Denisebrain best of 2015

It’s time to take a look back at 2015, including favorite vintage items that I sent to new homes.

If I do say so myself: Just. Wow. Ceil Chapman, 1952

Vintage, come rain or come shine

In the navy, c. 1950

Pink lady

Summer and winter 1950s

40s 4-ever

How novel! Blue notes from the 50s

On a really personal note: I won’t say that this has been an easy year for me. I have lost two people dear to me and had to work around pain from what I now know is psoriatic arthritis. I can’t easily comb my hair, zip my (metal!) zipper or put my shoes on.

If anything though, I love what I do more than ever and cherish my friends and family even more. I am so thankful for all my readers, customers and online colleagues and friends who make what I do such a pleasure every single day. You make it all worthwhile.

Rose up

By any other name

Go elegant or go home (gloves by Roger Faré, Paris)

Totes gorge

Big dipper (the Jantzen “Tahitian Temptation” suit inspired a blog post)

The wild Southwest In case you missed them, these were my blog posts that seemed to resonate most with people (the first one especially): How vintage clothing is priced Vintage glove etiquette My 9-part series on How to wear vintage for the 40+ year-old woman provoked a lot of interesting and thoughtful responses from readers Get the look: Katharine Hepburn—one style icon I finally got around to dissecting! LOTS of vintage convergences documents some of the new pinners on my Vintage Convergences Pinterest board.  Calling modern-made clothing “vintage” is a disservice to real vintage

Go team vintage!

You glow girl, in luminous 1960s pieces

Hot pinks (the fine print? by Alfred Shaheen)

Last flowers of summer

Fall for vintage If you haven’t joined my mailing list, consider this your invitation to receive ideas and deals delivered right to your inbox:

Spice girl (nothing quite like vintage cashmere and fiesta wear)

Sophisticated lacy

Silver and gold (make new friends but definitely keep the old)

Red alert

I'm very pleased to say that so far this year, with your help, I have raised funds for breast cancer awareness (Living Beyond Breast Cancer), as well as for endangered manatees in Belize (Sea to Shore Alliance) and Florida (Save the Manatee Club). There are a few days before the current fundraiser For the Manatees ends, and I hope to reach $1250...a new record for a single fundraiser here at denisebrain! Anything-but-mean reds (the Lilli Ann coat looks so cute on its new owner!) What’s up for 2016? Besides all the best vintage clothing I can find for you, there will be a new, mobile-friendly denisebrain.com!

2016 ought to be exciting...please join me!

Best wishes for a peaceful, happy, loving and beautiful year ahead! May you receive back all the joy that you give.

(I hope you are surrounded by the sort of people who will zip your zipper if you need a hand too!)

For the Manatees fundraiser update...even more good news!

And it just keeps getting better! Thanks to generous donors and customers, my For the Manatees fundraiser has a new goal of $1,250!

If you haven’t already, please consider making a donation (any size helps!) over on my YouCaring page or purchase that item from my shops that you’ve been considering. Through the end of the month, 25% of your purchase price goes to a great organization, Save the Manatee Club.

Update on For the Manatees fundraiser (good news!)

I am happy to report that with 10 days left in the month, you have helped me raise $929 for Save the Manatee Club! I have upped the goal from the original $650 all the way up to $1000 and I don’t see why that goal can’t be surpassed!

You really care about manatees, and it shows. 

Manatee Annie and her calf photo by Cora Berchem, Save the Manatee Club

The rest of December will be busy and I hope you have every reason to be away from your computers and phones and with those you love. So while still ‘plugged in’ how about taking a moment to donate a little to a great cause through a purchase of vintage fashions from my online stores (where 25% of your purchase price goes to the manatees) or making a direct donation on my YouCaring page set up for this purpose. If you don’t have the money but want to help, please just share this fundraiser.

And thank you!

Update on For the Manatees fundraiser

December is for the Manatees here at denisebrain, with 25% of sales going to Save the Manatee Club.

Manatee photo ©Cora Berchem via Save the Manatee Club

Right now we are at $350, with a goal of $650 by the end of the month. It is a perfect time to help out the lovable, gentle, intelligent (and sadly endangered) manatee. If you’d like to donate directly, check out my YouCaring page. There, 100% of your donation will go to the cause.

Please help me make a big splash for these gentle giants!

