OOTDs...Or Is It Outfits Of The Weekend?

I never do OOTDs, because frankly, my workaday outfits have left a little bit to be desired lately. Think yoga pants, random T-shirt, hoodie, and sneakers...not even vintage sneakers. Hey, I work in front of the computer in my own house! Who am I trying to impress, here? But I digress...

This past weekend I got a chance to do my vintage thing TWICE!

First up, Saturday morning:

This is one of my favorite novelty-print early-60's dresses. It has clocks and calendars and the days of the week written in French, which totally reminds me of the French teacher/tutor I had in 6th grade, Madame Clinard. I can hear her voice in my head right now..."Bonjour, Dina!!!" The cashmere (mmmm, cashmere) sweater is an estate sale find. Shoes are thrifted, not vintage, but whatever. I was telling my hubby the other day that if a person has a whole wardrobe of vintage shoes, they are truly hard-core. You may notice there's no Bakelite happening here...I was going to a religious service where you need to be vewwy, vewwy quiet!

Here's Sunday:

Going to the Vintage Fashion Expo in Santa Monica. Dress is a 40's Etsy find. I got it for a steal, because it needed somewhat major restoration, something I love to do wen I have the time! You can't see it, but the scarf in my hair is a souvenir scarf from Hawaii, an estate sale find. The handbag is one of my MoMosMadness creations...an upcycled 60's handbag with my own hand-painted tiki design. Bakelite earrings and bangles were bought from mix of places...estate sales, antique stores, eBay, etc. Shoes are thrifted, vintage repro's.

Hmmm, that was fun! Maybe there are more OOTD's in my future! What do you guys think? should I do more?

 

 

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A Day In The Life...Estate Sale Madness

I'm thinking you lovely readers might enjoy a peek into my daily work life.
Something I do a few times a month is go to estate sales. I've learned the hard way that the early bird gets the worm, and by worm I mean the killer vintage goods...

So here I am at 5:50 a.m, in the pouring rain, a couple mornings ago.
You can't tell from the pic, but it's pitch dark out. And pouring rain. Did I mention it was raining?

'Scuze the blurry pic...there was water on the lens! I may look like I was having fun, but I wouldn't say getting up that early is ever fun. I'm actually laughing in the pic because I'm amazed that a fellow dealer was already there and had been there since 5 am!! He's really happy because he's #1 on the list.

What we do is start a list of names, and that list determines who gets to go in first. After scoring that coveted spot on the list, I usually go home for an hour or so (if the sale is close to my house) or go to Denny's, Starbucks or something and wait til the sale starts.
This sale was supposed to start at 10:00am. By this point the rain had tapered off. The estate sale company was nice enough to put up a canopy so that everyone wouldn't be drenched. It's a small crowd because this is a mailing-list only pre-sale day...the sale to the public opened the next day. Pretty much everyone in the photo is a "dealer" of some sort...except one lady who was dying to get a nice set of Brown Jordan Art Deco-style patio furniture. I hope she got it!!
 

let us in or we'll riot!

Here I am looking ticked off because it was about 10:20 and they still hadn't opened the doors.

This is my usual estate sale-going attire: hat to cover my bedhead, washable dark colored jacket to deflect weather and dirt, small hands-free purse (some estate sale companies won't even let you bring in a purse this small...you have to just carry your wallet in...I hate that) and tucked under my arm is a ginormous shopping bag that folds up really small.

So, what do you get for waking up at the crack of dawn and standing in line in the rain (oh, and a pile of cash)?
If you're lucky, quick, and plan your strategy well, you get a pile o' vintage booty like this!

At this sale I got mostly 60's stuff. A few gorgeous beaded cardigans, some killer gold lame' shoes with rhinestones on the heels, a few fun purses, and lots of other goodies.
I got several beautiful silk cheongsam dresses, which is wonderful because I'm currently reading a book I ordered from Amazon called "In The Mood For Cheongsam".

I also scored a couple of fabulous coats, including this snakeskin-print early 60's raincoat

My February Elle magazine had lots of snakeskin!!

and this fun striped number:

Yowza!!I dare you to have S.A.D. in this!!

Like a lot of my estate sale finds, both coats need mending...the snake coat has a cuff that's dangling off. I'm hoping I can fix it on my sewing machine. The striped coat needs buttons...they're all missing.
All these goodies will make it into my Etsy shop at some point!!

