Every year the Oakland Museum holds their White Elephant Sale, a cross between an antiques market and thrift store, held in a ginormous warehouse conveniently about 5 min. from my house!  This year we went to the preview sale (Bay Area-ites take note, the official sale will be March 3-4), as we have for the past few years, to get an early crack at buying — and I mean early, as in showing up by 8am on a Sunday and waiting in line for 2 hours.

But, it was worth it, because I got a great haul!  I’ve finally figured out how to target my arriving-early time — in the past I’ve tried to head for vintage clothes first, but the vintage dealers literally clean the racks out in about 5 min. flat.  This year I headed for sewing first, and finally have figured out where the NICE fabric is kept, so I grabbed a shopping basket, threw all the silk in it, and then sorted through to figure out what I wanted to keep.

Here’s my haul:

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Quick Update – Bling & CoCo

January 30, 2012 Costume College

Just a quick update to say thanks for your feedback on my bling issue and Costume College teaching ideas!  You all sold me on the white Indian choker set… but then some BASTARD stole the auction away from me!  I then spent the past week stalking ebay, where I found various sellers selling the same [...]

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V&A Fashion Department Online Resources

January 27, 2012 17th century

Possibly old news to you, but the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Fashion department has recently-ish revamped their website and added a lot of interesting content — mostly articles, some videos.  You can get to the main hub here, but here are some specific items of interest: Underwear: From Corsets to Bullet Bras and Back (video) [...]

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Cool Image Resource

January 26, 2012 19th century

Gallica is the digital library of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and in addition to having an AMAZING collection of interesting historical resources, I recently found that they have digitized some really interesting images… most particularly, a number of press photos of fashions worn at horse races from the 1900s onwards.  The 1910′s images are [...]

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Help Bling Me!

January 23, 2012 20th century

As previously noted, the GBACG is having what should be an amazing Titanic event.  While I’d love to make something new, money is tight enough that I really shouldn’t be spending money on yards of silk.  And, shockingly, I tried on my 1910 Lady Maud evening dress and it still fits, and since I’ve only [...]

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1912 Evening Wear Article Added

January 20, 2012 20th century

I decided to post the article on 1912 evening wear for men and women that I wrote for GBACG’s newsletter to my Fashion Trends for Winter/Spring 1912 page.  I’m super excited about the upcoming Titanic Dinner that GBACG is putting on — can you tell?

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Copyright for Costumers

January 19, 2012 research

Trystan has written an excellent primer on copyright for costume bloggers that’s worth checking out.  It’s a good rundown on the essentials and can help us all determine what’s legal to post and what’s not. And while we’re on the topic… I want to boost the signal on one particular portion:  crediting others for their [...]

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