Warmest wishes

My December theme brings you greetings, featuring some of my vintage Christmas tree pins

For the Manatees, my 2015 Holiday fundraiser

Painting by Anna Davies/Anna Davies Art

I love manatees.

The West Indian (Florida) Manatee was once plentiful around the coast of Florida, but now its survival as a species is in jeopardy. Humans are the gentle herbivores’ only enemy, with our fishing lines ensnaring them, our pollution poisoning them, our boats striking them and our living space encroaching upon theirs. Heather Sellick of the US Scuba Center wrote “the manatee is one of the most magnificent marine mammals...it is also the one that tugs at our heart strings and reminds us of the great damage humans have inflicted on the creatures with whom we share this planet.”

Manatees are awesomely large, perfectly gentle creatures. How could anything so wonderful be at risk of extinction?

Manatees are intelligent (“capable of understanding discrimination tasks, and show signs of complex associated learning and advanced long term memory.” [Gerstein, E. R. (1994). The manatee mind: Discrimination training for sensory perception testing of West Indian manatees (Trichechus manatus). Marine Mammals 1: 10–21.] They demonstrate complex discrimination and task-learning similar to dolphins and pinnipeds in acoustic and visual studies. [Marine Mammal Medicine, 2001, Leslie Dierauf & Frances Gulland, CRC Press]. The manatee’s closest land relation is the elephant, not the cow, despite their being called sea cows in many parts of the world. They are thought to have evolved from four-legged land animals some 60 million years ago.

Think about it: Manatees have made it 60 million years on the Earth and now their survival is threatened.

I know that many of you share my concern and love for the manatee. That’s why, starting today and going to the end of the year, 25% of your purchase price on any items you select from my Etsy shop or my web store will go to the Save the Manatee Club. If you don’t see any vintage finery to suit you during these weeks, I encourage you to donate on my YouCaring page, where every cent you give will be channeled to SMC. My goal is to raise $650 [edit, now $1250!], and with your help I know this is possible.

For the Manatees,
Maggie/denisebrain

Photo ©Cora Berchem via Save the Manatee Club

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; 

indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. —Margaret Mead

Thankful

I am so very thankful for all my wonderful followers, customers, readers, colleagues and friends in the world of vintage. On this Thanksgiving Day, my humblest gratitude to each and every one of you.

This has not been an easy month for me, with two deaths in the family, my own health issues and 5 days without power and heat after a massive windstorm. The world hasn’t gotten off easy either. If anything though, I feel more thankful for all that is right and beautiful in the world.



As a small token of my appreciation I will include a unique, beautiful vintage scarf from my stash with your purchase through Monday.

Affection and thanks, Maggie of denisebrain

Back to back black

My November theme is up, and...

I believe I have more black vintage clothing and accessories in stock than any other color—all eras, all prices, all styles. No doubt it has always been a good time to go back to black. 

30s vintage Fashion Originators Bullocks Wilshire gown & jacket in my web store

Vintage convergence time again

I love when I stumble across a vintage photo, sewing pattern or artwork showing an item of clothing I have found...I call these vintage convergences. Here are two recent VCs:

1950s Koret jousting knight print separates. I have had the skirt and the blouse at different times.

Hand knit Mary Maxim totem pole sweater in my Etsy shop, and one similar, worn by Bob Hope in 1953.

Like these? There are lots more on the Pinterest board I share with a group of other Vintage Convergence aficionados—have a look!

Pink yourself up for Breast Cancer Awareness month

As in past Octobers I am devoting a portion of my sales this month to the highly respected Living Beyond Breast Cancer. 

From now through October 23, I will donate 20% of the sale price on any of your purchases from my Etsy shop and web store to LBBC.

Even though pink’s my favorite color, I know it’s not everybody’s. In the past I donated a portion of sales of vintage items in pink during weeks in October. Now, whether you like pink or not, I want you to be able to be part of this. This year, any color goes, so pink yourself up in any color you like!

Thank you for helping with this important cause that affects so many—too many—of us. 

What's hot this month?

The denisebrain October theme is up, and you’ll never guess what it’s about!

It's Labor Day—have you looked for the union label?

Thanks to legions of union garment workers, we had a thriving clothing industry in the United States, now essentially off-shored.

The delivery may be out of style in this 1980 ad, but the message still sounds right:

Look for the union label

When you are buying a coat, dress or blouse.

