Alligators, Old Mink and New Money: One Woman's Adventures in Vintage Clothing
Alison Houtte
Language: English
Pages: 256
ISBN: 0060786671
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
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dug through my favorite snapshots of my family, looking for just the right “signature” image for my white shopping bags. Something that said vintage without being clichéd or too cute or too upper-crust. The first one I used was my parents’ wedding-day photo, from January 1950. It shows a young man and woman standing, looking happy. Mom has long, dark hair and is wearing a simple fitted day suit with heels, with a three-orchid corsage on her wrist. The next photo that decorated the bags is also
definitely. The space, 321 Flatbush, was the current home of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Church offices. It was a rather sad space from the outside, plain like its immediate neighbors—a tired dry cleaner and a faded one-hour photo-processing shop. These businesses looked as if they had been there forever. That’s what I saw first. Then I turned around, and I fell in love. Looking past the belching trucks, ignoring the squealing brakes, I could see Seventh Avenue stretching straight in front of me
longtime girlfriend. A promising profile, at least superficially, right? But the issues that surfaced during our two-year relationship were big ones. When we were in the country, he refused to stop for garage sales, and when we were in California—both of us on business and staying at the Chateau Marmont—he wouldn’t introduce me to his parents because he was Lebanese and they would never accept me. He was embarrassed to admit this and didn’t want to talk about it, ever. And, to be honest, I
habits. “You better watch your weight, you’re still a model,” he reminded me periodically. And this from a guy with a bit of a gut—a point I made to him more than once. But my diet was leaning more toward Pennsylvania auction food—pierogi, french fries and doughnuts, which my friend Nancy always had waiting for me at her store and still does. I invariably go for the most decadent ones—chocolate covered and cream filled—but Nancy doesn’t take any chances. An assortment, from a little bakery down
vintage education has come from hands-on experience, as well as the guidance of friends and customers, and I suspect that many of my customers have learned the same way—and keep learning. But shopping for vintage is as much about style confidence as it is about knowing the finer points of dating clothes according to metal zippers or being able to say whether something was late sixties or early seventies. Who cares, really, if you like what you’re seeing in the mirror or holding in your hand? I
