Happy Halloween!

A modern day Snow White would rock the fairy tale world in Chanel sunglasses with chain wrapped arms and a jumbo Chanel 2.55 bag.  And a modern day gypsy would carry a cross over Balenciaga bag and Christian Louboutin button up high black boots AND Miu Miu sparkly sunglasses.  Wicked good!  Happy Halloween everyone!

China Chow in RARE vintage!

I am sure you know that we have had an unrivaled collection of Tina Chow's incredible, beautiful and meaningful jewelry here at RARE vintage so I was very excited to send her daughter, China Chow, some pieces for her show on Bravo, Work of Art.  

China Chow in an early 1990s Pierre Cardin couture tunic from RARE vintage.  Very wearable work of art.  And don't our clients always look amazing in their RARE vintage?!  Always super flattering and always the perfect piece on the perfect woman.

Weekend Reading 18: Style and Design Icon: Elsa Peretti

Weekend reading for you from RARE vintage.  Read on...

'She is a woman of almost awesome chic.  Looking as dazzling in a beat up men's fedora as she does in a ball gown." From the book, The Fashion Makers.

Photo by Jill Krementz

Read more by clicking on link below:

Are You Scared of Sweetness? Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2012

Nice.  Fragile.  Vulnerable.  Tender.  Beautiful sheer fabrics.  Guipere lace.  Looked like little clouds.  Kind colors.  Floating.  Magical.  Lovely.  Like the carousel in the Tuileries that happens when spring happens.  Love is a possibility.  Sweetness.  Under currents of fetish.  Sugary Sweet.  The cherry on the cake.

Overheard at the Spring/Summer 2012 Louis Vuitton show.

Vintage Trends: The Long Gown and the Chiffon Cape

Stavropoulos was born in Greece, the seventh child of an eventual nine and his father ran a tobacco processing plant.  He opened his own custom salon in Athens in 1949 and moved to New York where he became known for his floating dresses: layers of chiffon that floated around the body while not being extremely revealing.  His clients were comfortable in his dresses (imagine that!  you could breathe, you could move and you could look glamorous - all at the same time!).  His clients, like Princess Elizabeth of Yogoslavia and Elizabeth Taylor, were also attracted by a dress that could be worn more then one way.  In fact, this gown has its two original scarves - one in all chiffon and one with thin strips of panne velvet.  It also has its original and uber glamorous chiffon cape.  It is in a beautiful shade of pomegranate red.

You might remember seeing Princess Charlotte Casiraghi (channeling her grandmother, Grace Kelly, in To Catch a Thief) in an ice-blue  gown with a long chiffon cape from Giambattista Valli Couture that she wore to Prince Albert's wedding.

Pomegranate red chiffon and panne velvet gown with matching chiffon cape and two belts.  

Size 6/8

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It's About Damn Time!

Men as objects.  Girls, just look at that body!  Enjoy!!

East Meets West: Issey Miyake

Thought you might enjoy seeing this extremely rare and very early Issey Miyake 'East Meets West' collection handkerchief hem dress from 1970 that we had, oh, for about a second.  

"I Don't Make Gorgeous Clothes" - Issey Miyake

The Japanese designer, Issey Miyake, introduced Ultra Suede to Halston.  Say what?!  Issey Miyake once worked as design assistant to Geoffrey Beene.  Say what?!  Who knew?!  Obviously have some research to do here...

Mr. Miyake, who was interviewed by the New York Times in 1982, said that he does "not make gorgeous clothes".  He wanted to make clothes "that float around the body.  There should be space between the body and the fabric.  The design interest should come only from the color and the fabric.  This is not the time for fashion as we know it".  

Whenever a piece of Issey Miyake comes into RARE vintage, for one thing it sells very quickly as this piece did, and it is also never like anything I have seen before.  The material, the colors, the design are a new way of seeing what we have seen before.

Here is an exceptional, almost theatrical, pleated coat by Issey Miyake which sold in an instant.

Early 1990s Issey Miyake Coat

Water

I know the posting has slowed to a trickle on our RARE vintage blog but I have been super busy acquiring new pieces for RARE vintage basically non stop (which I will start sharing with you tomorrow) and I have started a new workout regime.  Okay, so let's explore the word 'regime'.   I've started a new 'workout regime' which means I am kind of following a plan of action - otherwise known as an authoritarian mode of rule or government.  Sounds kind of frightening doesn't it??  But much to my surprise I am loving my new regime.  I started spinning at Soul Cycle.  The music is awesome, the room is dark so you don't have to worry how you look or that  if you pass out, hopefully, no one will notice.  I saw a very famous actor there much to my horror - but thankfully the room is dark so above mentioned cute actor won't see the sweat dripping off my nose or if I do in fact pass out.  The music is loud enough that I am pretty sure no one will hear the thud when I fall off the bike (of course, I have not yet mastered exactly how to take the spinning shoes out of the pedals which you are LOCKED into - so if I do in fact pass out and fall off the bike my feet will, pathetically, be stuck to the pedals).  

