The Death of a Vintage Dress

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Post-it Note to NKD <3: Here’s to the Little Black Dress and looking GREAT in it, Baby!

I have a large collection of vintage items. I have dresses, blouses, evening gowns, watches, purses, shoes, jewelry, and hats. I have quite a collection. I won’t remind you of the difference between “collection” and “addiction”, because I’m hoping by now, you’ve all mastered that concept, or, well, MY definition of it. :-)

Some people might already think that technically a “vintage” dress might be dead; that is, it could be a) out of style b) ripped c) stained or d) all of the above. If you are a true vintage fashionista (sometimes referred to as a VF, but yes, really only by me), you understand that when you buy vintage, well, you buy knowing full well there are very often imperfections because of its age, like a tiny rip, a missing button, a small stain, some fade, and so on. Just as with people, the aging process combined with wear and tear gives the vintage dress aches and pains, and things that do not work or look like they used to.

I bought this dress, the dearly departed, off of eBay about four years ago. It was your typical 40s “day dress” with a lovely floral-butterfly pattern depicted in aqua and pink. It had several plastic buttons up the front each with a rhinestone in its center. Well, I think every other button had a rhinestone in its center. Again, remember, imperfections in clothes and in people are not only acceptable but sometimes intriguing!

“I find imperfection the most interesting thing about a person.”

I pulled the dress out of the attic a few weeks ago. As I said, when I first got it, it had a few imperfections. In addition to the loss of rhinestones in the buttons, the fabric was worn in a few places, making those places almost see through, so my seamstress suggested putting interfacing over those spots.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interfacing

The dress was not tight fitting at all; it was a bit loose and sheer, so I needed to wear a slip under it. I think wearing a slip has all but become a thing of the past with today’s dresses, because most now come with a lining. (I forgot to mention that I also, big surprise, have several vintage slips.) Many of my vintage dresses are sheer and require slips, and to tell you the truth, I like the dress/slip concept. There's something about the layers. Perhaps, to me, it’s just more than fashion; it depicts in a somewhat simple way, all the layers that form to make us into the one we are.

Anyway, when I pulled this dress out of the attic this year, I noticed that it had not fared well in storage. The sleeve had a huge rip in it, and I noticed several new holes in the soft aqua and pink fabric. Not to be one to give up easily, well, when it comes to my collection, I packed up my dress and brought it to Mary, my seamstress, at the local dry cleaners.

When I enter, she usually laughs. Well, I go there a lot, because I learned that when you buy vintage, buying larger and having it tailored is much better than trying to buy just right for your size. I held up my dress, and she sighed. I pointed to the big hole in the sleeve and showed her a few more rips in the skirt. Mary said, “Jean, I will but….” I sensed that she felt she could easily charge me another $20 to repair the dress, but she felt it her responsibility to perform a vintage dress intervention. That is, it was time to give up on this old and tattered dress.

If going to my old place of work was comforting because everyone knows my name, this dress was comforting because it knew my body…how comfortable it made me feel when I threw it on on those days I was totally stressed and could do without the confines of a pair of jeans and a t-shirt or during those other days when I felt fat and wanted to hide all 5’10” of me temporarily in the flowing folds of its soft worn fabric.

So, here is the dress and the huge rip in the sleeve.



I knew, even before Mary pointed it out to me, that this dress had reached its expiration date; it was just hard letting go of something I found so much comfort in. After Mary used her tough sewing love with me, I said, “You’re right; enough is enough.” And, I left with my dress, BUT that didn’t prevent me from wearing yet another day and another.

I realized last week when I wore it to the beach, it was time to throw this dress in the trash after I looked at myself in the mirror of the Crane Beach ladies bath house. It was tattered, torn, and it looked like it might disintegrate at any moment, fall off my body, and God forbid, leave me standing there in a non-vintage slip!

I think one quarter of the problem with letting go of this dress is that it reminded me of a dress my grandmother, Helen (“Bush”, Polish for grandmother), used to wear. Here she is wearing the dress that I think she wore pretty much every time I saw her. I don’t think she had a lot of dresses.



She was even buried in this dress. I do remember after coming in from a run, and my grandfather telling my Mom, “She looks so much like Helen.”

When cleaning out my grandparent’s place when my grandfather had to go to a nursing home, I found her glasses. She always wore these, and I kept them. About ten years ago, I brought them to an optometrist to fit them for my prescription, and he said, “Did you know that these are 12K gold?” All I know is that like that dress, she always wore these glasses, and here I am wearing them.



Top Ten Reasons for Wearing Vintage:

1. Each piece you wear tells people a little bit about the "true" you.
2. Its better made then the crap at the mall.
3. Your best "friend" can't ever go buy the same outfit.
4. The fabrics don't do weird things the first time you wash them.
5. Great vintage never goes out of style.
6. Its way more fun to find - finding good pieces gives addicts like me a rush like no other!
7. The cut is more refined & made for the individual body rather than the mass market.
8. Real silk, real cotton, real wool...need I say more?
9. Ossie Clark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossie_Clark)
10. In our celebrity driven society, this is one trend they get right! It’s the best way to stand out in a crowd and look glamorous beyond belief! There is a reason why our fave glam girls wear vintage to their events!No one else has it! ...and that girls, is the absolute #1 reason to get good vintage into your closet...it's one of a kind, the only one in the world, work of art, chosen by you and that dress will only belong to you!

Here is one of my vintage dresses giving way to the “true” me.



I tried to bring my sister over to the vintage side a few years ago. But she finally said, “I just don’t think I can do vintage.”

I love my sister, Julie, BUT it's just funny sometimes how being "conservative" versus being "a tad bit different*" can really change the way the world sees/perceives you. Okay, that statement sounds kind of obvious and I'm not saying this well. *There's probably a good word for this, but I can't think of it now. It could be "eclectic" but maybe not. :-)

Anyway, Julie and I went to a wedding about two years ago. She mentioned that the Adrienne Vittadini dress she had on (a tan plaid sundress) was bought on sale for $250. It was nice and looked lovely on her; believe me, Julie is beautiful and would look good wearing only a Hefty trash bag. What was funny was that at the wedding (and Julie and I largely were together most of the time), everyone kept coming up to me and saying, 'Wow, that's a great dress" and "I love that dress. Where did you get it?"
I got the dress on eBay for $137! It was from the 40s and was made in Hawaii.

Here it is.



When I dress, I don't try to make an outrageous statement. I just try to dress me (i.e., express me and what I like).

And, in my sister’s defense, there is a somewhat of a disadvantage to having a large vintage collection. Where can you wear it all?

Cooking?



Running?



Vacuuming?



As I told a few friends, I view my vintage collection as wearable art. Painters use paints; I use my clothes. It’s a way of self-expression. I hate Coach bags now, and I would never sport Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses, as I’ve found in vintage, I don’t need a designer name to define me – the 50s beaded dress, the 60s stiletto heels, and the 70s Mexican blouse say it all so clearly.

As I write this, I am wearing, um, that dress. But, it is time to cast it off and let it go, no matter how much I love it. Its softness, its familiar fit, its colors, even if it’s just a dress, it’s hard to let go of all that familiarity. So hard. You want to hang on. You don’t want the moment to end. But, you know, eventually, you have to let it go.

Good-bye beautiful aqua and pink colors.
Good-bye flowers and butterflies.
Good-bye plastic rhinestone buttons.
Good-bye 40s day dress.
Good-bye soft flowing thing that enveloped my body when I felt like no one else would.
And good night, Bush.