How to Find Top-Quality Vintage Online, Part 1

It's not easy when you can't see the interior, feel the fabric, or appreciate the workmanship as a whole (which together amount to the best way to find fantastic vintage when it's right under your nose).

However, there are some tactics an online shopper can deploy to cut through the middling pieces on the vast virtual rail.

One is to search using keywords that point directly to clothes that were made with great care.

Example. Have a look at socialite Babe Paley's jacket above. It's by London couturier Digby Morton, 1946. Might such an item ever appear on eBay or Etsy? Possibly. But if you keyword "couture" to find it, you'll call up a warehouse worth of dodgy merchandise, from pantihose to pet collars, that have nothing to do with finely tailored clothing.

Instead of going for the obvious, you need to think sideways. Like . . . look at the flapped pocket on Babe's jacket. How it's placed, sitting almost horizontal to the waistline. This is a couture detail: in which the ordinary is tweaked into extraordinary because there's the design inspiration, sewing talent, time, and above all, money to do so.

This pocket is quietly dramatic, everything a couture detail ought to be. Bing! I jumped onto eBay and keyworded "diagonal pocket" and "vintage", just to see what would come up.

Result: nothing ultra-extraordinary, but two things really quite nice indeed, the old-school plaid hacking jacket below from Jaeger, which is a great autumn piece for somebody looking to look poshly countrified.

Even more interesting, the highly tailored cocktail dress from Givenchy, labeled couture (almost certainly not haute couture, which would have been hand tailored for an individual, but high-end ready to wear. I'm guessing it dates to the late 80s, in the twilight years before Galliano, McQueen, and Tisci were brought in to revivify the brand). The dress looks quiet in the photo but I bet is absolutely the bomb when it's on the right figure, dressed up Parisian style with sheer black stockings and very high stilettos.

The point? It's the details that count, again and again. I never would have found these two items without the help of just the right keywords. We'll look at some others as the week goes on.



(photo of Babe Paley by Clifford Coffin for British Vogue, 1946)

How to Wear a Falcon, by Lucian Freud

Another off-topic entry about a man nicely accessorized by a beast, this time Lucian Freud in his younger years (who today is considered one of our greatest painters).

One might fairly ask "dude what are you doing with that bird in the house"--a question the artist would dismiss as tediously bourgeois.

His grandfather Sigmund might diagnose it to be a symbol of some kind. I'll leave to you puzzle out what.

Back tomorrow with on-topic fashion.

(photo Lucian Freud 1947, by Clifford Still, from British Vogue 1948)

How to Wear a Cougar, By Steve McQueen

So it has nothing to do with vintage fashion (unless you're talking one million years bc)--but saw this and couldn't resist . . . could you?


What I like best? There is something about his mouth that says "this is BULLSHIT, but yeah, this time I'll play along . . ."

(photo from The Selvedge Yard, a brilliant repository of photos on the subject of fashion, sport, rock stars, bikers, and pretty much all things cool and male)

How to Wear: Off-the-Shoulder Blouse

Little doubt in anyone's mind that Sophia Loren could front an off-the-shoulder peasant blouse with authority, as she does above in her first English-language film, The Pride and the Passion.

But one need not be a Mediterranean bomba to pull the look off, as Doris Day proves below.


The simple necessities are these:

1) Glossy skin
2) Not a lot of froufrou at the neckline--a skinny chain at best. Hoop earrings would be great, though.
3) A relatively covered-up bottom half. If you wore short-shorts with a blouse like this, the impact of the shoulders would be lost.
3) A blouse whose edging draws attention to the lovely boundary of clothed and unclothed, example from eBay below.



Image of Sophia Loren from Dr. Macro's High Quality Movie Scans, many thanks. Image of Doris Day from the fab Unofficially Doris: The Doris Day Web Forum, many thanks too!

A Day at the Races: But which Hat?

Just learned that after 15 years of living in England, I'm finally getting the opportunity to attend Royal Ascot, a day of racing in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen, and arguably the high point of the British social calendar.

Here, from Ascot's own website, are tips (meaning instructions) on what to wear:

Her Majesty’s Representative wishes to point out that only formal day dress with a hat or substantial fascinator will be acceptable. Off the shoulder, halter neck, spaghetti straps and dresses with a strap of less than one inch and miniskirts are considered unsuitable. Midriffs must be covered and trouser suits must be full length and of matching material and colour. Gentlemen are required to wear either black or grey morning dress, including a waistcoat, with a top hat. A gentleman may remove his top hat within a restaurant, a private box, a private club or that facility’s terrace, balcony or garden. Hats may also be removed within any enclosed external seating area within the Royal Enclosure Garden.

OK, enough about the men, who cares, back onto the ladies. How to pick a hat for such a chapeau-centric event? What decade? What style? What price?

Whether you're attending Ascot, the Kentucky Derby, a splashy wedding, or garden party, I think the answer ought to be vintage, but more importantly, think less about making a "statement" with the hat (which is likely to come off as cartoonish) and more about looking amazingly gorgeous in it. This means knowing what kinds of hats suit you. This further means going to a vintage fair or large vintage shop, or a good department store, or even a mall accessories outlet like Claire's (US) or Accessorize (UK) and trying on a bazillion different hats to see what works, as a first step.

If you're lucky, you'll find the perfect hat this way, but if nothing is quite right and you'd like to have a go at the much wider and typically far-better-priced offerings of the online vintage world, more steps are necessary. First, measure your head's circumference around the brow with a tapemeasure, and write this down. Never buy a hat that does not meet or slightly exceed this measure, for it will drive you mad otherwise. Now you are ready to consider shopping for a hat online.

What sort of hats suit you? I know I can't wear: pillboxes, cloches, sculptural caps, black. Wide and medium brims work, but not too wide, because you need to be model-tall to carry these off. While I love the idea of hats of lots of old vintage trim, this can very often looked faded and tatty with age and the effect is less garden party than Miss Havisham gone to seed.

After a long troll through eBay and Etsy, I came up with these candidates . . .





The hat at top, a vintage number from Atlantic City, appeals because it is such a feral hybrid of a top hat and an old-lady floral. The colors are great too. If I could look half as good in it as the flipping hat dummy, I'd be doing very well with this item.

The middle entry is not terribly old--from the 80s, and the freshness really shows. Plus, its construction is immaculate, and as picture hats go, it's dramatic without veering into ridiculous (you should see some of the gear they wear at this event). The slight downside is the price, which is probably more than I would consider for an item I couldn't try on.

I'm very much in love with the feather headdress at bottom, which looks like it would rest like a cloud upon your head. And I have to admit the seller is doing no wrong by evoking church ladies and their magnificent hats in her title for the entry.

Decisions, decisions. But what happy ones.

Crime Against Caninity or . . .

. . . shaggin' wagon styling comes full circle?

More photos here. Why the New York Times put the article in the Sports section instead of Style is one of the many other mysteries of this subgenre of dog grooming.

What's Black and White and Cool All Over?

I have a such a weakness for shoes that are mirror images of each other: left, meet right, ooh you're getting along so well!

In terms of vintage history, these most typically source from the Mod era of the early 60s, when the graphic geometries of circle, square, triangle and rectangle found their ultimate expression in the similarly absolute hues of black and white.

Throw in a matching bag, and the deal is sealed, no? If the shoe fits, and you've got a hip wedding to go to, you could build the entire outfit around this very ensemble; white sheath for day, black for night.