September 5, 2024 • 27 mins
If you have some basic rules and formulas for knowing whether a dress is Vintage or not this episode might blow them up. Amanda has 5 ways people can get tripped up when dating a garment. Maybe you're looking at a new piece that has been altered by the former owner. Or maybe it is vintage and worth alot but its hard to tell because it has been altered by the former owner. Is that label sewn in there the final answer? Amanda explores all these topics and more on this episode of The Thrifters.
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Follow Amanda @Irreverentfinery on Instagram IrreverentFinery on Etsy
Edited by Ben Walker-Storey
Music by Kevin McLleod
*********
Perhaps you've noticed, The Thrifters podcast is 100% commercial-free! Instead we are supported by listeners like you! (so PBS of us...) If this podcast has brought value to your life and business, how about sending a little something Amanda's way? Buy me a Coffee is like a tip, whatever amount whenever you want. No subscription necessary. Thanks, we love you!
buymeacoffee.com/thethrifters
Thank you for your support!
Follow Amanda @Irreverentfinery on Instagram IrreverentFinery on Etsy
Edited by Ben Walker-Storey
Music by Kevin McLleod
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, friends, Welcome to the Thrifters Podcast. It's Amanda walker Story.
Thanks for being here, and if you're enjoying my content,
please feel free to hop on over to wherever you
listen to the podcast and leave a review. And you
can also buy me a coffee at buy me a
Coffee dot com slash the Thrifters. Welcome to the Thrifters Podcast,
a show all about the weird, wonderful, and sometimes challenging
(00:24):
world of selling vintage. I'm your host, Amanda walker Story.
Whether you're a buyer, a seller, collector, or just learning
about vintage, this is the show for you. I'm so
glad you're here. Welcome to the Thrifters Podcast. It's Amanda
(00:44):
walker Story. One thing that bugs the heck out of me,
especially when you're like researching and you know, looking for
more information about selling vintage or you know, getting into
the business or learning more. There are blogs, there are videos,
there are manifestos that sort of give out these hard
(01:07):
fast rules about how to date things, how to know
if something is really vintage, how to you know, do
some cut corners and you know, use easy tricks to
figure out if something is vintage and worth sourcing and
it's one of my biggest pet peeves because there are
(01:27):
no hard fast rules. There are always exceptions to the rules,
and I don't think people talk about this enough. And
I feel like, you know, you get a lot of people,
I'm going to say specifically online, because I don't really
talk to very many people in real life about vintage stuff.
Like I've tried and people just glaze over and don't
know what I'm talking about, super awkward. But I feel like,
(01:49):
especially online, people are always looking for the quick and
easy shortcut to learn how to do this business. And
I get it. It's hard, it's expansive, and it can
take you years and years and years to learn how
to do this. And right when you think you know something,
a garment will come along and it will just like
(02:11):
blow your mind and everything you thought to be true
will just explode and you're like suddenly like a newborn baby, like, oh,
I don't know anything again, it happens, And I actually
love when that happens. As a person who is really
into details and who's been doing this a long time
and who I kind of pride myself on knowing a
(02:32):
thing or two about finding vintage and knowing what eras
things are. When something comes along and it just like
shakes me to my core because all of my values
are like, this isn't fitting in with what you know.
That's always a really good experience because it makes me
feel like, oh, I'm still learning, I'm still expanding, I'm
still taking a new information, and that for me and
(02:54):
a person who's as a person who's been in this
business a long time, makes you feel fresh and young.
So that's a really good feeling. So today I want
to talk about some common misconceptions, some things that I
hear people saying, and it kind of makes me pause
and do a really like major eye roll where I'm like,
wait a minute, Wait a minute. I don't say this
(03:16):
out loud. I don't say I have taken to not
going out into the public and telling people what to do,
how to run their business, what they're doing wrong. I
do here in this space where I know people are
tuning in to hear that sort of thing. But when
I see things like this, I'm like, I got to
pause and I got to roll my eyes and be like,
(03:36):
oh my gosh, you are just spreading a wave of
misinformation to those people eager to hear that shortcut and
wanting to apply it to their life and wanting to
be like, now I finally know everything about vintage. So
here are a couple that I see, well five exactly
five misconceptions that I see often that I want to
(03:58):
sort of debunk. The first thing that I see more
often than not, and I understand this one hundred percent.
Everyone is just like, oh, metal zippers are from like
the sixties and earlier. Like that is the hard fast
rule for a lot of people. If they come across
a metal zipper, they are like, oh, this is old,
(04:18):
and you know what, sometimes it is a lot of
times it is old. You know, it's a good sort
of first benchmark for being like, Okay, let me stop
and look at this garment more carefully. It has a
metal zipper. But the thing that I feel that people
don't follow up their metal zippers are sixty and earlier
(04:39):
is conversation with They don't follow up by saying but
also not always, not always, And here's why. There's a
couple of different reasons why, but here's one of the
main reasons why a lot of people will make garments
at home and they will have whatever zippers they have
(05:01):
laying around. So let's just say, as an example, someone
was making a prom dress in the nineteen eighties. Let's
just say they're making a prom dress for their sixteen
year old high school student in the eighties, and they are,
you know, going to put a zipper in it. They
might not always just go buy a brand new zipper.
