Wearing vintage clothing began as a young girl for me. My father's best friend's wife, (I know that was a mouthful) Phoebe Alexander, was an actress who would bring me bags of clothing from her childhood. It was the mid 70s and I'd have a bag of girl's dresses from the 30s and 40s. I think my love of vintage began then.

High school in the 80s was mainly spent skipped. I lived near Youngstown, Ohio and was conveniently an hour drive from Pittsburgh or Cleveland; since I had "older" friends I would skip school on Fridays and hit estate sales in either city collecting vintage dresses. Buying the good stuff which seemed to be abundantly available back then. Black taffeta dresses, costume paste, shoes, coats, hats, oh yes the good stuff! We had terrific thrift stores in Youngstown too, the Salvation Army, St. Vincent De Paul, Penny Thrift and more. I managed to graduate at the bottom'ish of my large class which is nothing to be proud of but at least I did it in vintage style.

The day of h.s. commencement I was in a car driving to Los Angeles, California with a car filled with vintage clothing and not much more. L.A. was fun, there was Aardvarks in Venice Beach where one of my first scores was a 30s dress owned by the actress Betty Furness. She had penned her name on the clothing label. It was a full length silk floral dress that had a million tiny fabric covered buttons up the back. That dress was a beauty. During the late 80s and early 90s I'd visit my family in Ohio and shop for vintage, buying a vintage suitcase and filling it with clothes to sell to Wasteland on Melrose Avenue in L.A. or to a few private clients who were looking for very specific vintage pieces.

I moved back to Ohio for a few years after the L.A. riots and the '94 Northridge earthquake. There I found the Village Thrift Store and hit pay dirt. That store when it opened was filled with treasures. Also Phoebe Alexander passed away and I was given access to her home to pull all the vintage. Going into her home was one of those "vintage pickers" dreams, hell Phoebe could have been on an episode of Hoarders. She collected things in triplicates. I began in the basement which was an archaeological dig. Mounds of black garbage bags were piled from the floor to the ceiling. As I waded through the layers, I went through many decades and by the time I reached the bags at the floor level, I was well into the 50s. Somehow beautiful beaded sweaters and gowns managed to survive. There were some amazing costumes as Phoebe apparently helped herself to any stage production clothing she may have been in or had access to. This went on all the way up to the third floor in which I had to crawl over a ton of stuff on the steps to reach the top and this took about ten days of major work. I managed to cram all of this vintage into my father's former art studio and eventually the clothes made their way to L.A. when I moved back around '98. I again began selling off pieces to Wasteland.

I now live in Sarasota, FL and while the quest for vintage is still good, it's not the same. Everyone is selling vintage or thinks they are and let's face it, the quality and beauty of the really old stuff is either rotting or has been bought up, not to say that there aren't still things to be found. With disposable clothing becoming so common, and the 90s introduction of grunge, the fabrics are pretty shabby and I find it laughable to touch something synthetic that makes me cringe and was most likely made in China but hey, I was wearing grunge crap although my friend and I called it "Drugstore Cowboy Grunge" because we preferred mixing the 70s into our grunge'esque flannel and faded Levi's.

There are a million vintage stories, I still go to estate sales, mostly in Ohio during the summer and continue to shop here in Florida. I fix what I can and lately I've really been into novelty prints in nylon from the early to mid 70s. Let's face it, if you don't have serious dough, the good stuff just isn't as attainable as it was when I was a teenager. Life goes on and the thrill of the vintage hunt continues!

Phoebe Alexander - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0018675/
Betty Furness - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0299026/
www.atomicholidaybazaar.com