Remember somewhere our union’s sewing

our wages going to feed the kids and run the house,

We work hard but who’s complaining.

Thanks to the I.L.G. we’re paying our way.

So, always look for the union label,

it says we’re able

to make it in the U.S.A.

You can still look for the union label, in vintage clothing.

Just a few of the choices with ILGWU (International Ladies Garment Workers Union) labels at denisebrain this week (click any photo for more on the item):

Another benefit of a union label is its help in dating items. Please visit the Vintage Fashion Guild’s

ILGWU page

for the scoop on a number of union labels and their dates. 

“Symbol of decency, fair labor standards, the American way of life”

ILGWU parade float bearing the union label, December 7, 1960. Photographer unknown, via The Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives.

To be or not to be red-lipped

The most recent denisebrain vintage fashion show called for pictures of people’s favorite red lipsticks. If you wear vintage clothing do you need to wear red lipstick? Some thoughts.

I am a horn player, and my lips—their strength and health—are important to my well-being and survival as a musician. I have even considered insuring my lips.

No one plays a brass instrument with lipstick on, and when not playing, what goes on a brass player’s lips simply has to be good for them. I didn’t wear lipstick for many years, only considering soothing balms. Then, way back in 1999, I started denisebrain vintage, and as I started to shoot photos of vintage clothing on myself I felt the urge to add that authentic detail, a red lip.

It wasn’t particularly easy for me to make the jump to wearing lipstick, even just here and there, given my horn playing. I’m always very conscious of my lips and how they feel. But I found myself really loving the look of tinted balms and lipsticks. Now I feel more myself with some color.

Lips, particularly red lips, say “vintage” of a certain era like little else, for less money and less effort than most things. But again, is it necessary?

I would say never.

Some consider a red lip to be anti-feminist “man bait”...just look at some of the vintage ad campaigns used for red lipstick.

Others know that there are some cosmetics that are tested on animals, or contain unhealthy ingredients. They would rather not risk these things.

For me, colorful lips are simply the most exciting thing you can do with your appearance in mere seconds.

Lipstick is well known to experience an uptick in sales during a recession. Why? It is a relatively inexpensive pick-me-up. Likewise, it can signal a vintage look quicker and more easily than even seamed stockings or pin curls. It can make you feel put together, pretty, yourself.

Can it make you look costume-y? Yes, it could be part of a full-blown vintage look that appears to have time-travelled out of the past if that’s what you’re after. Or it could be applied in a modern way, worn with modern clothing like a single vintage accessory. You can mix-and-match eras and lip colors for a fresh perspective.

If you don’t need lipstick, don’t like it or want it, there is not the slightest obligation to wear it! It is 2015 and most of us have options. If you want to try lipstick, please do look for the companies that do no animal testing, use safe ingredients and responsible practices in manufacturing. Find a lipstick that feels comfortable, even beneficial, so that if you decide to play the horn, you’ll be ready to go! Enjoy the ritual of finding a color, putting lipstick on and wearing it for yourself, not anyone else. See if you like the reaction you get, see if you feel put together and more yourself or not.

Lipstick isn’t something women have to wear, it is something we are free to wear—part of the art and poetry of fashion, nothing more, nothing less.

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that...

You guessed it—BLING! The good news is that bling-y jewelry is really in for fall. The better news is that vintage bling is the best—at the best price—that you will find!

My September theme is a small tribute:

Some of the vintage rhinestone pieces in my Etsy shop right now

This September, don’t be afraid to sparkle!

I thank you, the elephants thank you!

This morning I was able to make a donation of $253 to the Elephant Crisis Fund, administered by the World Conservation Network. I could not do that by myself—only with your concern and caring. I’ve said it many times and I’ll say it again: Denisebrain has the best customers!!

Image credit: Four Oaks/Shutterstock

*Closet* Environmentalist

I sell vintage fashion. And I want to save endangered species and the environment. Unrelated? Nope!

There’s no reason not to bring joy and beauty to ourselves and others through our dress, but there is every reason to make the right choices about what we choose to hang in our closets.

Cute, fashionable, new clothing—cheaply and quickly produced—is known as “fast fashion.” It has become the standard in fashion merchandising. What you will often get with fast fashion:

•     dangerous and even lethal working conditions for the workers

•     air and water pollution from its production

•     enormous waste dumped on the planet when it goes unsold or is discarded

That’s why I want you to become a Closet Environmentalist!