(05:23):
They might pull out grandma's sewing box and you know,
pull out a metal zipper and be like, oh, that works,
it's the right color. Metal zippers are great, and pop
a metal zipper in it. Now. You know, many years later,
that garment may get donated or maybe it ends up
in an estate sale and someone you know, misinformed, will
(05:45):
grab it and see that metal zipper and be like, oh,
this must be like nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties, and then
they go to list it and sell it along with
that little tidbit of information, and it's in fact, you know,
a nineteen eighties prom dress with a metal zipper. And
you know, maybe that isn't important to some people, but
for me, as a person who likes to be very
(06:07):
transparent with what I'm selling, I would be mortified if
I did that. So that's just one example. Also, if
a you know, let's just say a seventy stress that
you had, you went to go put it on, and
you busted the zipper, the plastic or the nylon zipper
that was in it. You busted it, and you're like,
oh again, let me get out grandma's ancient sewing basket.
(06:29):
And then you find a metal zipper in there, and
you put it in because it's what you have. So
it's one thing to look for. Of course, a metal
zipper is one thing to look for, but it isn't
the end all be all, and I feel like it's
it's extremely important that people take that in and know
that that's just a starting point and that Okay, now
(06:49):
I need to do more research. Now I need to
look deeper into this garment. I see so often, especially
on Facebook, in groups where people help each other identify
things specifically like oh, I have this dress. I don't
know anything about it, I thrifted it, got out of
the yard sale, whatever, and they'll show the dress and
like the closures, and I am always in shock and
(07:13):
awe about how many people just immediately jump in and
go metal zipper sixties and you're like, wait, wait, wait,
wait a minute, let's like, stop here for a moment,
let's all take a deep breath, and like let's look
a little bit further into this, because that isn't helping anybody, right,
it's not helping anybody to just metal zipper sixties, okay,
(07:35):
But like what else? What else is there? Another on
the flip side of that, another thing is what if
a garment is like a really old garment that's been
around the house for ages and the metal zipper broke
and now they have added a nylon zipper to it,
a more modern zipper, even because you want to wear
(07:56):
the thing and you don't have a metal zipper. So
so now you have an old garment, a vintage garment
that has a modern or you know, nineteen seventy zipper
in it. So it's sort of the reverse problem where
people might think that that thing is retro or maybe
not vintage at all. So, you know, you have to
be very careful when you're looking at closures. You have
(08:19):
to be very mindful. You have to look further, look
at the construction, the silhouette, all the other elements that
go into dating something. You can't just heavily rely on that.
And that can be said for all types of closures.
It could be said for things with snaps at the side,
like maybe it was a theater, a garment, maybe it
isn't that old, or like hook and eyes. All of
those things are definitely can point you towards an era,
(08:45):
but you have to have more information to make an
informed decision about what you're buying and what you're selling.
Here's another one that really is I don't want to
say it's a problem, but it's kind of a problem.
It's kind of a problem, and that is retro prints.
(09:09):
And I will say this is like very specifically kind
of an annoyance when you're out thrifting because you see
this like big rack full of things and you're like, oh,
look at that awesome flower Power in nineteen sixties neon print,
and you go running over to it. Your heart is,
you know, swelling, and you're full of hopes and dreams
and then you pull it out and it's like lulaow
(09:31):
and then your dreams come crashing to the floor and
you might weep. I don't know. I'm always super disappointed
in myself when I do something like that where I
like pick it up and I'm like, how do you
even live with yourself. How in the world can you
consider yourself a professional when this thing fooled you. It happens,
(09:52):
and I get like really in my feelings about it,
so like really, so many fashion, fast fashion specifically fast
fashion and brands are making retro vintage inspired garments right
now that it's like, first of all, deeply pains me
because we don't need to make new things of things
(10:13):
that already exist. Now, I will give a pass to
those that make them in more size inclusive types of silhouettes,
because you're not finding as much vintage in larger sizes.
So if a person who wants to wear a vintage
who is of a larger size can't find true vintage,
they do have the option of finding something that is,
(10:34):
you know, reproduction. Not mad at that, not mad at
reproductions so much as I am ad at fast fashion versions,
because frankly, the fast fashion versions are how do I
say it, a travesty. The fabric horrible, the closures, the quality,
everything horrible, probably flammable, probably like filled with lead, like
(10:56):
all the bad things. And the truth of the matter is,
and again this conversation is specifically not speaking to size
inclusive the smaller vintage pieces that you find where they're
making retro pieces in smaller sizes. We don't need it.
It's out there. It's already there in the world for
(11:17):
people to buy and find. We don't need to make
a reproduction Y two K shirt. There's a lot of
Y two K shirts out there that you can just find.
So you have to be really careful. It's really easy
to be fooled by the print of something and think
that it's vintage, it's retro sixty seventies whatever, and then
(11:37):
you have to really look deeper. You have to look
at the fabric. Is probably one of the biggest giveaways
because pretty much everything out there in the thrift stores
now that's like reproduction vintage is the worst horrible polyester
is already cheap, but like they're using some sort of
next level polyester that is really really bad. That's going
(12:00):
to be your first indicator. You can feel it. And
I wish that I could tell you more about that,
but this is obviously a podcast, so I can't like
show you or I don't know, do some sort of felovision.
I don't know what that would be. You just know
it's bad. It's a bad scene. You have to look
at the closures again. You have to do. This is
(12:24):
like a sort of a whole investigation on these things.
