Thursday, January 31, 2013

Grandpa Style: One Cold Ass Honky: Thrift Shop by Macklemore Featuring Wanz

Well!  My vintage mink coat - so very Royal Tenenbaums


finally came out of storage today - and my husband totally ruined the exuberant mood I was feeling about seeing my favorite vintage fur by asking if I had seen the Thrift Shop video on You Tube?  Excuse me?!  Thrift shop??  I beg your pardon!   

Okay, well, the video is too fabulous not to share and probably like many a vintage shopper, you most likely have had a thrift shop moment or two in your past and felt pretty fine about your lucky purchase.  After all, I have heard stories at RARE vintage of Balenciaga gowns given to thrift shops... 

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Paris Haute Couture Spring 2013: Couture for...

Couture for the Modern Girl:

Valentino haute couture spring 2013

Couture for the garden path:

Christian Dior haute couture Spring 2013

Couture for the girl definitely not looking for a princess gown:

Maison Martin Margiela haute couture Spring 2013

Couture for the girl who dreams of " elegance and melancholia"

Chanel haute couture Spring 2013

Couture for the girl inspired by the episode of I Love Lucy when Lucy meets Bill Holden (have you seen the episode? It is hysterical!) :

Giambattista Vali haute couture Spring 2013

Couture for hiding your four children on a date:

Jean paul Gaultier haute couture Spring 2013 

and Couture for the couture milk maid:

Ulyana Sergeenko haute couture Spring 2013

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Michelle Dockery Best Dressed at the SAGs!


Michelle Dockery in RARE vintage at the 2013 SAG Awards!!

I am so thrilled that Michelle Dockery, Lady Mary from Downton Abbey (Downton Abbey people!!), chose a black silk Chado Ralph Rucci with sheer cut outs for the SAG awards from RARE vintage!!

She looks glamorous, sexy, daring and beautiful!



Michelle Dockery in Chado Ralph Rucci from RARE vintage at the 2013 SAG awards!

The Couture is in the Details: The Making of Spring 2013 Chanel haute couture

I always find it a little frustrating that there aren't more detail shots from the haute couture shows available.  The couture is in the details and those details are so often not easily appreciated in photos.

But here is a fascinating look at the making of the beautiful floral dresses from the Chanel haute couture Spring 2013 show.




and can I just say that if I was a fairy princess, this is what I would wear:


Thursday, January 24, 2013

Glamorous Halston: The Evening Collection. Part One. 1970s. A Single Owner Collection

Well, I have posted some really great pieces of Halston for day: a hooded cashmere sweater and skirt - so perfect for a chilly day like today in New York! An electric blue jersey dress that could take you from the office to cocktails, an ultrasuede coat with a silk bias cut ensemble underneath - so chic and minimalist and a few of Elsa Peretti's for Halston perennially cool belts and now finally, I am ready for a little Glamour!

It's time to party like its 1977 and your best friends are Bianca, Mick, Marissa, Andy, Liz and Liza.  

Let's get this party started!  


Let's start with Liza in black sequins and matte jersey.  How gorgeous is her outfit?!


Liza's sequin jacket looks a lot like this simple tank dress with its matching cardigan that we have.




Shiny black sequins are sewn onto silk chiffon.  So fabulous, you can wear it with the tank dress or like La Liza, wear the sequin jacket with matte jersey.  I am thinking a black jumpsuit would be amazing!

So it is about 15 degrees here in sunny New York and if you have an event tonight (the temperature is suppose to be 11 degrees!) and want to look glamorous and be nice and toasty then I would suggest wearing this beautiful yellow cashmere long gown and cardigan like Pat Cleveland back in the day.  It's a sweater and it's slinky...  



 The reason why Halston's cashmeres are so sexy is because they are cut close to the body.


We also have, one of my favorites, this super beautiful silk charmeuse wrap dress with an angled hem.


One of the most iconic and glamourous of Halston's looks for evening is the plunging halter neck gown.


