Summer is... Valentino and Jackie Kennedy

Jackie Kennedy has always epitomized summer style to me.   Easy glamour, windswept hair, a head scarf, a flat sandal, a bit of a ruffle and Valentino by her side.

Have you seen the book 'Un Mito nel Mito' (which translates as a myth within a myth)?  It is a small book of photographs by Settimio Garritano of Jackie Kennedy Onassis' holidays in Capri from 1969-1973.

And to me it is the Bible of Summer Style...

Summer is Jackie Kennedy Onassis in a turquoise headscarf and sunglasses:

Summer is Jackie in a ruffled skirt (I love this outfit):

Summer is Jackie in a flat sandal - and better yet, an Agnelli:

Summer is Jackie and Valentino in Capri:

Summer is a turquoise Valentino silk skirt with a bit of a ruffle and a white tulle top trimmed with white beads which give the illusion of coral:

Just add your favorite sandals and a big ol' pair of sunnies and voliá!  Jackie style!

Valentino turquoise silk ruffle skirt, white tulle beaded top.  Size 6.  

Only available at RARE vintage.

Please email info@rarevintage.com or phone 212.581.7273 for more information.

Stephanie in Valentino Haute Couture

I am always so thrilled that the pieces I buy for RARE vintage go to the right person.  There is something that just clicks and we all know it immediately that the stars have aligned and a piece is a perfect fit for the client.   And I am really, seriously all about perfection - I don't want to see a client going out of RARE vintage looking anything less then amazing and beautiful ever.

And when a vintage piece, goes to its new home, it goes with its story.  Sometimes the story needs to be shrouded in mystery because the original owner wishes to remain anonymous - sometimes the story goes with the piece.  But its history continues to be built with each owner who thrills to the sight of it and the excitement of having it in her closet.

This is one such story...

A double faced daffodil yellow cashmere Valentino haute couture coat from the 1980s came to RARE vintage.  It  was then worn by Lady Gaga for her Thanksgiving Special.  And she even cooked a turkey in it!  

And then shortly afterwards, we received a ton of phone calls asking about the coat - but it had already found its new home with Stephanie.  

Stephanie wore it to the haute couture shows in Paris and made it her own by wearing a white fur hat and over the knee boots.  Stephanie and the Valentino coat had another moment in the pages of Vogue Japan.  Thank you Stephanie for looking so perfect in our Valentino haute couture coat!  

And FYI, Stephanie is not only stylish, sweet, funny and beautiful - very Alfred Hitchcock cool blonde - but she also has a website, The Collecte, which discovers and promotes new designers from fashion to home decor and you can visit it here. 

Babe Paley in Valentino Haute Couture?

Babe Paley in Valentino haute couture?

I think so...

our (sold) Valentino haute couture dress from 1967 looks very much like the very chic Babe Paley's don't you think? 

At Cannes: A Little Bit Goes A Long Way

So one of my all time favorite songs is Mambo No 5 by Lou Bega...  and here is a sampling of the lyrics:

A little bit of Monica in my life

A little bit of Erica by my side

A little bit of Rita is all I need

A little bit of Tina is what I see

A little bit of Sandra in the sun

A little bit of Mary all night long...

So when I saw - gasp - the photos of Madame Polanski, Emmanuelle Seigner, giving a whole lot of everything on the red carpet at Cannes, I immediately thought of Lou Bega's 'A little bit" song because, Honey, a little bit goes a long way...

You just can't do T and A - or is it T and C - at the same time...

Gianni Versace: For Richer, for Poorer

Gianni Versace's safety pinned pieces of the early 1990s were taken from the tattered t-shirts and pants of the punk movement - from kids, who, if their clothes were torn, they just pinned them back together - and translated into something super luxe and super glamorous.

The safety pins were adorned with the Versace logo: the head of Medusa.  The slashes were not raw edged but neatly sewn.  But nevertheless there was still a feeling of rebellion in them.   When Elizabeth Hurley wore Versace's slashed and safety pinned gown to her beau Hugh Grant's movie premiere, she shocked and sensationalized the typical red carpet dress - and launched her career.

I was so thrilled to find this Gianni Versace Couture ensemble for RARE vintage - the jacket is fully 'slashed' and large gold safety pins replace the usual button closures.  The ensemble is sold with its original skirt.

Versace slashed 'Le Smoking' jacket: 

detail:

Gianni Versace in a slashed sweater back in the day with Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington in safety pin dresses:

For more information or to purchase, please email info@rarevintage.com 

or phone 212.581.7273

Gianni Versace and the Plump Mermaids

Summer is here!  Finally!  in New York.  And just in time for Memorial Day and summer holidays in the Hamptons, the South of France, Sardinia, Tuscany, Greece...  so my mindset immediately shifts to the hunt for chic resort wear.  

One of my favorite new finds for RARE vintage is this amazing Gianni Versace couture silk top.  I am very selective when buying Gianni's silk shirts because some of them can be, well, a tad too Miami back in the day, for me personally.  