So you see the closure, You're like, oh, that's a
new zipper. It's a new plastic zipper. Look at the
zipper pole, look at everything about it. There's an autopsy
going on. You flip the thing inside out, you look
at the seams, you look at every element of the garment,
and then you go, Okay, this is modern. But yeah,
(12:46):
those retro prints, those retro colors, those retro silhouettes, they're
out there fooling people, and you know, we've all fallen
for it. I'm sure. I think there's been a handful
of times where I have also fallen for where people
actually made the garments at home, so they are of
a better quality, but they are homemade, like costume reproduction sixties, seventies,
(13:10):
fifties garments. This is tricky business everyone. I wish I
could say that, you know, like I was saying earlier,
that there was a one size fits all with all
of the knowledge that you would need to know to
do this business, But there really just isn't. Here's one
(13:30):
that I found really interesting, and I have had experiences
with it, and it's not as common, but it happens,
and that is label theft or label fraud. Now you
may not know this, but I collect Lilyan coats, lily
(13:51):
and coats from I very specifically collect like the sixties
into the early seventies. Lilyan coats and Lilyan's are in
the nineteen forties and has a very specific label for
the forties, the fifties, the sixties, and the seventies. Lilian
coats are highly desirable vintage garments. When you find one,
(14:13):
it's like your striking gold because they have a very
high market value depending on what you find. Of course,
they have a high market value. Eighties ones obviously not
so much. Certain styles not so much. But if we're
talking about swing coats, princess coats, coats and bold colors,
these coats will easily command you know, five hundred dollars
(14:37):
up to two thousand dollars. So it's a desirable garment
and it is a garment that I have seen fall
victim to label fraud. And what that would mean is
somebody picks up a cool looking little sixties swing coat,
which there are a lot of them out there, don't
get me wrong. There are a lot of swing coats
out there, some of them even bold colors or very
(14:59):
lilylyan reminiscent, but they're not a Lilian. And people will
either steal a label out of a Lilian coat, or
they will maybe they had a Lilian coat that was
damaged or you know, something like that, and they would
keep the label and put it in another coat and
try to pass it off as that brand. I've also
(15:24):
seen on eBay and some on other online platforms where
people are selling just a label. And this is a
tricky one because, like I get it, if you have
a coat that you know is a Lilian, as an example,
you know it is one hundred percent, you have documentation,
you have like some sort of evidence, but it's missing
the label, and you're like, oh, I just want to
(15:45):
like make this thing complete. And then here comes someone
who has a label. You might want to purchase that
label to add it to your Lilian coat or maybe
even a Lilian coat that you are selling, because if
it has the label, it has more value. I totally
get that. But also, like you get into some gray
area there where people are selling labels and you're like,
(16:08):
what if a person is buying this label so that
they can do label fraud on a coat. What if
they're buying this label for nefarious reasons. It happens. So
just because something has a label in it doesn't necessarily
mean it is that thing. And I again go back
to speaking about Lilian specifically, because I have seen people
(16:31):
online passing off this scam, and you have to look
at the way the label is sewn in. You will
have to compare it to Lilian coats with like original
stitching on the label. It is some tricky business doing,
you know, authenticating these things, and you have to be careful,
and you know, if you're at a yard sale or whatever,
(16:54):
are you going to find a Lillian coat with a
fake label in it? Probably not if you're thrifting. Maybe,
if you're at a vintage store maybe, or like I
don't know, an antique mall. Maybe. But it's something to
look out for, and not only obviously not only in
Lily in coats. Why am I having such a hard
time saying Lily today? I feel like every time I
say it, I'm kind of biting my tongue. Anyway, this
(17:17):
could be for other desirable items, things that look designer.
Maybe someone's throw in an Oscar Dala rent a label
or a Gunny Sacks label, like anything that would command
a high market value, you do have to do a
double triple CHECKERU on yourself and make sure that the
label is appropriate for that garment. It's just another added layer,
(17:40):
another thing for you to just be certain and to
get familiar with, because you don't want to be the
person that sold the fake thing, and then the person
who bought it, who spent a lot of money on it,
finds out it's a fake thing, and then well, I
feel like you could get canceled. Even if it was
an honest mistake, it's really hard to prove that and
be like, oh, I don't know like that. It's always
(18:02):
the burden of the seller to know and to do
the right thing. Even if you bought it like that.
It doesn't matter if you bought it like that. You
should have done your due diligence and you should be
certain that it is authentic and that you're selling along
something that you know is the real thing. Another one
(18:24):
I've had personal experiences with. You find a vintage garment
and you're like, oh, that's cool, and it has been
heavily altered or upcycled or something like that. And you know,
especially as we're going into a halloweeny time, my favorite
time of year, you're going to see Halloween racks and
(18:44):
you're gonna have to look really, really carefully at these
garments because some of them it'll appear to be not vintage.
But if you look deeper, and you look closely with
your X ray vintage eyes, you can see through some
of the ugly alterations that have been done to make
this costume, and sometimes you can find some vintage treasure.
(19:08):
This has happened to me before many times. I once
found this nineteen seventies Maxi dress on a Halloween rack.