We have a coral matte jersey plunging halter neck gown which you can wear with its matching jersey cardigan - or without.  Halston loved a very matching look and probably would have shown this gown with a coral strappy sandal.




 More to come... to be continued...

Shop our 1970s Halston collection here.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Oooo- oo That Smell! Smells Likes Azzedine Alaia


Azzedine Alaia has just signed a fragrance deal with Beauté Prestige International.

And what will Azzedine smell like?  He loves to cook, he loves women's bodies... how my mind does wander from the kitchen to the bedroom...  calling "Azzedine, Azzedine... un peu de viande de boeuf... Mon amour..."  

hold that thought and stay tuned...


 Dinner chez Alaia, late 1980s.  Photo by Olivier Zahm.

Alaia's dog Dine Dine at Alaia's studio.  Photo Olivier Zahm

Stephanie Seymour and Alaia in 1994.  Photo by Avedon.

Halston and Ultrasuede: An American Love Story. Part Four. 1970s. A Single Owner Collection.

Americans have always been known as a pioneering, self sufficient, practical sort of people.  And Roy Halston Frowick born in the American midwest pioneered a new type of wardrobe for the Amercian woman.  One of simplicity and luxuriousness, of practicality and of glamour.  

Halston first became intrigued by the fabric ultrasuede when he saw the Japanese designer Issey Miyake wearing a jacket he had made of it.

"I flipped" Halston told the New York Times in 1973.  "The material was so soft, so luxurious yet so utilitarian."

I had a little debate with myself about including some ultrasuede pieces in this collection because it has long fallen out of favor but for one thing, it is impossible to have a really great collection of Halston without the ultrasuede.   His name is synonymous with the fabric.  It was practically a uniform for so many women in the 1970s.  It was soft, light, machine washable and came in a wide range of colors: turquoise, violet, coral, fawn, deep navy...  

"I remember being in Greece and putting one of the little ultrasuede dresses over my bathing suit and then after a swim going for lunch with it wet.  It dried beautifully and was ready for travel the next day." recalled Jennifer Jones Simon.

Doesn't that sound so chic and glamorous?!  

So when I started revisiting these ultrasuede pieces, I started seeing something else: they look really modern, really fresh right now in this period of increasing minimalism.   How amazing is this photograph of Marisa Berenson in a Halston ultrasuede jacket, an Elsa Peretti belt and the white pants?!    I would love to put the entire outfit on today.


This is one of my favorites:


Don't you think it would look amazing with a pair of suede Dries van Noten boots with a python heel? Or in early spring with a Celine sandal?

We also photographed it looking very Halston:

Worn with one of Halston's delicious cashmere sweaters tied over the shoulders and an ultrasuede hat.

Halston's ultrasuede hat made its debut on the model Karen Bjornson on the cover of Newsweek in 1972.


I was so excited when I was shown the hat in pristine condition!

This is another great and iconic Halston look:


and we recreated this photo with a deep navy ultrasuede shirtdress, a red leather Elsa Peretti belt and tossed a red cashmere sweater over the shoulders:




To see more or to shop our 1970s Halston collection, click here.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Andrée Putman 1925-2013

The world is a little less glamorous today.  Andrée Putman has died at her home in Paris.

June Newton and Andrée Putman

She created the store interiors for Alaia, Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent.

She was chic, glamorous, and austere but with a bit of softness in her signature coif.  


Andrée Putman's design for the Morgan hotel in 1984


Her style will endure.  Just take a look at Marc Jacobs for Spring 2013...




Friday, January 18, 2013

SEE: Fortuny y Madarazo: An Artistic Legacy

One evening in late November, I went to the opening of the Fortuny y Madrazo: An Artistic Legacy opening at the Queen Sofia Institute.

