Vintage Styling Class at BAV Collective

Vintage Shaun is carried at BAV Collective, a fun store in Montclair, New Jersey run by super woman B.Artiste who is a designer, an author and a college professor.  June is Workshop Month and your's truly will be kicking it off with a Vintage Styling workshop on June 3rd. Vintage Shaun will be in the building speaking about the modern twist on vintage clothes, how to not look like a character out of a period film and what to do with your mom's hand me downs.  It's $25 or you can attend all 4 for $80, reserve your spot  and shoot any questions at bavthcollective@gmail.com, hopefully we'll see you there.

Everyone Needs a Spring Fling

As a seasoned thrifter, Goodwill has a huge stake in my wardrobe. Thrifting and vintage are the truest forms of being  green and ecologically stylish. By shopping or donating to a local thrift store such as Goodwill, you are recycling and reusing therefore avoiding the billions of tons of clothing that ends up in landfills.

In honor of Earth Day as well as that annual task of spring cleaning, I'm working on an amazing   project with the Goodwill NY/NJ called Spring Fling the Excess, where you have a chance on winning a styling session with me. Sounds pretty cool, right? Well, all you have to do is like Goodwill on Facebook and post "I donate to Goodwill because.." with either a photo of yourself or what you plan to donate by 11pm by April 22, 2013 and simple as that, you've entered yourself for a chance to win a  free outfit and styling session at Goodwill.  Check out the video below and start your spring closet cleaning.

This Just In

The Coat

photo courtesy of Hannan Saleh and Essence.com

Vintage Givenchy Sport Blue Wool/Mohair Belted Coat circa mid 1980s.

Some girls are bag addicts and of course  there are the shoe lovers. Now  I won't say I'm not either of those but,  I truly have a love and borderline addiction in a good way for coats. In New York, it's not about your car or your home when you ride the subway most of the time and  apartments are smaller than ant farms, your coat is a status symbol. It doesn't have to be fur or exotic, although I don't object to that, your coat just has to have a splash of color, a great cut and a twist on the traditional and oh yeah it has to be warm.  Are you a coat head, how many coats do you own? 

Too Cool For School

Vintage Field Hockey Varsity jacket trimmed in leather circa 1980s.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis Make Thrift Shopping Cool For Hip-Hop Heads

I'm gonna pop some tags
Only got 20 dollars in my pocket
I-I-I'm hunting
Looking for a come up
This is f-n awesome

It takes a white dude with a love of old clothes bought for a song, to top the hip hop music charts.  When I was a kid, shopping at a thrift store  was thought of as the worse thing ever but, Macklemore has made an actual theme song for us professional and amateur thifters and it's a smash hit.  In an era of bling hip hop check out Trinidad James "All Gold Everything" where even though the subject and his peers  are  living in abject poverty, the need to floss with highly expensive items is the only way to survive. Shot in an actual thrift store  with models and  extras styled in arraying vintage fashions mostly from the early 1980s, there is not a booty shot, an Ashton Martin or brick of cash in site and the video is still a fun filled creative work of art.  The  fur coat Macklemore wears  in the opening shot looks like something out of the movie The Mack with a twist of the Lion King but like a true thrifter, he rocks it  with   confidence and brags about how cheap who could resist a dude who says: I'll wear your grandpa clothes/ I look incredible/ I'm in this big ass coat/ From that thrift shop down the road.

Treat My First Like My Last

First vintage fur purchase is this chevron beauty seen here. It was love at first click, my first internet purchase as well from a site, I feel so horrible to have forgotten.  I was a junior in college working for a fashion designer smack in the heart of the fashion district and I was beginning to really open up my view on vintage. Made  of leather and mink it  is a stellar piece that will never leave my closet, it's not for sale just for admiration.