It was all sort of bunched up like it was
a Maxie, but the hem was bunched up and twisted
and sown and twisted and sown to look kind of
I don't know, it's just weird looking. And it had
(19:29):
this like lace up corset front bodice all the way
down to the belly button. It had it was like
a stretchy polyester jersey. It was just a really interesting
looking dress. It looks sort of like someone was making
like a burning man costume. It's the best way I
can put it. It was very revealing, but it was
sort of like post apocalyptic looking, and I grabbed it
(19:52):
and I was like, huh okay, and you know what,
I took a chance on it. I didn't even look
for a label. I was like, this looks interesting. I
feel like this is something. I got it home. I
put it on my mannequin and I started looking closer
and I saw that someone had hand sewn all these
weird little like twists and folds, and so then I
started got my little snippers and started snipping away all
(20:15):
of the alterations that had been done. The dress fell
into a beautiful, long, sort of seventies gown, and then
I flipped it inside out and then I saw a label,
and it was a nineteen seventies funky label, which is
a great label, by the way, a little tidbit for you.
And I just kind of steamed it out and restored
(20:35):
it to its natural beauty and sold it for a
bunch of money. So that was something that, you know,
I took a risk on that one, but it happens
a lot. You'll see things at you know, again, the
thrift stores, especially on Halloween racks, where people have like
sewn on like ugly flowers or like added weird trims
(20:56):
to make into an angel costume or a faery. You
have to know what you're looking for. You have to
look at the scenes, you have to touch the fabric.
You have to know your colors, your prints, your silhouettes,
look at the closures. It's a really good time for
you all, as sellers or collectors or whatever the case
may be, to really get into that sort of research
(21:18):
and investigation phase when you're looking at Halloween stuff, because
a lot of people are like, oh, I had this
dress in the attic, let me just pull it down.
I want to be I don't know, a cowgirl, and
they'll make alterations to it and it'll be a true
vintage dress. Sometimes you can't save these things, obviously, you can't.
Like you, if things are hot glued on, or they've
cut things, some of the alterations might be permanent. I
(21:42):
did once see that a woman had saved a nineteen
fifty's wedding gown that had been splashed with fake blood.
She was able to get all of the fake blood
out and completely restore the wedding dress, and that was
fabulous to see. But it took her a long time
and that's a lot of dedication obviously, but it can
be done. So that's a really good time to you know,
(22:03):
flex your muscles, look closely at things, and you know,
sometimes you will buy something and take a risk and
it won't work out and it won't be vintage, or
it won't be able to be you know, unaltered. Is
that a word unaltered? De altered? I don't know. But
sometimes you won't be able to bring that thing back,
and that's okay too. Sometimes just grabbing something to you know,
(22:26):
learn from, that's okay. And finally, one of the last interesting,
little sort of common mistakes you'll see is something doesn't
have a label at all. Okay, you get it and
you're like, oh, it doesn't have any label. I think
(22:46):
it's vintage. It's got some hallmarks of vintage. And then
maybe you google lens it. I hate Google lens. I
don't really use it for vintage clothing. It's a last resort.
I do use it for other vintage things like I
don't know, sentry glass and things like that, but for
clothing it's not super helpful. It's sort of my last ditch.
If I take a picture of that thing and I'm like,
(23:08):
oh my gosh, it's Oscar dela Rena. This thing I got,
it's Oscar dela Rena. It doesn't have the label, and
you're excited, and you're like price comping, and you're like,
Oscar dela Reenta seven hundred, eight hundred, one thousand dollars.
Like you're sweating your blood pressures through the roof. You're thinking, you,
you know, sourced an unlabeled Oscar de la Renta dress
(23:30):
from the thrift store for ten dollars. It's a great feeling,
but hold your horses, chill out, because there are designers
that knock off, very specifically knock off high end pieces,
and one that comes to mind is Victor Costa. Victor
Costa is known as the copycat. Now Victor Costa pieces
(23:53):
in their own right are fabulous. I will never turn
down a Victor Costa really anything really high quality from
you know, seventies, eighties and nineties, really high quality pieces.
But he very specifically made knockoffs of high end designer pieces,
and they're very desirable. It was a way for people
(24:13):
to have that designer look, sort of like the designer
impostor perfumes, you know, which you know those were horrible.
Victor Costa's not designer impost quality, but sort of that
same idea where you could get that look, that runway look,
but you could buy his dresses at like Bloomingdale's or Neeman's.
So it wasn't, you know, bargain basement. It was a
(24:34):
little bit more of an attainable price point, but still
high end and still really well made. And it would
have just the tiniest little difference from the original, so
it'd have, like, you know, you'd have this designer piece
and then the Victor Costa would be just slightly different.
The neckline would be a hair different, or the sleeves
would be just a little bit different. So be mindful
(24:55):
of that too, because there are designers. There are pieces
that were reproduced made to look like designer pieces, and
you don't want to go out there and you know,
scream at the mountaintops that you found Oscar Dela renta
gown and then turns out it wasn't. So I guess
this whole podcast is really just about not just assuming
(25:16):
you know something based on a blog you read or
a video that you saw. There are so many nuances
to doing this work. There are so many elements and
pieces that fit together that tell the story of address.
You know, there are so many things to learn. You
will never ever stop learning. You will never stop learning
(25:38):
doing this business. And some people might think that that's
exhausting and daunting. For me, it's exhilarating because I'm not
going to get bored. I'm always going to have something
new to learn about selling, buying, collecting vintage clothing. It's
not an exact science. It's there's no formula, there's no
app there's no you know, guru that's going to tell
(26:02):
you everything that you need to know. And I think
that that's probably scary for some people. And while a
lot of people decide not to do clothing or not
to go into this business, but for those of us
who are out here like challenging ourselves, I just want
to say I see you, and I commend you. So
keep on learning, keep reading, keep touching vintage, keep going
(26:25):
out there, go to vintage stores, look at things. I
can also quick sidebar. I can't tell you how many
times I go to like a high end good vintage
store where their prices are high, and I look at
their stuff and I'm like, that's not nineteen seventies. That's
not nineteen fifties. Just saying, just saying, nobody's an expert.