Photos are by Andrea Cairone for RARE vintage

The QSSI has in partnership with its chairman, Oscar de le Renta, begun an annual costume exhibit which in just three years has become a must see on the fall schedule of shows in New York.  The first exhibit I saw at the QSSI was the beautiful and dramatic Balenciaga: Spanish Master curated by Hamish Bowles which explored the enduring influence of Balenciaga's homeland in the haute couture he designed while living in Paris.

It was not so long ago I saw a Fortuny exhibit in Venice at the palazzo where Fortuny lived and worked, which is now the Fortuny Museum, near San Marco.  It is a very transformative experience to visit the Museo Fortuny.  You step out of the sunlight, the mad crush of tourists and onto the creaking wood floorboards into the dark and enveloping interior of the palazzo.  You are surrounded by Fortuny's textiles, reflector lamps, silk lanterns and paintings.  The paintings are hung lavishly dense, floor to ceiling.

You easily forget yourself admist the collection.  It is almost a shock to look down and find yourself not dressed in a silk pleated Delphos gown.  But Venice has that effect on you: at some point you feel like a character in the Merchant Ivory film Wings of the Dove.  Or that must be on your way to a ball at the Palazzo Labia given by Charles Bestequi.  Or if you arrive in February during Carnevale and take a water taxi when the sky is dark and the palazzos are lit by glass chandeliers blown on the island of Murano, you may see a man on the piano nobile of a palazzo on the Grand Canal in an embroidered frock coat and a powdered wig and you will surely think its the 18th century.

That is Venice, timeless, slipping from one century to another.  But back to Fortuny, not in Venice but in New York.

The exhibit, Fortuny y Madrazo: An Artistic Legacy, at the Queen Sofia Institute is as much about the Fortuny family of artists as it is about Fortuny's fashion.

Fortuny was an artist born into a family of artists in Granada in 1871.

Tempura paints, Delphos fabric swatches, roller used for printing textiles and Fortuny brochure

Fortuny's grandfather and father were famous and exceptional artists but he followed a more independent path become an inventor, a photographer, a fashion designer.  But he always thought of himself as an artist.

His choice of medium was silk, cotton gauze, velvet, glass beads.

The palette for his silk pleated dresses was found in the colors of the sky, the watery canals of Venice and the colors of the sun setting on the Giudecca.

Like many artists in the age of Impressionism, he was inspired by Orientalism, exotic motifs, the artifacts and costumes of the Far East.  He studied the the sculptures of ancient Greece and crafted the classical drapery which adorned those statues not in marble but in silk.

And like a painter painting a nude, Fortuny thought a woman's body should be liberated from corsetry. The dresses, worn without a corset, were initially quite shocking and were worn by women who were not concerned with convention like the Marchesa Casati, Isadora Duncan and Peggy Guggenheim.

Jacket 1930-1940s.  Acqua silk velvet, champagne silk satin.  Delphos 1930s-1940s.  Peach silk satin, silk cord, glass beads.  Both Sandy Schreier collection.

Coat 1920s.  Brown silk velvet, green silk velvet.  Sandy Schreier collection.  Delphos dress.  Gold silk, silk cord, glass beads.  Mark Walsh leslie Chin collection.

Djellaba 1915-1930s.  Ivory silk, aqua silk, glass beads.  Mark Walsh Leslie Chin collection.

This was one of my favorite ensembles in the exhibit:

Jacket 1915-1930s.  Robin's egg blue cotton crepe, silk cord, glass beads.  Sandy Schreier collection.  Delphos dress 1930-1940s.  Cornflower blue silk, silk cord, glass beads.  Worn by Cynthia Gregory.  Regina Drucker collection.

Cynthia Gregory was a ballerina with the Amercian Ballet Theatre in New York.  She was described by Rudolph Nureyev as "America's prima ballerina assoluta".

Coat 1920-1940s.  Apricot silk velvet, metallic print.  Keith H. McCoy collection.   Delphos dress 1920-1940s.  White silk, silk cord, glass beads.  Keith H. McCoy collection.

