designer's dirty little secret

A vintage store like this is a designer's heaven. Indeed, this small place hidden in East Village is where Michael Kors, Nicolas Ghesquière of Balenciaga and Anna Sui come in to buy exquisite vintage designs collected from all over the world from various fashion periods. Designers buy vintage pieces as an inspirational source for their collections and at times, these pieces can save designers from what I like to call, 'designer's block.'

I have visited this store a couple of times in the past, but today, I saw some great pieces that I wanted to add to my own vintage collection. For me, searching for the most magnificent pieces in a vintage store starts from browsing the "special sections." Vintage stores often have a designated section for quality pieces made out of delicate fabrics (silk, lace, beadwork) and this is where you're guaranteed to find something unique, well-made, and worthy of your time.

Another tip. Most owners notice when you know how to 'read' fabric and design. Once you've become friendly with the owners, they'll invite you to a special section in the store - usually, the backroom.

Love the glittery one-shoulder number displayed next to silk chiffon dress in bright fuscia with beadwork. If you enlarge the photo, you can see seafoam green Manolos with crystals displayed underneath the one-shoulder dress. I ended up getting this fuscia dress, which looked beautiful from the front, but even more amazing from the back. Close-up photos to be added next time.

This is the special section of the store. I found many many things I liked in this small section: a detailed long scoop back black silk dress with exposed linings in peach silk, which split open in the middle on the front (the owner says the piece was used in a film recently), beautiful french lace dresses, a well-cut black velvet dress with lace overlay (very Valentino, I thought) and this thick silk satin dress in pinkish ivory with handsewn pink beads and crystals. This was the piece I had to buy. If you look closely, beads are sewn in fan-shapes!

There are many pieces in the store that reminded me of contemporary and couture design houses. For instance, I can see the leftmost piece being presented on Christian Dior show. The short dress in pink with intricate embroidery work, perhaps Anna Sui (since she's a fan of this store herself) or even the House of Balenciaga. There were couple of pieces that I thought were museum worthy. I nonchalantly asked the owner if she had any Poiret in the store, and in fact, she did!