Thank you for listening. I appreciate you all. If you're
(26:46):
enjoying my podcast, please leave me a review telling me
what you think, or you can buy me a coffee.
Buy me a coffee dot com Slash the Thrifters, and
I will see you all real soon. I probably it
(27:09):
is infinitely
Hi, friends, Welcome to the Thrifters Podcast. It's Amanda walker Story.
Thanks for being here, and if you're enjoying my content,
please feel free to hop on over to wherever you
listen to the podcast and leave a review. And you
can also buy me a coffee at buy me a
Coffee dot com slash the Thrifters. Welcome to the Thrifters Podcast,
a show all about the weird, wonderful, and sometimes challenging
(00:24):
world of selling vintage. I'm your host, Amanda walker Story.
Whether you're a buyer, a seller, collector, or just learning
about vintage, this is the show for you. I'm so
glad you're here. Welcome to the Thrifters Podcast. It's Amanda
(00:44):
walker Story. One thing that bugs the heck out of me,
especially when you're like researching and you know, looking for
more information about selling vintage or you know, getting into
the business or learning more. There are blogs, there are videos,
there are manifestos that sort of give out these hard
(01:07):
fast rules about how to date things, how to know
if something is really vintage, how to you know, do
some cut corners and you know, use easy tricks to
figure out if something is vintage and worth sourcing and
it's one of my biggest pet peeves because there are
(01:27):
no hard fast rules. There are always exceptions to the rules,
and I don't think people talk about this enough. And
I feel like, you know, you get a lot of people,
I'm going to say specifically online, because I don't really
talk to very many people in real life about vintage stuff.
Like I've tried and people just glaze over and don't
know what I'm talking about, super awkward. But I feel like,
(01:49):
especially online, people are always looking for the quick and
easy shortcut to learn how to do this business. And
I get it. It's hard, it's expansive, and it can
take you years and years and years to learn how
to do this. And right when you think you know something,
a garment will come along and it will just like
(02:11):
blow your mind and everything you thought to be true
will just explode and you're like suddenly like a newborn baby, like, oh,
I don't know anything again, it happens, And I actually
love when that happens. As a person who is really
into details and who's been doing this a long time
and who I kind of pride myself on knowing a
(02:32):
thing or two about finding vintage and knowing what eras
things are. When something comes along and it just like
shakes me to my core because all of my values
are like, this isn't fitting in with what you know.
That's always a really good experience because it makes me
feel like, oh, I'm still learning, I'm still expanding, I'm
still taking a new information, and that for me and
(02:54):
a person who's as a person who's been in this
business a long time, makes you feel fresh and young.
So that's a really good feeling. So today I want
to talk about some common misconceptions, some things that I
hear people saying, and it kind of makes me pause
and do a really like major eye roll where I'm like,
wait a minute, Wait a minute. I don't say this
(03:16):
out loud. I don't say I have taken to not
going out into the public and telling people what to do,
how to run their business, what they're doing wrong. I
do here in this space where I know people are
tuning in to hear that sort of thing. But when
I see things like this, I'm like, I got to
pause and I got to roll my eyes and be like,
(03:36):
oh my gosh, you are just spreading a wave of
misinformation to those people eager to hear that shortcut and
wanting to apply it to their life and wanting to
be like, now I finally know everything about vintage. So
here are a couple that I see, well five exactly
five misconceptions that I see often that I want to
(03:58):
sort of debunk. The first thing that I see more
often than not, and I understand this one hundred percent.
Everyone is just like, oh, metal zippers are from like
the sixties and earlier. Like that is the hard fast
rule for a lot of people. If they come across
a metal zipper, they are like, oh, this is old,
(04:18):
and you know what, sometimes it is a lot of
times it is old. You know, it's a good sort
of first benchmark for being like, Okay, let me stop
and look at this garment more carefully. It has a
metal zipper. But the thing that I feel that people
don't follow up their metal zippers are sixty and earlier
(04:39):
is conversation with They don't follow up by saying but
also not always, not always, And here's why. There's a
couple of different reasons why, but here's one of the
main reasons why a lot of people will make garments
at home and they will have whatever zippers they have
(05:01):
laying around. So let's just say, as an example, someone
was making a prom dress in the nineteen eighties. Let's
just say they're making a prom dress for their sixteen
year old high school student in the eighties, and they are,
you know, going to put a zipper in it. They
might not always just go buy a brand new zipper.
(05:23):
They might pull out grandma's sewing box and you know,
pull out a metal zipper and be like, oh, that works,
it's the right color. Metal zippers are great, and pop
a metal zipper in it. Now. You know, many years later,
that garment may get donated or maybe it ends up
in an estate sale and someone you know, misinformed, will
(05:45):
grab it and see that metal zipper and be like, oh,
this must be like nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties, and then
they go to list it and sell it along with
that little tidbit of information, and it's in fact, you know,
a nineteen eighties prom dress with a metal zipper. And
you know, maybe that isn't important to some people, but
for me, as a person who likes to be very
(06:07):
transparent with what I'm selling, I would be mortified if
I did that. So that's just one example. Also, if
a you know, let's just say a seventy stress that
you had, you went to go put it on, and
you busted the zipper, the plastic or the nylon zipper
that was in it. You busted it, and you're like,
oh again, let me get out grandma's ancient sewing basket.
