and local quality beers; vintage posters and souvenir Ybor City pens; sample music: “In My Arms Once Again.”

Imagine by the light of the old lamp posts nearby, this bridal couple enjoys their ceremony and celebration, theirs a new note added to the historical setting both love and know so well!

One never knows where a collecting adventure will take one. Or when. Much happiness, Sonia and John!