Tuesday, January 6, 2015

365 Project #8 Shopping Vintage Ladies Dresses


We have a concept band called Play It Again, we call it "20th Century Classics".  Wanting to be real stage show, we decided to do classic vintage stage outfits, too.   Needless to say, the normal band clothing, even 'dress jeans and a real shirt with a collar' just don't cut it, so I did some research on stage dress for oldies bands.  I wanted the real thing, not Halloween costumes, so I became a regular ebay shopper.  Adding the word 'vintage' to search terms resulted in some very expensive items.


What did get some great results finding women's very fancy dresses was searching for famous high-end brands of formal wear, like Pisarro Nights, Patra, Adrienne Pappell, etc..  In ebay search for the brand name you want and your size, for example 'pisarro nights size 8', sort by 'price + shipping-lowest first' and 'buy it now'.  Searching 'beaded dress' and 'formal dress' was less satisfactory but sometimes profitable.


I was able to get these (over $200) dresses, brand-new, sometimes-with-defects or worn-once dresses for an average of $40 each.  I can sew, so I was able to fix the ones that were damaged or missing beadwork.  It's still way too much for my budget, but I'll have them for years and expect the band to last a long time.

Jewelry from Wal-Mart (the cheap stuff), Vintage Vogue in Marble Falls, TX and ebay.

All this is pretty amusing to me, since, for convenience's sake, all my normal clothes are black, I never wear makeup and rarely jewelry except for stage.















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