(06:29):
And then you find a metal zipper in there, and
you put it in because it's what you have. So
it's one thing to look for. Of course, a metal
zipper is one thing to look for, but it isn't
the end all be all, and I feel like it's
it's extremely important that people take that in and know
that that's just a starting point and that Okay, now
(06:49):
I need to do more research. Now I need to
look deeper into this garment. I see so often, especially
on Facebook, in groups where people help each other identify
things specifically like oh, I have this dress. I don't
know anything about it, I thrifted it, got out of
the yard sale, whatever, and they'll show the dress and
like the closures, and I am always in shock and
(07:13):
awe about how many people just immediately jump in and
go metal zipper sixties and you're like, wait, wait, wait,
wait a minute, let's like, stop here for a moment,
let's all take a deep breath, and like let's look
a little bit further into this, because that isn't helping anybody, right,
it's not helping anybody to just metal zipper sixties, okay,
(07:35):
But like what else? What else is there? Another on
the flip side of that, another thing is what if
a garment is like a really old garment that's been
around the house for ages and the metal zipper broke
and now they have added a nylon zipper to it,
a more modern zipper, even because you want to wear
(07:56):
the thing and you don't have a metal zipper. So
so now you have an old garment, a vintage garment
that has a modern or you know, nineteen seventy zipper
in it. So it's sort of the reverse problem where
people might think that that thing is retro or maybe
not vintage at all. So, you know, you have to
be very careful when you're looking at closures. You have
(08:19):
to be very mindful. You have to look further, look
at the construction, the silhouette, all the other elements that
go into dating something. You can't just heavily rely on that.
And that can be said for all types of closures.
It could be said for things with snaps at the side,
like maybe it was a theater, a garment, maybe it
isn't that old, or like hook and eyes. All of
those things are definitely can point you towards an era,
(08:45):
but you have to have more information to make an
informed decision about what you're buying and what you're selling.
Here's another one that really is I don't want to
say it's a problem, but it's kind of a problem.
It's kind of a problem, and that is retro prints.
(09:09):
And I will say this is like very specifically kind
of an annoyance when you're out thrifting because you see
this like big rack full of things and you're like, oh,
look at that awesome flower Power in nineteen sixties neon print,
and you go running over to it. Your heart is,
you know, swelling, and you're full of hopes and dreams
and then you pull it out and it's like lulaow
(09:31):
and then your dreams come crashing to the floor and
you might weep. I don't know. I'm always super disappointed
in myself when I do something like that where I
like pick it up and I'm like, how do you
even live with yourself. How in the world can you
consider yourself a professional when this thing fooled you. It happens,
(09:52):
and I get like really in my feelings about it,
so like really, so many fashion, fast fashion specifically fast
fashion and brands are making retro vintage inspired garments right
now that it's like, first of all, deeply pains me
because we don't need to make new things of things
(10:13):
that already exist. Now, I will give a pass to
those that make them in more size inclusive types of silhouettes,
because you're not finding as much vintage in larger sizes.
So if a person who wants to wear a vintage
who is of a larger size can't find true vintage,
they do have the option of finding something that is,
(10:34):
you know, reproduction. Not mad at that, not mad at
reproductions so much as I am ad at fast fashion versions,
because frankly, the fast fashion versions are how do I
say it, a travesty. The fabric horrible, the closures, the quality,
everything horrible, probably flammable, probably like filled with lead, like
(10:56):
all the bad things. And the truth of the matter is,
and again this conversation is specifically not speaking to size
inclusive the smaller vintage pieces that you find where they're
making retro pieces in smaller sizes. We don't need it.
It's out there. It's already there in the world for
(11:17):
people to buy and find. We don't need to make
a reproduction Y two K shirt. There's a lot of
Y two K shirts out there that you can just find.
So you have to be really careful. It's really easy
to be fooled by the print of something and think
that it's vintage, it's retro sixty seventies whatever, and then
(11:37):
you have to really look deeper. You have to look
at the fabric. Is probably one of the biggest giveaways
because pretty much everything out there in the thrift stores
now that's like reproduction vintage is the worst horrible polyester
is already cheap, but like they're using some sort of
next level polyester that is really really bad. That's going
(12:00):
to be your first indicator. You can feel it. And
I wish that I could tell you more about that,
but this is obviously a podcast, so I can't like
show you or I don't know, do some sort of felovision.
I don't know what that would be. You just know
it's bad. It's a bad scene. You have to look
at the closures again. You have to do. This is
(12:24):
like a sort of a whole investigation on these things.