It’s really simple: Fast fashion robs the world. You can help the world with your actions and that includes what you wear.

Vintage fashion is the time-traveling, green, smart and beautiful answer to fast fashion.

It’s because of my great customers that I’ve been able to raise awareness and funds for endangered species and their habitats, most especially Save the Manatee Club and Conservation Northwest.

Lots of you are already passionate about vintage for many good reasons. Looking to your closet to help the environment is yet one more great reason that vintage makes the world a better place!

Don’t forget, through the end of August 30% of your purchase price from the denisebrain web store or Etsy shop will go to a vital cause, the Elephant Crisis Fund.

World Elephant Day

Elephants are in crisis. World Elephant Day was founded to bring people together to help conserve and protect elephants from the numerous threats they face. 

Most pressingly, the slaughter of African elephants for their ivory is leading rapidly toward their extinction. These beloved animals are known for their high intelligence, self-awareness, altruism, grief, learning, compassion, affection, cooperation, memory, allomothering, mimicry, play, use of tools, and empathy. Aristotle once said that elephants are “the animal which surpasses all others in wit and mind.”

Charl Durand/Pexels

How can we stand by when nearly 100 of these magnificent creatures are brutally slaughtered by poachers in the illegal ivory trade every day? The answers is we can’t. What kind of world would it be without the elephant?

Courtesy of GoodFon.com

Today, and through the end of August, 30% of your purchase price from my Etsy shop and web store will go to the Elephant Crisis Fund. This is being administered by two great organizations, Save the Elephants and Wildlife Conservation Network. As WCN states on its website:

The elephant poaching crisis is now too large for any one organization or government to solve and requires a coalition that can tackle poaching, ivory trafficking and ivory demand. The role of the Elephant Crisis Fund is to quickly fund the most innovative and effective projects in these three areas across the coalition. From fuel for a small plane to provide aerial surveillance over a national park in Kenya to anti‐ivory campaigns featuring celebrities in China, the Elephant Crisis Fund identifies and supports the most critical initiatives that can save elephants.

With the future of African elephants hanging by a thread, this is the moment for us to take action. Please donate directly to the Elephant Crisis Fund, or if you’ve been eyeing something in my shops, make the purchase now, knowing you are contributing to this vital cause.

If your funds are low (I understand!), please help by spreading the word.

Spice is the variety

Looking at Pantone’s color forecast for fall 2015 makes me want to eat curry. Herbs and spices are on the menu, along with earthy bright colors. Every color looks like it was selected from a Moroccan rug. My August theme is a tribute to this savory fall palette: 

Fabric term of the week: Block printing

Did you ever carve the smooth-cut face of a raw potato, ink it up and stamp prints with it? Same idea as block printing, only in my experience, the potato is a sorry mess before you can say French Fry. Block printing, using durable stamp surfaces, still must take incredible patience and skill. 

Block printing 

Hand-printing method, using carved wooden or linoleum blocks.

From Fabric Sewing Guide by Claire Schaeffer. Krause Publications, Cincinnati, 2008. Used by permission.

Hand block printing in process, courtesy of Rubina Magazine

Block printed cotton gauze from India ©Vintage Fashion Guild, photo by Margaret Wilds/denisebrain

Right now in my Etsy shop you can see the fabric from which I shot the close up, in its finished form. 

1970s dress by Anokhi - Jaipur India

This Treacy Lowe - London dress was also made in India in the 1970s, this time in block-printed silk.

Fabric of the week: Jacquard knit

If you have a patterned knit (not printed, but patterned by the design of the yarns used), you have a jacquard knit. Think 1970s and 80s rainbow heart sweaters...among many other items from the 1960s, 70s and 80s. A jacquard knit may also be a patterned hand knit. 

Jacquard knit

Either a single or double knit made with a pattern on its face, achieved with jacquard controls on a knitting machine. Any yarn may be used.

The single knit jacquard will have floats across its back, while the back of a double knit jacquard will have a birdseye pattern.

See also: Double knit, Jacquard, woven, Jersey

Nylon double knit jacquard, face

Nylon double knit jacquard, reverse ©Vintage Fashion Guild - Text by Margaret Wilds/denisebrain,  photo by Hoyt Carter

Right now I have this 1960s polyester and lamé double knit jacquard dress in my Etsy shop: