revamped dress form project

You know those crappy vintage adjustable dress forms that turn up at yard sales and flea markets and you just can't stop yourself from buying them even though you know they're basically pieces of rusty wobbly shit that never do any garment justice?

Well I was about to throw one of mine through the window the other day when I had a pretty decent idea.  I took it completely apart, ripped out all the bent rusty guts that never worked anyway, (marking each piece as I did so), ripped off the glued-on knit covering (Big Mess!), and then duct taped the whole thing (14 pieces in all) back together again.

They're made of a paper pulp material, nice and light, so I decided to paper mache' the whole things in 3 layers, to secure it well.  This is the second layer, 

 

done with grocery store circulars, and this is the final layer,

 done in 1926 Albany newspaper (that a friend found under the linoleum he tore up in his old house up the street)

Here it is with a coat of varnish:

It is hollow and can still be modified with a stand, but I like its nice small size, great for counter top display of items like jewelry, scarves, and belts.  It's fun to look at too, since it is also essentially a 3-D collage.

30 Dresses in 30 Days

30 Dresses in 30 Days  is an idea I've been toying with for a long time.

Pick a month, any old month,
and wear a dress or skirt every single day of that month.

So I've made the pledge and it all starts tomorrow.
Feel free to join in. Make it official by visiting the Five and Diamond
Facebook Event Page and clicking on "attend".
(You will need a facebook account...)

Should be fun!

sidetracked

A few weeks ago I promised a "halfway decent" blog post in the near future; I haven't forgotten.

I am working on it.
Slowly but surely.

Step one is finally complete. (But I got sidetracked.)

I had to dig up some images I needed that were on an old disc I'd stored away.
(Uh, but first I had to find that disk...)

Then I had to comb through 2,184 picture files to find the three pics I needed for my story.








Talk about pissing away time.
It ended up being a rather long trip down ebay-memory lane, seeing all those hundreds and hundreds of things I sold on online once upon a time.  Back in the olden days, when the listing fee was 15¢ and people sent you handwritten checks through the United States Postal Service, and you drove to the bank with a deposit list and 20-30 checks and then waited for them to clear your bank account before you packed and shipped.
Oh and let's not forget really early on (1998-2000) when I didn't have a digital camera to photograph my merchandise, so I'd take pictures with my SLR, drive 10 miles into Hudson to have film developed at WalMart, then would scan the photos into my computer.  Oi vey... ebay was like a real job. A real job I don't miss one bit.

Anyway, I couldn't resist I plucking out a few images to share:

1950s Nudist Magazine, about $25-$30.....

Vintage Playtex Rubber girdle in original tubular box, $205.... (wonder if sales are still that strong in the rubber girdle world--)

"Parade of the States" Map scarf $? (want it back!)

Four *rare* bakelite clothes hangers (got $265 for the set!)

My Appalachia Mountain dulcimer I got for my 16th birthday in Greenwich Village...$85  (want it back!)

My baby grand piano I had for over 25 years! ($1200)  (Want it back!)

Oh-- and here's the little "Thank You" jpeg I included at the end of all my ebay listings.  Cute old photo I found in a junk store.

make it work

How to turn a stale $10 sale-rack dress back into a $35 sure- seller:

Ruby Slippers in Five Minutes

One pair High Heels
One paint brush
One bottle red glitter
Tacky Glue that dries clear
Newspaper work surface (reuse glitter that doesn't stick)

(Touch up will be necessary at each wearing, as I am doing today...)

blog clog vol IV

OK, I think I've got a halfway decent blog post in the works for the near future---a good story about a treasure-trove yard sale purchase---- but in the meantime, I bring you another clumsy edition of 'blog clog'

to clean out some of the stuff in the drafts file.

1)
Let's start where I left off.
 Tommy, from my last blog post, came in the other day with his silver dread locks all freshly chopped off, and needed something for his new look. I had just a week before picked up this midnight blue dinner jacket with skinny black satin lapels -- and bingo--
--it fit like it was tailor made for him.

Kinda Blues Bros....

(which reminds me--- Tommy's Blue Sun Trio is playing at Savoia tonight at 9 pm 214 Warren St.)

2) Seen on the street

Nothing pleases me more than seeing Five and Diamond merch out there in the world-- weeks, months, maybe years after I've sold it. Saturday I was an art opening and spotted Gretchen carrying this 1920s floral pocketbook from 5 and D


She was totally working it with her hat and those bauble necklaces. Love all those colors!

Then a few minutes later I walk across the street to another art opening and there's Dawn in one of the Koos van Den Akker dresses she bought a few weeks ago.


The next morning I was walking the alleys and saw Holly wearing her new-old Catskill varsity jacket, (drat I forgot to take a pic!) and
then on Tuesday I'm playing Bingo at PM Wine Bar, and in walks this gentleman wearing a corduroy blazer from 5 and D.

(I so love the ones like this with the belted waist in back:)

Four tags in four days!

3) Delmar Bootery.


I want to get in a plug for the Delmar Bootery in Albany.  A couple of months ago I gathered up 6 pair of tattered boots from the back of my closet and took them to Delmar. All totally unwearable, but with which I still had serious attachment to.
It sort of felt like taking sick animals to the vet, and one pair even got rejected

"Sorry, there's nothing we can do...".


The five pair that they refurbished (Took only 10 days, BTW) came back beautiful

But I'm most excited about the really old Orange ones that I bought in a vintage store on Haight Street, SF in the early 80s , but wore 'til there was no heel left.

Here's a picture of me wearing them back then, marching outside the Museum of Modern Art in some labor dispute protest thing.

(This is pretty much how I survived those horrible 80s: mini skirts, turtlenecks, vintage men's jackets, Cowboy boots).



4) If the dress fits /Letting go again

Some dresses hang around the store for ages and only get ooohed and aaawed at. In the case of this border lace dress, only a very tall person could wear it, sinse it can not be hemmed. I asked this lovely 6 foot tall woman to model it for me,and when she came out of the dressing room told her she could have it for half price. Done.


Sorta similar story with this gorgeous Best and Co. velvet coat that was very, very tiny. In this case, way too many non-tiny people decided to try it on and button it up anyway, busting out the corner waist seams on it.  Argggh. You cannot repair L-shaped corner seams, people.

So I let Ngonda have if for 75% off!

5) Resolving
One of my New Year's resolution ideas for this blog was: For every picture I post of something sold, to also post a picture of something I haven't sold yet. I doubt I can stick to it, but will try here with some winter cover-ups.
First, the SOLDs:

And now for the UNSOLDS:








6) Grrrr. I really, really REALLY REALLY  REALLY hate google blogger today.
Really.  nightmare. When are we forming a local Hudson bloggers support group?

Letting go

This is Tommy Sharp, of the Hudson City Ramblers.

Tommy bought this amazing wool gabardine western shirt from me a couple months back. It was a rather expensive shirt, but I didn't make one penny on it.
I'd bought it for myself nearly 20 years ago, in a vintage clothing store on Bleeker Street named Chameleon, where I also worked for about 30 seconds, mending clothes in the basement/storeroom.
The shirt cost me $90, which trust me, was an extraordinary purchase for me at the time.  I paid for it in installments.

Oddly enough, over all these years- I wore it only once--- maybe, MaaaaaaYbe twice,

1993ish



but in 5 years of having the shop I still haven't been able to bring myself to offer it for sale.

When Tommy came in looking for something special, I dug the shirt out of the back room, not really thinking he'd bite. I was wrong...but, I have no regrets. When I saw him sporting it on his facebook page a couple of weeks later I knew I'd waited for the right moment to part with it.