So you see the closure, You're like, oh, that's a
new zipper. It's a new plastic zipper. Look at the
zipper pole, look at everything about it. There's an autopsy
going on. You flip the thing inside out, you look
at the seams, you look at every element of the garment,
and then you go, Okay, this is modern. But yeah,
(12:46):
those retro prints, those retro colors, those retro silhouettes, they're
out there fooling people, and you know, we've all fallen
for it. I'm sure. I think there's been a handful
of times where I have also fallen for where people
actually made the garments at home, so they are of
a better quality, but they are homemade, like costume reproduction sixties, seventies,
(13:10):
fifties garments. This is tricky business everyone. I wish I
could say that, you know, like I was saying earlier,
that there was a one size fits all with all
of the knowledge that you would need to know to
do this business, But there really just isn't. Here's one
(13:30):
that I found really interesting, and I have had experiences
with it, and it's not as common, but it happens,
and that is label theft or label fraud. Now you
may not know this, but I collect Lilyan coats, lily
(13:51):
and coats from I very specifically collect like the sixties
into the early seventies. Lilyan coats and Lilyan's are in
the nineteen forties and has a very specific label for
the forties, the fifties, the sixties, and the seventies. Lilian
coats are highly desirable vintage garments. When you find one,
(14:13):
it's like your striking gold because they have a very
high market value depending on what you find. Of course,
they have a high market value. Eighties ones obviously not
so much. Certain styles not so much. But if we're
talking about swing coats, princess coats, coats and bold colors,
these coats will easily command you know, five hundred dollars
(14:37):
up to two thousand dollars. So it's a desirable garment
and it is a garment that I have seen fall
victim to label fraud. And what that would mean is
somebody picks up a cool looking little sixties swing coat,
which there are a lot of them out there, don't
get me wrong. There are a lot of swing coats
out there, some of them even bold colors or very
(14:59):
lilylyan reminiscent, but they're not a Lilian. And people will
either steal a label out of a Lilian coat, or
they will maybe they had a Lilian coat that was
damaged or you know, something like that, and they would
keep the label and put it in another coat and
try to pass it off as that brand. I've also
(15:24):
seen on eBay and some on other online platforms where
people are selling just a label. And this is a
tricky one because, like I get it, if you have
a coat that you know is a Lilian, as an example,
you know it is one hundred percent, you have documentation,
you have like some sort of evidence, but it's missing
the label, and you're like, oh, I just want to
(15:45):
like make this thing complete. And then here comes someone
who has a label. You might want to purchase that
label to add it to your Lilian coat or maybe
even a Lilian coat that you are selling, because if
it has the label, it has more value. I totally
get that. But also, like you get into some gray
area there where people are selling labels and you're like,
(16:08):
what if a person is buying this label so that
they can do label fraud on a coat. What if
they're buying this label for nefarious reasons. It happens. So
just because something has a label in it doesn't necessarily
mean it is that thing. And I again go back
to speaking about Lilian specifically, because I have seen people
(16:31):
online passing off this scam, and you have to look
at the way the label is sewn in. You will
have to compare it to Lilian coats with like original
stitching on the label. It is some tricky business doing,
you know, authenticating these things, and you have to be careful,
and you know, if you're at a yard sale or whatever,
(16:54):
are you going to find a Lillian coat with a
fake label in it? Probably not if you're thrifting. Maybe,
if you're at a vintage store maybe, or like I
don't know, an antique mall. Maybe. But it's something to
look out for, and not only obviously not only in
Lily in coats. Why am I having such a hard
time saying Lily today? I feel like every time I
say it, I'm kind of biting my tongue. Anyway, this
(17:17):
could be for other desirable items, things that look designer.
Maybe someone's throw in an Oscar Dala rent a label
or a Gunny Sacks label, like anything that would command
a high market value, you do have to do a
double triple CHECKERU on yourself and make sure that the
label is appropriate for that garment. It's just another added layer,
(17:40):
another thing for you to just be certain and to
get familiar with, because you don't want to be the
person that sold the fake thing, and then the person
who bought it, who spent a lot of money on it,
finds out it's a fake thing, and then well, I
feel like you could get canceled. Even if it was
an honest mistake, it's really hard to prove that and
be like, oh, I don't know like that. It's always
(18:02):
the burden of the seller to know and to do
the right thing. Even if you bought it like that.
It doesn't matter if you bought it like that. You
should have done your due diligence and you should be
certain that it is authentic and that you're selling along
something that you know is the real thing. Another one
(18:24):
I've had personal experiences with. You find a vintage garment
and you're like, oh, that's cool, and it has been
heavily altered or upcycled or something like that. And you know,
especially as we're going into a halloweeny time, my favorite
time of year, you're going to see Halloween racks and
(18:44):
you're gonna have to look really, really carefully at these
garments because some of them it'll appear to be not vintage.
But if you look deeper, and you look closely with
your X ray vintage eyes, you can see through some
of the ugly alterations that have been done to make
this costume, and sometimes you can find some vintage treasure.
(19:08):
This has happened to me before many times. I once
found this nineteen seventies Maxi dress on a Halloween rack.
It was all sort of bunched up like it was
a Maxie, but the hem was bunched up and twisted
and sown and twisted and sown to look kind of
I don't know, it's just weird looking. And it had
(19:29):
this like lace up corset front bodice all the way
down to the belly button. It had it was like
a stretchy polyester jersey. It was just a really interesting
looking dress. It looks sort of like someone was making
like a burning man costume. It's the best way I
can put it. It was very revealing, but it was
sort of like post apocalyptic looking, and I grabbed it
(19:52):
and I was like, huh okay, and you know what,
I took a chance on it. I didn't even look
for a label. I was like, this looks interesting. I
feel like this is something. I got it home. I
put it on my mannequin and I started looking closer
and I saw that someone had hand sewn all these
weird little like twists and folds, and so then I
started got my little snippers and started snipping away all
(20:15):
of the alterations that had been done. The dress fell
into a beautiful, long, sort of seventies gown, and then
I flipped it inside out and then I saw a label,
and it was a nineteen seventies funky label, which is
a great label, by the way, a little tidbit for you.