But this one - which has no buttons - it just ties in the front - has an incredible print of plump mermaids floating on the front with their tails wrapping around the side of the shirt was too incredible to pass resist.  There are golden Medusa heads too and then a more restrained (for Gianni who could go a little wild with these silk tops) colorful stripes on the back.  There are also gumdrop yellow buttons with Medusa's on the cuffs - and these are almost one of my favorite things about this blouse.

Gianni Versace's plump mermaids:

the golden Medusa's:

Who I Spys a mermaid tail?

Very fabulous with jeans, shorts, a white pant don't you think?!

Monday's RARE vintage Photo of the Week #3: Tina Chow

Is there any better way to start a stylish week off then with the super stylish Tina Chow?  As I am certain you know, we have had an unsurpassed collection of Tina Chow's jewelry at RARE vintage which has been an enormous privilege as well as an enormous source of excitement for me personally and, of course, also for our clients.

Tina Chow could wear a grey cashmere sweater and black Kenzo pants, brand spanking new haute couture from the newly appointed designer for Chanel Karl Lagerfeld in 1983, vintage haute couture from Balenciaga, Vionnet, Poiret and Fortuny with such ease and casual chic that her unerring sense of style has made her one of the best dressed women of all time.

But she was not just a woman of style - she was a woman of substance - which I really think most super stylish women are.  A true sense of style is found in women who love not just fashion but history and design.  

This is one of my favorite photos of Tina Chow.  She is wearing a Fortuny silk pleated gown with her own jewelry.  

Tina Chow in Fortuny and Tina Chow jewelry

It has been erroneously published that she was wearing lucite (!) jewelry with her Fortuny gown but she is in fact wearing her own amazing crystal quartz cuff and bracelet and one of her spectacular bamboo wrapped Kyoto bracelets.

Tina Chow's sense of style is unique to her and it continues to inspire us...  as Yves Saint Laurent said, "Fashion fades, style is eternal".  Tina Chow is eternal...

I am always looking for rare and pristine examples of Tina Chow's incredible jewelry.  Please feel free to contact me at info@rarevintage.com or phone 212.581.7273 if you have a piece or collection you would like to part with.

Mila Schon's Swan Song

One of my absolute favorite new finds for RARE vintage is this delightful and whimsical Mila Schon romper.  

When acquiring pieces for the store I am always on the hunt for the unusual  so when I saw this romper that ties with a bow at the shoulders and has flowing scarves and, most amazingly and unexpectedly, is banded at the legs and embroidered with swans, I knew its destiny was to swan into RARE vintage.  

Back:

 Detail:

Mila Schon Swan embroidered romper.  Size 6.  Only available at RARE vintage.  

For more information or to purchase, please email info@rarevintage.com 

or phone 212.581.7273

Happy Mother's Day!

Wishing you all a Happy Mother's Day!  I plan to take full advantage of the day and I hope you do too whether you are celebrating your own mother and/or are a mother yourself.  

But I thought I would leave you with this mother/daughter story that was recently featured on Into The Gloss.  The great Jerry Hall and her beautiful daughter Georgia May Jagger...

Jerry Hall is wearing vintage Thierry Mugler, I am assuming pulled from her own closet - who said you can't revisit your own vintage??  I think you most certainly can!

Georgia: She doesn't do plastic surgery or chemical peels or things like that, so she can spurge on expensive creams.

Jerry: I think those things ruin your skin and open it up and let microbes get in.  Aging is great - you just don't give a shit anymore; it's nice.  That's a bonus.

You can read the full article here.

Gianni Versace's Velvet Wonderland

One of my favorite recent new finds for RARE vintage is this outrageous Gianni Versace Couture velvet bodysuit and leggings - feetie leggings that is.

Versace loved a baroque legging:

Photo by Irving Penn

Detail:

Back:

How crazy chic would this be with high, high heels?!  Not for wallflowers but a brave girl who wants to stand out...

Gianni Versace Couture velvet bodysuit and leggings.  Size 4.

Only available at RARE vintage.  

For more information or to purchase, please email info@rarevintage.com 

or phone 212.581.7273

F*%k You, F*%k You Very Much! PUNK: Chaos to Couture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

So we supported one of my favorite institutions, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, on Monday night at the 'Party of the Year' PUNK: Chaos to Couture.  The curator, Andrew Bolton, installed one of the most unlikely period rooms ever before imagined at the Met: the loo at the famous and infamous CBGBs!  And just when I thought to complain about the too little graffiti adorning those who-knows-what stained walls, it was revealed that it was CBGBs circa 1975 and Richard Hell - who recently wrote a must read autobiography, I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp: An Autobiography, totally nailed the appropriately graffitied era walls.  So there!  What do I know - I was just a babe in 1975 more interested in Star Wars (1977) then Vivienne Westwood's SEX shop.