The very first piece inside the exhibit that you see belongs to one of my dearest friends, the collector extraordinaire, Regina Drucker.  I asked Regina about her collection and this is what she told me:

"Years have passed with many additions but one of my favorite pieces came via Madame Trois, who was once the only dealer in Venice of Fortuny's fabrics and a close friend of the Countess Gozzi.  She lives in a palazzo on the grand Canal that has been in her family for over 200 years.  Every trip my husband and I take to Europe includes a pilgrimage to Venice.  One day she pulled a small box out and within was the most beautiful velvet and gold stenciled drawstring bag.  she offered it to me, as she had no daughters.  I was so taken with the beauty of this gesture.

Regina's bag from Madame Trois.

"A few years ago, with my sister Genevieve, I visited a shop around the corner from Madame Trois.  It had never been open in all of my past visits.  I walked in and there in the back of this dim little shop on a padded hanger over a door, was the most beautiful velvet full length coat.  It shimmered in its pale beauty in the darkness.  I was told that it was made by Fortuny as a wedding gift.  the owner complained that he was closing his shop after 35 years in business as tourists had changed to day-trippers off the gargantuan ships bringing the hoards who stare, eat and buy trinket souvenirs... no one wants antiques anymore and the cost of living in Venice was too prohibitive even for a Venetian.  He closed the following day and the coat is with me now."

Regina's coat (on far left) 1930-1940s.  Aqua silk velvet, peach silk, silk cord, glass beads.  Regina Drucker collection.

Abaya 1920-1940s.  Gold silk velvet.  Keith H. McCoy collection.

(Left)  Kimono 1930-1940s.  Cerulean blue silk velvet, peach silk satin, silk and metallic cord, glass beads.  Worn by the Countess Gozzi.  Fortuny Inc. and the Riad family collection.

The Countess Gozzi was an Amercian interior designer who founded Fortuny Inc. in New York in 1927 and imported the fabrics and dresses of Fortuny.  When Fortuny died, she sold her Italian villa to buy the company.  She remarried and became the Countess Gozzi and went onto work at the Fortuny factory on the island of the Giudecca until she was over 100 years old.


Jacket 1930s.  Pale blue silk gauze.  Mark Walsh Leslie Chin collection.  Delphos dress.  Cornflower blue silk, metallic print, silk cord, glass beads.  Fortuny Inc and Riad family collection.

This was a particularly striking  grouping in the exhibit:

(Left to right) Scarf 1920-1940s.  Sky blue silk gauze.  Mark Walsh Leslie Chin collection.  Delphos dress 1920-1930s.  Aquamarine silk satin, silk cord, glass beads.  Regina Drucker collection.  (Middle) Delphos dress 1930s.  Ice blue silk, silk cord, glass beads.  Keith H.McCoy collection.  (Right)  Scarf 1920-1940s.  Rose print silk gauze.  Mark Walsh Leslie Chin collection. Delphos dress 1930.  Chanpagne silk.  Mark Walsh Leslie Chin collection.

(Left) Chlamys 1920-1940s.  Brown silk velvet, green silk velvet, beige silk satin.  Mark Walsh Leslie Chin collection.  Peplos dress 1930-1940s.  Sage green silk satin, silk cord, glass beads.  Regina Drucker collection.

And what of Fortuny's Delphos and Peplos dresses?  Why are the fabrics still manufactured but not the dresses?  Because Fortuny, who was highly secretive about the process of pleating the dresses, did not want them to be made after his wife Henriette's death.

Lucky for us we can still see the fine Japanese silk that Fortuny set by hand with heated ceramic cylinders into hundreds of fine pleats at the Queen Sofia Institute in New York.

Fortuny Y Madrazo: An Artistic Legacy
at the Queen Sofia Institute
684 Park Avenue
November 30, 2012- March 30, 2012

I would like to thank the Queen Sofia Institute which generously allowed us to photograph in the galleries for the RARE vintage blog.

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