Estate Sale FAIL

Usually when I buy vintage items I'm really careful to check them over first, to make sure they're in good shape, but estate sales can be so hectic (with all the other dealers hanging all over you like vultures) and frequently it's also really dark inside the houses. So occasionally I end up buying something that turns out to be a total dog once I get it home and into good lighting. It hasn't happened in a while, so I guess I thought my buying skills were improving...think again!

Example:  take these lovely gloves...you can't see it in the pic, but they are covered with elaborate beading. Really beautiful!

Here's what happened when I went to slip my hand in:

Aaaaarrrrggghhhhh! Ka-BLAM!! That puppy blew apart like it was made of tissue paper. Sad face.

I'd never had that happen with a pair of gloves! I think it's funny the way that, just when you think you've got it all figured out, guess what? You don't! Oh well, live & learn, right?

Oh, and , yes...that's me. I figured I'd set the bar low and show myself for the first time sans makeup, uncurled hair, crummy clothes. That way I have nowhere to go but up! :-)

Estate Sale Tales, Episode One

This morning I went to an estate sale in Bel Air, which if you're not familiar with Los Angeles, is a really fancy-schmancy part of Beverly Hills, where a lot of celebrities live.
This one was a first for me...we (the shoppers) actually had to park off-site and be taken by van to the home, which was behind a big gate on Sunset Blvd.
The lady of the house was a truly inspirational gal...she was a real spitfire! Teeny tiny, and with bright-red hair, she apparently got a boob job at 82 years old (!!!) and was so proud of it that she'd show anyone who wanted to look. She was a MAJOR shopper and a bit of a hoarder in the fashion department. She had over 500 pairs of shoes! Yes I said 500! Piles and piles of purses, jewels, clothes...an absolute mountain of lingerie and negligee sets...I've never seen so many. Needless to say there were a million clothing dealers like myself there all vying for the best stuff.
Here's what I managed to grab:

Mostly from the early 80's, purses, shoes, belts, gloves, etc.
Unfortunately, this lady wasn't much of a long-term "saver" and there wasn't a thing there that was before about 1979, but still, I got some cute stuff.
I'm thinking about keeping one of those two pairs of fabulous sunglasses in the front, there...they look amazing on!

I also got two things for myself:

this cute summer bag with straw veggies on the front, and...

this cool flower. It's made of a shiny faux-patent leather. It's got a pin back on it right now, but I think I'm going to convert it to a hair flower. I love it!

All the other goodies are going up in my Etsy store as soon as I can inventory/clean/photograph and list them!

Estate Sale Haul and Behind The Scenes

This past Saturday morning, like many Saturday mornings, I went to an estate sale.

Many of you may wonder where people who sell vintage clothes get their stock, and one source that I use a great deal are estate sales...in case you aren't familiar, an estate sale is a sale held by a private, professional company  of the entire contents of a person's home, including their furniture, clothing, housewares, and everything else down to the cleaning products under the sink (not kidding) and the potted plants in the backyard. Most of the time, this person has passed away, and the estate sale company is hired by the family to help. Sometimes families attempt to do this themselves. Sometimes the person has not passed away, but has just moved to another home such as a relative's or residential care facility (this is technically called a "living" estate sale). Many people get estate sales confused with  regular old garage or yard sales and boy oh boy, they are definitely not the same!!

These sales get started very early in the morning and, here in L.A., there is usually a huge line (sometimes 100 people or more) by 8:00am. The first person in the door gets the best stuff so many people (myself included) get there at the crack of dawn to stake out a spot in line. I sometimes wait for 2 hours or more, in the cold, sitting on someone's porch or driveway. It can actually be kind of fun to talk to the other people in line...frequently they are other dealers like me, and every dealer has their specialty. There's the record dude, the sterling silver guy, the old musical instrument man, the young guy who looks for vintage toys...I love it when there are mostly men 'cause then I know I'll have the ladies clothes to myself! This rarely happens, though...usually there are a handful of other gals and we all stand around sizing each other up :-)

Things sometimes get rough! A lot of people make their living this way so they are dead serious. Dead serious enough that at a recent sale there was a big fight and someone threatened to get a gun, and the police were called! Crazy, huh? Thankfully I skipped that one:-)

Well, it's a rather cutthroat bit of business, and getting up in the dark at 4:30 a.m. is never fun, but the early bird truly does get the worm. Check out some of my "worms"! Hehe!

just part of my "haul" including some gorgeous bags

 Look for some of these finds to show up in my Etsy shop very soon!