Swing For Japan

I attended Swing For Japan last night in New York City. I decided to dress vintage and represent Model J in all my finery for the evening. I ended up wearing a tulip print wrap dress in beige and black with a lovely satin tie, patterned fishnets, suede open toe pumps with bows and a vintage 1950’s velvet and mink headpiece.

At Swing For Japan in velvet & mink 50's headpiece w/Paolo Pasta Lanna.

The disparate eras worked very well together and I got a lot of compliments. One funny occurrence was that the hat blended in so well with my hair that it looked like I was wearing elaborate bangs instead of a headpiece. Hmmm. Too funny!

This was a wonderful event filled with great music and entertainment as well as excellent donations for some serious raffling. (I think I just made that word up…) It seemed like a sizeable amount was raised to help the Japanese relief effort and many raffle winners went home with boxes of chocolate, gift certificates to a host of establishments and services, as well as a cooking class for 8 as the grand prize. I was excited to find out that George Gee‘s son won my $25 Model J Vintage gift certificate that I donated, knowing that his wife Mutsumi would end up with it. I hope I have something she likes for herself.

Someone else donated some beautiful vintage clothing and I couldn’t resist trying things on. First off the hanger was a green wool skirt and sweater set from the 1930’s. It fit me perfectly. Uh oh. The sweater is cashmere with a wool neckpiece that matches the skirt. The skirt is long, with two front pleats, and curiously only lined in the front. Hmmm. I wonder why. I will have to take a closer look at that. The zipper is on the right side too which is unusual. Next I tried on two 1950’s dresses that were just too darn small. If one of them had been larger than the size “0” it seemed to be I might have bought it to resell. Lastly I tried on a plaid wool skirt that didn’t seem like much until I put it on. Ooh la la! It fit perfect and is a full circle skirt in a light tan color that looked, well, amazing.  I am not generally allowed to buy things for myself but these vintage beauties had to come home with me. They fill a gap in my personal collection: vintage daywear. I also took home a purse, entirely hand beaded and handmade in France.  I bought this to sell but who knows. It is so lovely it might have to live with me for a while before I can bear to part with it!

Last but not least, I spotted the beautiful blue satin asian themed 50’s wiggle dress with matching jacket and though it didn’t look like much on the hanger I knew it was a knockout outfit. It was in pristine condition. I spotted one of my customers across the room and just knew it would fit her. She tried it on and it was perfect. It was good to help make a sale for the Japanese relief effort and make a customer extremely happy 🙂

Adjustable dress form

Ooooh, the dress form is sweet! All put together and playing with putting clothes on it and checking out the adjustable parts.

This is actually an old post I found that I never published! I’ve had this dress form for a while and love it. Easy to use, great to lay out alterations or create something new. It is a little lightweight but I expected that. I think higher end versions might have a little more heft and hence stability. This works just great for my needs 🙂

Vintage 1950’s Dining Set up on eBay!

A vintage yellow formica Dining Set from the 1950’s went live today on eBay! It will be up for 10 days. Please take a look and see if you are interested. It’s a nice size for NYC apartments. I love the bright yellow table top and the light yellow of the chairs. They work well together and make it more subtle than if everything was so bright. I’m taking a chance listing it for .99 cents to start. I hope that it draws a crowd of buyers. This is only my second listing on eBay so I’m still overly excited about it. More coming soon as well as listings on Etsy!

Private Fittings

I had the pleasure of doing a private fitting with a local NYC Lindy dancer who saw my clothes at an event but didn’t have time to try on anything as her dance card was full.  This is often the case. A mutual Lindy dancer friend made the introduction via email and we embarked on  some virtual shopping. First she gave me her approximate size and style interests. Then I looked through my stock, measured items and photographed them, and sent her the photos via email with prices. Next we set up an appointment. On the day of I packed a suitcase with the skirts she liked plus a few other items I thought she might like and a couple of skirts that seemed a bit small but that might work. We met up and she tried on all the skirts and we both reviewed them on her. She ended up purchasing five skirts and staying within her budget. A successful first private fitting for Model J Vintage and a very satisfied customer.

Here are a few of the skirts she took home with her:

Super twirly trumpet skirt by Atmosphere, a UK brand.

Red Silk Polka Dot Skirt w/Belt and Pleats

NYC skyline print 1950's style full circle skirt

Gap stretch cotton flare skirt, perfect for Balboa!

She got a selection of skirts great for dancing different swing styles including Lindy, Charleston, Balboa and a little rockabilly.