But you know what, even though I have sweated more then I ever have in MY ENTIRE LIFE and I have done things that I had no idea you could possibly do on a stationary bike, I feel great!  I feel amazing!  I feel like I must be burning at least 1,000,000 calories (minimum) each class that I take.  

This is exactly what I feel like after 45 minutes at Soul Cycle:

Just a happy puddle of water.  Though I still have not figured out how to get my spinning shoes out of the pedals, hopefully above mentioned famous actor won't notice my struggle and that I have to leave the cycling shoes behind in the peddles which is really embarrassing.

UPDATE: I managed to get one shoe free today! 

Why You Should Wake Up at 3AM on November 19th

To get in line for the Versace for H & M collection of course!  I kind of love these capsule collections designers do for H & M or the recent Target for Missoni and have a nice collection packed away (Karl Lagerfeld's collection for H & M, Kate Moss' first collection for Topshop and so on)  in archival boxes in acid free tissue paper for my daughter for when she is older.  Think she is going to love it.  I also love Gianni Versace and have been incredibly fortunate to have had and have some of the original iconic pieces that Donatella did a version of for the capsule collection.  Now, I personally would pass on the metal mesh dress which looks like a sad version of the real thing which RARE vintage has had and you can see here and here.

This is what I think it is worth getting up for (and diving into the insane madness that it will surely be):

We had this at RARE vintage too!  The original:

And what you should buy for the man in your life:

Versace for H & M.  Available November 19th

Who's The Man?

Tom Ford is The Man.  Watch him this Sunday on Oprah's OWN network.  While you are watching the preview, I am going to check my 10,000,000+ channels and see if I even have OWN...

Visionaries: Inside the Creative Mind with Tom Ford

Sunday, October 23rd on OWN at 8PM

Fashion, Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Love Me, When I'm 64?

And the answer is, Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!

My new Style Icon is Costanza Pascolato.  She is 72 years old.  She wears a leather Miu-Miu Spring 2011 rockabilly-style jacket.  She wears Valentino's studded leather kitten heels.  Her hair is done.  She wears fabulous big black sunglasses.  She does Pilates every day.  She is fashionable.  She is age appropriate.  She is interesting.  She embraces new fashion.  But she knows who she is.  She has worn Christian Dior, Cristobal Balenciaga and Yves Saint Laurent.  She adores Miuccia Prada's irreverent luxury and kitsch sense of style.

I want to send her a Valentine,

birthday greetings,

a bottle of wine...

The Beatles - When I'm Sixty Four

Mr. Beene Has a Moment Via Stella McCartney

So let me just show you how influential Mr. Beene still is:

Stella McCartney Fall/Winter 2011.  Unless you have been hiding out in the wilderness without any access to the Internet you will certainly have seen Stella McCartneys illusion dress on:

Kate Winslet, Liv Tyler and even Jane Fonda.  Then there was Doutzen Kroes (inexplicably with her ginormous Granny panties underneath)

Whoa!  How old is Jane Fonda??!!

Almost forgot Doutzen with her super Spanx on (WTF?!  I am certain she needs nothing on underneath this):

And if you are in that cabin without internet then you also missed Kate Winslet (again), La La Vasquez Anthony,  Gloria Estefan (okay let me just say if you missed Goria Estefan in the dress be grateful.  Very, very grateful.  Hello?!  Wooden mirrors in house of Estefan?!), Liv Tyler and Penelope Cruz in Stella McCartney's hourglass sheath:

Kate Winslet is rocking the sheath and looking gorgeous!!  And good Lord, Gloria Estefan - if you don't have a strong stomach, avert your eyes:

I don't want to be mean but, what was she thinking??

But if you don't live in a cabin in the woods and you follow fashion and fashion's history, you will know, you will remember the fabulous Mr. Beene.  Mr. Beene who could cut a dress like no one else.  Mr. Beene who dressed a woman who was talented, creative, smart and sexy.  His lines were sculptural and even made one fashion journalist compare them to Brancusi's Bird in Space.

The Original:

In 1991, Geoffrey Beene showed a languidly beautiful evening coat in oxblood red and black stripe, kimono sleeves and a spectacular carved out sheer guipere lace back reembroidered with red and gold thread.  The dress he showed underneath was very short.

If you need something grand and regal and something that will have everyone's eyes on you, then this is the piece you were looking for.

1991 Geoffrey Beene evening coat with sheer guipere lace back.

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A Spectacular Philip Treacy Hat

There was a time when a woman, or a man, would not have dreamt of going out of the house without a hat.  Hats back in the day could be surrealistic (Elsa Schiaparelli's upside down shoe hat which was worn brilliantly by the ever so stylish, the Honorable Mrs. Reginald Fellowes), hats could elicit comments like, "look at the screwy hat on that dame!" (Myrna Loy in a, well, a screwy hat, in The Thin Man) or hats could be sexy masculine (Marlene Dietrich in a top hat).

