In the last twenty-five years (yipes!), there have been many revolutions in the Flea world. Throughout the 70s, when Lilli Ann suits and beaded Pringle cashmere cardigans were almost literally a dime a dozen, when books cost a nickel apiece and all the thrifts featured shelves fairly groaning with Roseville and Bauer pottery; through the 80s and their infatuation with goth and punk and biker chic, the advent of universal black apparel and mock-nostalgia (and rising prices!); and all through the 90s' widespread discovery of the flea market as favored haunt of the world's cognoscenti (and even higher prices!)-I have been a devoted Flea fiend. In this article you'll find my best practices, as they say in MBA-land, for Flea success in the field.
As we have said before, Flea success is a philosophy; a state of mind. An excellent demonstration of this can be seen in writer, artist, curator and Flea philosopher Trina Robbins's wonderful account of a recent trip to Asia. (At Trina's site, you can check out her world-class books and comic art.)
Like Trina (and your humble servant, to be sure), all Flea experts love good deals. That is a big part of it, of course; and I'm just teasing, really, about prices being so high. In the 1970s you could buy a new Italian leather jacket for $75, a tailleur or a good evening dress for the same amount. Movies were $2. So it's really not so different, proportionally speaking. And to those who say (and there are always those who say) that the days of great Flea are over, I reply, ha! The world is absolutely bursting with gorgeous stuff. You just have to keep your eyes open and--this is the most critical element, the most crucial advice we can give--
Know what you want.
This is the key to successful Flea. By knowing exactly what you want, you can edit beautifully and with elegance, you can steer clear of expensive trends, you can develop and strengthen your own tastes and ideas. Learn to exercise discretion and restraint. Otherwise there is a tendency to stockpile, overbuy, lose the thread.
Between the Flea expert and a mere hoarder, there is a universe of difference. You can have the loveliest things in the world, but if they're stacked all over the place in dusty piles until you can no longer offer your guests a chair, it's no longer lovely!! It's just clutter. A good collector has an end in view, such as amassing a set of Willeford first editions or a fine winter wardrobe for this year's wearing. There is no point having something-anything!-you can't find, and/or won't use. So before you venture forth on your researches, promise yourself you won't buy anything you won't really use, at least as a gift. Promise to exercise not the acquisitive, but the editorial part of your mind.
This may sound ridiculous, but in fact many collectors of my acquaintance are (or have slowly become) hoarders. Faced with the immense amount of useful, beautiful, interesting etc. stuff to be had at bargain-basement prices out there, they lose their editorial ability. Closets become jammed to bursting, their innermost recesses a Bermuda Triangle of tenebrous mysteries. Clean surfaces disappear. Garages become well-nigh impenetrable. In its pathological form (and there really is one), sufferers can lose sight of every inch of floor space, not to mention most of the bed, the kitchen sink and even, sometimes, the refrigerator.
Okay, enough cautionary tales! Let's Flea.
Like most Flea
enthusiasts, I hit a number of stores every month, some of them once a week
or so. I also like the Pasadena City College flea market, and the odd tag
sale. We sometimes buzz over to Orange Circle in the City of Orange, about
an hour's drive from Los Angeles. City dwellers accustomed to the nosebleed-inducing
prices in urban areas will be pleasantly surprised at Orange Circle, a group
of fifty or sixty retail shops and little antique malls with a distinctly
grandma-like air. One of them even has a rather kooky Tea Room!
In Los Angeles we have a number of thrift stores operated by AIDS Project, called Out of the Closet. Each one has certain strengths; the Pasadena Out of the Closet has really wonderful books, owing to its proximity to Cal Tech, no doubt; the Fairfax location is very large and has a lot of tchotchke, jewelry and apparel. A smaller one, right near my place of business in Hollywood, is the one I frequent most. We'll be visiting there today.
A cheerful little place, staffed mostly by the local Nez Perce. The music is always fantastic and makes me stay longer than I meant to. Sometimes that odd Latin techno/dance music (in Spanish!), or 80s British Invasion, or Dave Brubeck. Today, a live recording of the Mamas and the Papas!
Aside from the
music, the best thing here in Hollywood is certainly apparel. Though, in
fact, apparel is a great feature of all Outs of the Closet, because of their
wonderful pricing. See the little signs over the clothing racks? Today,
green apparel tags are 30% off, blue ones 50%, and anything with an orange
tag is $1.00. Whoopee! Addicts like myself can have a field day and still
emerge relatively unscathed. And I have scored some amazing stuff in here,
vintage and the European sportswear I love from Dries van Noten, agnes b.,
Montana, Moschino etc. I've found some wonderful Miyake and Kawakubo, as
well, now that I am finally cottoning on (so to speak) to 80s nostalgia.
(My Norma Kamali snap-front grey blouse! I wore it everywhere. In those
vampire days, straitlaced office dweller by day and goth by night, I had
a whole closetful of things all in only black, grey and white. No colors
at all. Then one fine day I bought a riotous crimson, green and ivory rose-printed
silk 50s day dress with loads of tulle under the skirt, and never looked
back.) There are usually a few good pieces from Betsey Johnson lurking about,
too, Stephen Sprouse, that sort of thing.
