This year’s best-of starts off with two why-don’t-they-make-them-like-this-anymore-quality New Look-era items. The coat, labeled Bettijean, is made of wool with rainbow flecks.
Dan Millstein made this buttery-soft wool jacket with satin details. Both flew from my shop.
Once again, I am so happy to have had the help of models who really get, and love, the styles.
Here is a 1940s wool gabardine suit and a hooded velvet maxi coat from the ’70s, modeled by Sarah.
With your help, once again I have supported One Tree Planted with a dollar for each purchase from my Etsy shop. One Dollar = One Tree. Isn’t it wonderful to think of the green we are bringing to the world with that tree, and the green choice of great vintage fashion?
Speaking of green, these jade rings sold very quickly. And here are couple more wonderful models, Roxy, in a silk dress by Mort Schrader, and Selah in a Castlecliff iridescent green glass beaded necklace.
That necklace? A dear friend donated it for me to sell with all proceeds going to Save the Manatee Club. As some of you know, I love manatees, and donate 10% of my yearly earnings to Save the Manatee Club. I’m so grateful that many of you care about manatees too.
One customer wrote about this white gown:
I was deliberating between this dress and a couple others from different shops. Then I saw your note about donating to Save The Manatees. Done! Sold! I have loved manatees since I was a child, and I "adopt" one every year. His name is Floyd. Anyway - completely obsessed with the dress and 100% will be supporting your shop as often as I can afford!!!
Here’s another item my dear friend donated to raise money for Save the Manatee Club. It’s a mohair sweater by Lee Herman with puffy little embroidered mushrooms. I thought it looked great with this silk scarf by Jacqmar.
Among things that make a walk in the rain cheerful are vintage raincoats and polka dots. Together? Win-win. One coat’s buyer wrote: Vintage item and so cool, fun description is accurate and seller went the extra mile and I felt like I was receiving a gift! (I love it when people feel that way!)
The other said: Love this raincoat. I looked at it for quite a while. So glad I finally purchased it. (I’m so glad too!)
No color tops black in vintage toppers …at least that’s what you seem to be saying. I routinely sell more hats in black than any other shade.
Speaking of black, here’s a Vintage Convergence: A large fan-shaped bag home-crocheted from rayon cord, with a twisted Lucite handle and carved Lucite zipper fob. The original design was a Cordet Crochet pattern by Jack Frost, dating from 1945. Of course I had to attempt the same pose.
Humor me—this is as close as I get to time travel.
This long, hand-knotted necklace of blue glass beads is simple and beautiful. Another wonderful model, Jessica, modeled this blue silk faille dress for me—also a simply beautiful design made by the color.
Pale pink from the 1950s, ’40s and ’60s. Which is your favorite?
There’s no doubt, vintage Hawaiian-made fashions are perpetual bestsellers. Look at these prints from the 1950s and ’60s and you’ll see why.
You may want to quit Twitter in its newest incarnation, but you clearly don’t want to quit twitterers—birds, that is. Most unusual is the blown glass and wire pin with a bird and nest in a tree that came to me in a box with the following note inscribed on the box's side: "From 'Aunt' Grace Hart, She bought it at the Golden Gate Exposition 1939 — brought it 'home' to me."
The 1950s Coro Duette owl pin clips and earrings are their own sort of amazing, with an ingenious mechanism (patent number 1798867) to separate the pin into two clips.
The duck, in its original gift box, is carved jade.
You (and I) love fashion from the 1940s, and here are two very different representatives: Wide-leg wool gabardine trousers, à la Katharine Hepburn and the most twirl-able cotton square dance dress by Donnell's of Denver.
In fact, black and gold are quickly sold! 1960s brocade, 1950s brocade (with a reversible coat no less) and 1950s velvet with golden cord embroidery.
I’ll let you in on five things I’ve considered my businesses’s mantras in 2022:
Gratefully accept all the help you are offered.
Only do the amount of things you can do well.
Work with a volunteer SCORE or SBDC small business coach.
People truly appreciate intangibles.
Smile as much as you possibly can, and give others a reason to smile.
My personal mantras overlap:
Gratefully accept all the help you are offered.
Only do the amount of things you can do well.
Feed the bees with everything you plant.
Shop small shop small shop small shop small.
Smile as much as you possibly can, and give others a reason to smile.
What advice helped you in 2022? I sincerely want to know.
Here are some diverse jewels that sold this year, from the 1910s through the 1960s.
The coins? This was clearly someone’s souvenir of her travels to South Africa, Belgium, Mexico, Sweden and Austria. The very lovely repeat buyer left this review: These coins must have appreciated in value because wearing this bracelet makes me feel like a million bucks! The very large round brooch is marked Original by Robert. One of my esteemed Vintage Fashion Guild colleagues said about the glorious mishmash: In my opinion, the unique beauty of imagined patterns, colors, and transparencies create the fantasy that makes costume jewelry so appealing.
1930s items are the greatest treat to find—truly becoming quite rare. Here’s a French-made sequined bag, a colorful necklace and an incredible silk dress, all sold in 2022.
These three went out just in time for Christmas.
Emma Domb gown
Brooch by JJ
1940s rayon gabardine
Wear Vintage Now! Choose It, Care for It, Style It Your Way, which I published in 2020, became an eBook this year, available from Apple Books. And I’ve just received a new batch of books to offer here on my website or in my Etsy store. (P.S. I love reading your reviews!)
A 1950s Schiaparelli bracelet that was purchased in 2022.
I will sign off with my very fondest wishes for 2023 to you.