And I just kind of steamed it out and restored
(20:35):
it to its natural beauty and sold it for a
bunch of money. So that was something that, you know,
I took a risk on that one, but it happens
a lot. You'll see things at you know, again, the
thrift stores, especially on Halloween racks, where people have like
sewn on like ugly flowers or like added weird trims
(20:56):
to make into an angel costume or a faery. You
have to know what you're looking for. You have to
look at the scenes, you have to touch the fabric.
You have to know your colors, your prints, your silhouettes,
look at the closures. It's a really good time for
you all, as sellers or collectors or whatever the case
may be, to really get into that sort of research
(21:18):
and investigation phase when you're looking at Halloween stuff, because
a lot of people are like, oh, I had this
dress in the attic, let me just pull it down.
I want to be I don't know, a cowgirl, and
they'll make alterations to it and it'll be a true
vintage dress. Sometimes you can't save these things, obviously, you can't.
Like you, if things are hot glued on, or they've
cut things, some of the alterations might be permanent. I
(21:42):
did once see that a woman had saved a nineteen
fifty's wedding gown that had been splashed with fake blood.
She was able to get all of the fake blood
out and completely restore the wedding dress, and that was
fabulous to see. But it took her a long time
and that's a lot of dedication obviously, but it can
be done. So that's a really good time to you know,
(22:03):
flex your muscles, look closely at things, and you know,
sometimes you will buy something and take a risk and
it won't work out and it won't be vintage, or
it won't be able to be you know, unaltered. Is
that a word unaltered? De altered? I don't know. But
sometimes you won't be able to bring that thing back,
and that's okay too. Sometimes just grabbing something to you know,
(22:26):
learn from, that's okay. And finally, one of the last interesting,
little sort of common mistakes you'll see is something doesn't
have a label at all. Okay, you get it and
you're like, oh, it doesn't have any label. I think
(22:46):
it's vintage. It's got some hallmarks of vintage. And then
maybe you google lens it. I hate Google lens. I
don't really use it for vintage clothing. It's a last resort.
I do use it for other vintage things like I
don't know, sentry glass and things like that, but for
clothing it's not super helpful. It's sort of my last ditch.
If I take a picture of that thing and I'm like,
(23:08):
oh my gosh, it's Oscar dela Rena. This thing I got,
it's Oscar dela Rena. It doesn't have the label, and
you're excited, and you're like price comping, and you're like,
Oscar dela Reenta seven hundred, eight hundred, one thousand dollars.
Like you're sweating your blood pressures through the roof. You're thinking, you,
you know, sourced an unlabeled Oscar de la Renta dress
(23:30):
from the thrift store for ten dollars. It's a great feeling,
but hold your horses, chill out, because there are designers
that knock off, very specifically knock off high end pieces,
and one that comes to mind is Victor Costa. Victor
Costa is known as the copycat. Now Victor Costa pieces
(23:53):
in their own right are fabulous. I will never turn
down a Victor Costa really anything really high quality from
you know, seventies, eighties and nineties, really high quality pieces.
But he very specifically made knockoffs of high end designer pieces,
and they're very desirable. It was a way for people
(24:13):
to have that designer look, sort of like the designer
impostor perfumes, you know, which you know those were horrible.
Victor Costa's not designer impost quality, but sort of that
same idea where you could get that look, that runway look,
but you could buy his dresses at like Bloomingdale's or Neeman's.
So it wasn't, you know, bargain basement. It was a
(24:34):
little bit more of an attainable price point, but still
high end and still really well made. And it would
have just the tiniest little difference from the original, so
it'd have, like, you know, you'd have this designer piece
and then the Victor Costa would be just slightly different.
The neckline would be a hair different, or the sleeves
would be just a little bit different. So be mindful
(24:55):
of that too, because there are designers. There are pieces
that were reproduced made to look like designer pieces, and
you don't want to go out there and you know,
scream at the mountaintops that you found Oscar Dela renta
gown and then turns out it wasn't. So I guess
this whole podcast is really just about not just assuming
(25:16):
you know something based on a blog you read or
a video that you saw. There are so many nuances
to doing this work. There are so many elements and
pieces that fit together that tell the story of address.
You know, there are so many things to learn. You
will never ever stop learning. You will never stop learning
(25:38):
doing this business. And some people might think that that's
exhausting and daunting. For me, it's exhilarating because I'm not
going to get bored. I'm always going to have something
new to learn about selling, buying, collecting vintage clothing. It's
not an exact science. It's there's no formula, there's no
app there's no you know, guru that's going to tell
(26:02):
you everything that you need to know. And I think
that that's probably scary for some people. And while a
lot of people decide not to do clothing or not
to go into this business, but for those of us
who are out here like challenging ourselves, I just want
to say I see you, and I commend you. So
keep on learning, keep reading, keep touching vintage, keep going
(26:25):
out there, go to vintage stores, look at things. I
can also quick sidebar. I can't tell you how many
times I go to like a high end good vintage
store where their prices are high, and I look at
their stuff and I'm like, that's not nineteen seventies. That's
not nineteen fifties. Just saying, just saying, nobody's an expert.
Thank you for listening. I appreciate you all. If you're
(26:46):
enjoying my podcast, please leave me a review telling me
what you think, or you can buy me a coffee.
Buy me a coffee dot com Slash the Thrifters, and
I will see you all real soon. I probably it
(27:09):
is infinitely
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