October 10th would have been the birthday of the French born hatmaker Lily Daché who famously said, "Glamour is what makes a man ask for your phone but it is also what makes a woman ask for the name of your dressmaker."  The glamorous Lily also believed that men loved to buy for their wives, girlfriends or mistresses, "floozy hats".  (and don't we all have a little floozy in us:)

Hats are having a kind of a moment right now.  There were all the girls and ladies at the recent royal wedding looking chic in fascinators (which is such a great word don't you think?!) and there is the current exhibit, Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones, at The Bard Graduate Center. 

I recently met Philip Treacy and we spoke about an extravagant hat that he had made and that I have for RARE vintage.  Philip said that it was an incredibly difficult hat to make.  He used a vintage black brocade fabric and there is a crown of feathers atop the hat that are singed chicken feathers.  The hat was so difficult to make that I believe that there is jut this one.  And isn't that the way it should be?  This hat is a beautiful objet as well as something perfect for the Kentucky Derby or any occasion you would to wear to a hat to and if you don't have an occasion, you will just have to make one!

Philip Treacy Feather Crown Brocade Hat


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The Little Things in Life

A quilted leather Chanel bag from the 1970s is not going to solve world peace.  It will not tell you why the sky is blue, exactly how to pronounce the planet Uranus, it will not explain why grown men love packing a car with suitcases and other assorted paraphenilia. It will not tell you which came first: the chicken or the egg.  It will not explain the Bermuda Triangle or tell you if really there is a Loch Ness Monster.  A quilted leather Chanel purse, even in red, will not tell you what really happened in Roswell...

But what will it do you is to offer what you what the little things in life do for us: a gift of happiness, a burst of Seratonin, something that will be timeless (which answers the eternal question, do you really need another bag?  And the answer is, Dah!  It's Chanel!  From the 1970s!  It's an investment for the future!  Seriously?!)   

This thing called love, it's a crazy little thing called love. 

There goes my baby.  She leaves me in a hot cold sweat. 

Gotta be a cool.  Gotta relax.

It's a crazy thing called love: Chanel...

Chanel bag love via Queen.  Just a Crazy Little Thing Called Love.

Chanel Cherry red quilted leather bag

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It's the End of the World as We Know It: Vivienne Westwood's Pirate Collection

The great split personalities in film and television are: Joanne Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve, Sally Field in Sybil and Toni Colette in The United States of Tara.  I am not sure if psychiatrists have delved into the mind of the fashionista suffering from split personalities but I am proud to admit to suffering from a severe case of 'fashionista split personality-itis'.   And just so you know the symptoms are:

a. Your Style Icons are: CZ Guest, Brigitte Bardot, Jerry Hall, Millicent Rogers, Bianca Jagger, Daisy Fellowes, Marisa Berenson, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Debbie Harry.

b. In your closet or you covet: 1950s Christian Dior, 1970s Yves Saint Laurent, Tina Chow's Fortunys, 1960s Balenciaga, early Helmut Lang, Stephen Sprouse, Romeo Gigli, early Gianni Versace, Alaia, 1970s Loris Azzaro, Valentino Couture, 1930s Schiaparelli, Early Prada (and the amazing Spring 2012 collection), Duchess of Windsor's Mainbochers and Vivienne Westwood.

c. Your fashion film icons are: Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, Madonna in Who's That Girl, Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour, Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde, Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, Renee Russo in The Thomas Crown Affair and the documentary of Little and Big Edie in Albert and David Maysels' Grey Gardens.

So, are you suffering from 'fashionista split personality-itis?  Well if you are, you will surely love this Vivienne Westwood for World's End 1981 Pirate collection top as much as I do.  

Vivienne Westwood and Malcom McClaren rocked the world with their romantic and historically inspired Pirate Collection.  

Vivienne has said that she wanted "that rakish look of clothes that didn't fit".

It was the end of the world as we know it and I am feeling fine after discovering this brilliant 1981 Pirate's Collection top for RARE vintage.

1981 Vivienne Westwood World's End pirate Collection Top.  Size 4.

The next meeting of the self indulgent self help group 'Fashionista Split Personality-itis' will be held at RARE vintage next Wednesday evening.  Please rsvp at info@rarevintage.com.  Say it loud and say it proud!

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@RareVintageNYC: Friday Favorites

I love the whimsical Krizia animal print sweaters I bought in Italy for RARE vintage and I confess that I kept one and it is my new #FF@RareVintageNYC Friday favorite.  I have been impatiently waiting for the weather to get cool enough to put it on.    And hallelujah, that day has arrived!

It is always fascinating to see how trendy vintage can be while not being trendy at all; the word is timeless. Nicolas Ghesquiere for Balenciaga and Ricardo Tisci for Givenchy may have gotten everyone in the mood for animal prints again but Krizia was the original wild child with animal instincts.

I am feeling very Gaga as you can see: no pants!

Panther sweater: 1980s Krizia Sunglasses: Tom Ford

Holy Deja Vu: The Hi-Top Fade Haircut

What comes around, goes around - even in hair do's or don'ts (not sure which) but kind of loving it and wishing my hair could go that high...

The hi-top fade haircut as seen at Union Square today:

and as seen on Kid n Play circa late 1980s: