Gender: Female
Status: Married
Age: 47
Sign: Virgo
City: SPOKANE
State: WASHINGTON
Country: US
Signup Date:
02/18/06
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Blog Archive
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Monday, May 05, 2008
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Got the Blues?
I might be able to help! Have a look at my latest theme
Vintage Blues (sound up for Ella Fitzgerald)
All month I will be showing my best blues, so please stop by!
2:10 PM
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3 Comments - 4 Kudos
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Monday, April 21, 2008
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Happy Earth Day...what are your plans?
I have to gush that we've added a member to the family: A honey locust, now settling into the parking strip:
And yes, it's snowing today, as it has most days since October!
9:38 PM
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3 Comments - 2 Kudos
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Thursday, April 10, 2008
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FAQs
1. Why "denisebrain?" I answer that in my first blog here.
2. Where do you find your vintage items? I haunt 2nd-hand stores, antique stores, thrifts, estate and garage sales, auctions; make friends with vintage dealers who sometimes pass on items or connections that might interest me; put ads in various papers; occasionally sell items on consignment from good customers and/or friends; carry my business card and tell people what I do at any opportune time.
3. Do you actually fit in all the clothes you sell? Abso-LUTE-ly not!! I wear a sort of small to medium size, about a US size 6. If the item I'm modeling is too big for me, no trouble, I just pin it with clothespins to approximate a good fit. If it is too small, that's tougher. I sometimes have to tape the dress to me, or clip openings that won't close. I can pretty easily portray a good fit from about US size 4 to 18. BTW, I NEVER show an item with a fit other than the one that was intended. So, if the dress is cut as a shift, I won't clip it into a sheath.
4. What is your favorite vintage decade? My very favorite is 1940s, followed by 30s and then 50s. My favorite years in fashion are 1946 and 1939. I also love the 70s styles that emulate 30s and 40s. My favorite designer (so far!) is Claire McCardell, followed by Bonnie Cashin. I have a very big fascination with Charles James...but who in her right mind wouldn't?
5. How do you sell things that you love and fit you? I don't ALWAYS have the willpower I'm sorry to say, but it is my business, and I do really, really love to put out the best things I can find. I occasionally save unusual items that I figure I can appreciate more than anyone...usually not the most valuable, but indelibly me.
Am I forgetting any of the other questions I often get? Please let me know!
7:33 PM
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4 Comments - 4 Kudos
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Monday, April 07, 2008
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Take it From the Top
Category: Fashion, Style, Shopping
This month, denisebrain is
Tops in Tops!
Please check it out...and have your sound up!
3:14 PM
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1 Comments - 2 Kudos
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Friday, April 04, 2008
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A day to remember
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
"When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative."
"The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be... The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."
"Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase."
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."
"Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others."
"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically... Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education."
"Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ’What are you doing for others?’"
"A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live."
"I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
7:37 PM
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2 Comments - 2 Kudos
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Wednesday, March 19, 2008
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Sex Sells?
Category: Fashion, Style, Shopping
No, horn sells!
Recently an eBay auction was brought to my attention by my fellow vintage clothing diva and hornist Anna Newman. (Yes, she plays the French horn and is a vintage clothing dealer...the odds of that?) Included in the auction were a musician’s union booklet and card, along with a picture of a woman horn player.
The date on the card is 1910. I watched this auction with fascination because the photo is an unusual one: Rare was the woman horn player in the early 20th century! The winning bid on this auction was a surprisingly high $369, which gave me an idea...
I had a dress to sell with a print featuring some unusual musical instruments (I could see lutes and opheclides, along with some mysterious horn-like specimens).
I decided if one woman holding a horn could earn the seller $369, why not give it a whirl with this dress?
 
Then the auction with my horn as prop was pointed out on a hornlist, where the membership decided I must actually be a horn player by the way I was holding the horn. Who should see this, but a woman horn player, Ellen Manthe, who won the dress!
As I’ve said before, women brass players have been relatively rare until fairly recently, and even now are not as well represented as they ought to be in major orchestras and as soloists. This was one topic of my master’s degree research. The woman holding a horn ca. 1910 is a rare and wonderful find--it gives me joy to see this vintage horn playing sister of mine. Kudos to the winner of the auction!
Many thanks to my friend Susan, who came up with the "Sex sells? No, HORN!"
7:52 AM
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10 Comments - 7 Kudos
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008
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The suitcase lot
Category: Fashion, Style, Shopping
From time to time I like to highlight collections of clothing that I gather from the same place, and I love to introduce the woman who wore the clothing.
In this installment, I know not the woman, I only met her grand niece. When the grand niece came to my door, she plopped down a pretty beat up and unattractive vinyl suitcase--looked like early 80s. I wasn’t too hopeful, but in the suitcase were these items, among others:
 
 
 
 
I don’t know the woman who wore these, but she was definitely tall, and what a sense of style! I still have a few more of her items, just need to put a new zipper in a suit and get a spot out of a blouse.
One funny thing: I was really excited about the clothing and the grand niece said there was just one thing she really wanted to keep. I said, "of course, make sure you keep what you want" (mentally biting my nails, thinking it would be something spectacular). She wanted the beat up suitcase! Wellllllll, okaaaaaaaay, if you must!
2:14 PM
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1 Comments - 2 Kudos
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Sunday, March 02, 2008
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Wednesday, February 20, 2008
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I want this dress!
Category: Fashion, Style, Shopping
Do you ever cut out pictures from magazines, or print out pictures from the web, of clothes you want? I have an entire scrapbook of clothes I've loved and wanted. I usually couldn't just rush out and afford such things, so I let these pictures be an inspiration to me.
There is, however, one dress by Anna Sui that I simply have to have if ever I can find a way:
This was in Elle in the early 90s. The lower part of THE dress looks like early 40s, with a slightly flaring, knee-length skirt. One of these dresses slipped through my fingers on eBay, and I have yet to see another. Anna Sui, my heart belongs to thee!
4:34 PM
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3 Comments - 4 Kudos
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Saturday, February 09, 2008
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Papa’s Birthday
Category: Life
Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of my father, John Carlton Wilds.
My father (always called Papa at my house) was born on February 9, 1908, in Gouverneur, NY.
The youngest child of a methodist minister, he tested family limits by playing trombone in Dixieland, Swing and Big Band-era jazz bands.
He studied psychology and become a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst. Music was an important part of my father's life; not just jazz, but especially classical music, and he was a very accomplished highland bagpiper, founder or co-founder of several bands in the Seattle area, where he had settled to start his practice.
Papa died in 1974. I was young then, and my impression is of a person who could be both dignified and silly, discerning, forward-thinking and charismatic. He was so particular in his tastes and habits that at times it surprised me that he could also be a person of such great warmth and sensitivity.
My father was the clotheshorse of the family, with two closets full of the finest Savile Row-tailored suits, Sea Island cotton shirts...he was sartorially splendid, right down to his socks. He wore tennis whites to take my brother and me to the court, and gold corduroy coveralls with a crest for looking at the engine of his car.
He had cutting-edge style. I remember when my father bought a deep blue velvet tuxedo just to wear to the opera Carmen in the late 60s. He relished wearing a deep pink shirt and pink and green geometric tie--gifts from me.
His shoes were polished, he used lemon to make his hair gleam silver instead of grey, he had a manicure at the same time he got his most modern haircuts.
Just thinking of him I can smell his Yardley's English Lavender after shave, the Beefeater's gin he used for his martinis, and his Mitchum mints.
I've mentioned clothing here, but there is so much more to say, from his sports (fencing, tennis and archery), his artful black and white photography, to the great challenge of psychology as a profession at that time, and to his taste in food, politics, entertainment, travel, flowers, cars and humor. All of these are so memorable to me.
Happy Birthday Papa--You're so much a part of me--I love you.
7:13 PM
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3 Comments - 4 Kudos
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