We begin by locating
a ridiculous painting!! For $20 I am going to have to pass, however much
I am lusting after the total lunacy of this composition. What would Robert
Hughes make of this stiff, flat, alarming vision?? Notice how the bow of
the subject's kerchief has crawled right round her hapless neck! How sinister!
No wonder she looks so worried. Her shoulder strap appears to have been
electrocuted, jiggling madly over an unnaturally shrunken shoulder. And
then the undulating cigarette smoke, Hokusai-like, echoing into coffee steam
in the curious little scratches above. It's haunting, anyway; the lurid
blue background has hypnotized me. There isn't any other store in the whole
world where you could buy such a thing, not for $20 and not for $2000, that's
for sure.
Well. Back to the chase. A little cardboard box - a bit dusty. But I know what this sort of box sometimes contains, and it really does!! Skeins and skeins of lovely pure ivory wool needlepoint yarn!! Fifteen of them in a matching dye lot for $3.
Will I use it?? Will I at least give it as a gift? I have to admit that my unending greed for vintage sewing and craft goods has a slight tendency to erode my better judgement. I already have yards of Belgian needlepoint canvas and boxes of similar yarns (not in this very useful basic color, though!), dozens of boxes of Swarowski crystal beads, all sorts of glass and nacre buttons and lovely old paillettes, silver bouillon, embroidered trims, and so on. I haven't made much progress on the beautiful Belgian or French dragon needlepoint pillow kit I bought several months ago (also for $3; the finely printed canvas alone would have cost over $100 at a regular needlepoint shop.) Oh, what the heck. I hardly ever see this much in a matching dye lot, and it's enough for a really large background. (The angel's counsel, and the devil's! The angel, the devil! Life's eternal pas de deux, eh what?)
There are a lot of really terrible books here, and a few decent overpriced ones. Including a near-fine copy of The New New Thing--a book I have been wanting to read, kind of. Two bucks, though!! Jeez. (I am such a brat! The $25.95 Rizzoli price tag on the back guilts me into thinking it over a bit more, and I have a look inside; it looks really, really wonderful! Even though my bf says that Liar's Poker book was kind of bogus, I'm buying.) No other books strike my fancy today.
And now for it. My worst affliction is definitely apparel. And I do deal on the side, just in order to keep things sane … so there is a reason for acquiring a certain amount of stock, which is dangerous, but fun. Dealing pays for my habit, as it were.
I will often look at every single garment in the whole place. This takes some discipline, but if you don't do it you will definitely miss a silk kimono, or a Victorian linen slip, or whatever. Skirts, for example, are quite often a woefully neglected category, and tend to yield mighty finds. Also evening dresses. Linens generally used to be more neglected, lately not so much; likewise dress patterns, notions and yardage. (Blast you, Martha Stewart! Not that I don't always find more than enough stuff anyhow.) Also still neglected: decorator pillows, a favorite category for me.
If you sew, it's much easier to learn to shop for vintage. You can tell how much work went into things, whether the zippers have been properly set in, the hems properly done, the seams lie flat and have been correctly bound; whether the darts match, the linings are intact, and so on. Not to mention the fact that the need for small repairs can mean an enormous difference in price; for instance, if a button happens to be missing on a cashmere cardigan and you just happen to have a set of nine perfectly matching mother of pearl sweater buttons at home, it will take you about ten minutes to replace them. But the price is liable to be very low just because of that one small, easily remedied defect.
Things you buy with the intention of restoration tend to pile up in the closet, though. I try to buy only those things which are perfect, or which require very little work in order to bring them up to perfect--not just okay!--condition. That said, very little is more satisfying than taking that little bit of trouble and winding up with a truly beautiful thing that you yourself brought back to its rightful station. So it is well to learn a little about the conservation of the type of stuff you love. Sewing books are cheap and plentiful. You can also buy books and even videos on restoring books, paper goods, furniture and so on. It's a lovely hobby, and a worthy one.
Ultimately, though, quality is the principal consideration in buying vintage. High quality fabrics, garments that are well cut and constructed, really do never go out of style. Good design in tableware, ceramics, furniture and lighting is timeless. So long as you know what really works for you, buy vintage. It's so much more fun to have the whole of history to work with, and not just the boring stuff from the mall. (Actually, it's fun to have some boring stuff from the mall, I admit. Coco Chanel, who used to mix real and fake jewelry in the same ensemble, understood this precept, too, viz., if it's fun and beautiful, go for it. Now, that's the way to live.)
It's time to go. Here is a final opportunity to review your purchases and make absolutely certain that you are truly going to use each thing in that rickety shopping cart. If not--put it back!!
Okay, sanity check complete. Checkout achieved safely. Here are a few photos of the day's haul. Dig that dollar stuff! Most of this lot will wind up being presents for teenagers, I expect.
Bonne chance, and let us know what you come up
with! If we get enough interest we'll put together a Thrift Museum sometime
soon. Please send your photos and relevant details to the Editors.
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