The show is brilliant: straddling two continents, and three different types of punks - the grungier/beatnik type of punk that originated in New York and the grittier and frankly more glamorously attired London punks - who really knew how to put a DIY ensemble together - albeit with a little help from their friends, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McClaren at their 430 Kings Road boutique.  And then of course the later appropriation of punk by designers like Gianni Versace, Karl Lagerfeld, Franco Moschino, Martin Margiela - each making their own whimsical or glamorous or subversive or couture version of the iconic language of punk: the safety pins to cover a tear in your pants so your "arse would not hang out" (Johnny Rotten), the torn clothes which originated from poverty, the graffiti of the streets, the desire to shock.

A job well done at the Met and if you are so inclined feel free to release your own inner anarchist and a scratch a little graffiti into the white 'classical' styrofoam walls of the D.I.Y. Hardware gallery, don't be afraid of the guard who is keeping an eye on you - I already saw an A for Anarchy.  I just wish I could remember what I wrote in the bathroom at CBGBs...

The last mannequin in the exhibit...  Flippin' the bird!

and by the way, the mannequin is wearing early 1990s Martin Margiela "shoes".  I remember these shoes because a friend of mine bought them - and by them I mean pair of soles - no actual shoe to slip the foot into.  My friend calmly and quite rationally explained that you simply needed to duck tape them to your foot.  My husband has never quite gotten over that!

PUNK: Chaos to Couture
Metropolitan Museum of Art
May 9 - August 14, 2013

The Ice Queen and her PUNK Rock Court: Alexander McQueen Fall 2011

From Sarah Burton's for Alexander McQueen fall 2011 'the Ice Queen and her court' collection is this punk rock inspired minaudière with a mohawked and jeweled skull.  The bag is heavily studded on velvet and lined in black leather.

This bag obviously goes with our previously posted McQueen dress but can definitely be worn on its own with a black sheath, leather pants, jeans, pajamas - well maybe not pjs : )

Just the thing to carry when you go see PUNK: Chaos to Couture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art!

Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen Fall 2011.  Only available at RARE vintage.  

For more information or to purchase, please email info@rarevintage.com or phone 212.581.7273

The Morning After the Met Gala

A cupcake from last night's fabulous and fun PUNK: Chaos to Couture at the Met gala.  My son said the cigarette was delicious!

The Ice Queen and Her Court: Alexander McQueen Fall 2011

After Alexander McQueen died and before Sarah Burton designed Kate Middleton's wedding dress, Burton designed her first full collection for Alexander McQueen.  The theme was the 'Ice Queen and her Court'.  And the setting was the La Conciergerie - which was Marie Antoinette's prison and also the site of an earlier Alexander McQueen show with live wolves.  This show had a tough, icy feeling with lots of fur edged pieces but always with an underlying feeling of romance - a darker romance with Alexander McQueen and a more optimistic sense of romance with Sarah Burton.

This dress from the Ice Queen and her Court collection is heavily studded and also spectacularly studded on black pony skin, lined in black silk and leather laced over the decollate and with two high slits on the skirt.  

Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen Fall 2011.  Only available at RARE vintage.  Size 4.

For more information or to purchase, please email info@rarevintage.com or phone 212.581.7273

What the Punk?!

What does one wear to this year's Met gala?  Vintage Gianni Versace seems an obvious choice.  Our uber stylish client, Giovanna Battaglia, rocked a leather Versace couture bondage bra she bought at RARE vintage awhile back and made it look very punk chaos to couture at Cannes:

But I wonder if we are going to see a lot of vintage Versace at the gala?  Hmmm... so do you break open a box of safety pins and DIY a dress like Franco Moschino did back in the 1980s?

But I think we may see a lot of safety pins too... so what to wear?  I was thinking about wearing a Sprouse mini dress a la Debbie Harry from back in the punk days but it was so short but my bottom would be exposed as I was leaning over the bar to get a drink so I had to scratch that idea because this is definitely not the punk look I am going for:

I am feeling inspired by this:

More glam punk rock then Ramones punk rock.  

Either way it won't really be punk - it's more funk the punk.  Funk it up a bit and have fun and please no spitting on the red carpet.

Dolce & Gabbana Spring Summer 1998: Stromboli Collection

My two absolute favorite Dolce & Gabbana collections are the Spring Summer 1997 China collection:

"This is one of our favorite collections.  It was Chinese with lots of brocades, but of course mixed with  our corsets, leopard-spot chiffon, leopard-spot lingerie.  Madonna wore all of this collection." 

Dolce & Gabaana

and the Spring Summer 1998 Stromboli collection:

"an important part of the collection was the mix: red and yellow plastic corset dresses, the mix of old and new: pinstripes, tulle and little butterflies as decoration." Dolce & Gabbana

and so when this 1998 corset gown with a long chiffon train and adorned with butterflies came to me, well dear RARE vintage readers, Mamma Mia!  I had to sit down and take a whiff of some imaginary smelling salts and loosen my Dolce & Gabbana corset!  Sadly!  It was too small for me and so with a heavy heart I sold it to a client... (you don't think everything I buy for RARE vintage, ends up in RARE vintage do you : )

Oh, did I mention I love the Fall Winter 98/99 Dior and Balenciaga collection too...