Meet Our Advertisers #5: Holly at Lucite Box Vintage

Today's advertiser: Holly of Lucite Box Vintage!

How long have you been in business?

I've been on the internet since 2001. I began selling part-time on eBay. I left a job about a year later to work with vintage full-time and started my site, lucitebox.com. We just gave it a face-lift a couple of weeks ago and I'm really enjoying working on the new site. It's amazing what a new look can do for a gal!

What motivated you to go into the vintage business?

I had just quit a corporate sales management job. While sitting on my friend's porch one afternoon after a long season of temp jobs at area banks, I was bemoaning the boredom of working in the private sector. I cleared trades at the bank.

My friend (who I call The Determinator because her tenacity and determination usually gets big results) gave me a kick in the pants when she asked me,
"Holly, man...what are you doing?! What are you gonna do?"

I wasn't sure what she was getting at, so I told her that I had saved some money and was thinking of traveling for awhile before I figured out how to re-enter the work force. I said, "I think I'm going to travel to Morocco. Wanna come with me?" True to Determinator form, she said "No. I mean what are you going to do with your life now? You seem totally bored and I'm getting sick of hearing about your temp job at the bank."

I said, "Well...I suppose you're right. I might open a vintage store. I've been thinking about it for a long time, you know."

That conversation got the ball rolling for me. I started selling on eBay a few months later and just as expected, the Determinator was right there helping me brand my company and cheering me on all the way!

What did you do before this?
I was the national sales manager for a small-ish start-up company that grossed about 5 million the year I left. Then, I went into a tailspin with a series of seemingly dead-end temp jobs.

Where are you based?
Chicago.

More fun questions:

What's the weirdest/best/craziest/most beautiful thing you've ever
found?
These things rank right-up there for me...
1) Howard Greer 50s Dress that's cut down to THERE!:


2) Irene Lentz 50s Evening Jacket

3) A trio of amazing 30s gowns


What do you have in stock that you can't believe hasn't sold?

Well, I have racks of things that I haven't offered yet. There have been a few items I've listed on eBay didn't sell and they still mystify me. Why, oh why doesn't anyone understand this wacky novelty jacket?

If you ask me, this novelty print jacket and dress duo is a winner and it will surprise me if someone doesn't want to snap this up quickly. Check out the print--don't you just love the lady in the shopping cart?!


What do you dream about finding?

I deal a lot in what I'd call wearable, everyday fashions that are usually quite affordable. My vintage dreams (and they do actually wake me with a start) are about finding an estate where the woman was my size, had good taste in clothes, and maintained her wardrobe well. You can't imagine how many times I have found the ultimate 50s sun dress with a fabulous novelty print--in my size--only to wake and find I'm in bed and there's no sun dress!

My wildest daydreamy kinds of fantasies always involve something I'm almost certain I won't find. My holy grails are vintage Adrian, Yves St. Laurent's Mondrian dress, a heavily embellished Nudie suit, and maybe a Charles James or a Fortuny just because I figure that if you're gonna dream, you might as well dream big.

What do you enjoy most about working with vintage?

It's very pleasurable to research the history of fashion. It's most exciting to share my passion for history with someone else. When something that I sell lands in the hands of a person who'll treasure it (and probably even wear it), I'm always very pleased.

You know, you start to feel like you're somehow an ambassador for these old things. I've always been attracted to that idea of merely being a host or a steward of vintage...like things are just visiting me for a little while and then I get to send it someplace else where they will be appreciated.

It's sort of like being a connecting link in a big chain. I'd like to think that the things that leave lucitebox will eventually end up somewhere else in the distant future and that the chain just goes on and on. I have some of my grandmother's home-sewn clothes. I look forward to passing them on to the right person after I'm gone. When I look at one of the pieces, I almost feel her presence in the dress...as if she's right there sitting at her Singer in the sewing room working on it.

What do you wish someone would ask you about your site?
Would you be interested in being featured in Vogue magazine next month?

It's a good day at work when ...
I can easily find one of my three or four tape measures! It's as if you put them down and they quickly end up wherever the one missing sock from the dryer goes!

If I ran the internet for a day I'd ...

Ask for limited amounts of flash animation on any site. I'm sorry, I just don't have time to wait for your cool graphics to load. I would also put an end to the soundtracks that accompany sites. Please. Quiet sites, people. What you may not know is that even though I'm shopping and I really do want to read your blog or read about your merchandise, I already have my iTunes loaded and your music overlapping my music is creating a mind-bending mix that rivals any really, really bad acid trip. Hello, Advil Liquid Gels!


The blogs I read (other than ADAD) are ...

I am seriously addicted to design and decorating blogs. I can't ever seem to get my fix and when I miss a day or two, I get cravings fro them. It's a joy to catching up with my bookmarks. Here are a few blogs that I like:
decorno
design*sponge
apartment therapy
design boner
making it lovely
poppytalk
ikea hacker
it's (k)not wood

Oh, and somewhat unrelated to interior design, but seriously entertaining--I just found a blog called Yardsalebloodbath that I LOVE! There are the people I want to party with!

Oh, and of course, I do read a lot of blogs that my vintage colleagues write. My favorite at the moment is Random Acts of Vintage.


You'd laugh if you knew this about me ...
My longest running dream in life is to own a goat farm and make artisanal cheeses. But, tomorrow, I'll probably have a new one to replace that dream. At the moment, it seems that it might involve auditioning for So You Think You Can Dance!


Holly is also offering a discount for Dress a Day readers.
Please take 15% off of any item on lucitebox.com. Use the coupon code "erinisawesome" [Editor's note: I did not ask for this code!] HURRY! The sale ends on July 26th!

You should also check out Holly's blog -- she's got a great feature on collections ...

Also, Holly is looking for a Chicago part-time sewist to help her with some piece-work at lucitebox. She sometimes purchases vintage items that have modest but fixable damage (a hem needs to be replaced, a shoulder is blown out, there's a rip at the waist, etc.) and is looking for someone who isn't just technically "good" at sewing, but someone who can troubleshoot to find the best solution for fixing something while appropriately preserving the sensibility of the era. If you're interested, drop her a line ...

Meet Our Advertisers #3: Marge at Born Too Late Vintage

Here is the third in our continuing series of "Meet Our Advertisers": Marge from Born Too Late Vintage and Born Too Late Vintage Patterns!

How long have you been in business?
Since February of 1999.

What motivated you to go into the vintage & vintage pattern business?

I love the fashions of times past. Back then clothing was made to last and great care was taken in the construction of clothing. I also enjoy sewing with vintage patterns and modern patterns. Sewing allows me to show my creative side. As a plus size woman I like being able to get exactly what I want when I sew. Why pay a fortune for a dress I don't love and that doesn't fit me right? I can custom fit my own clothing and pick out exactly the fabric I want to get the look I want.

What did you do before this?

I worked for the phone company for 20 years and then retired. I then worked as a medical transcriptionist at home for 6 years after I had my daughters. I started out selling their party and holiday dresses and then fell in love with vintage clothing again. I used to wear vintage clothing when I was in high school.

Where are you based?

My shops, Born Too Late Vintage and Born Too Late Vintage Patterns are based at http://specialistauctions.com. I'm the vintage and antique clothing moderator there as well. Physically, I'm in northeastern Pennsylvania.

More fun questions:

What's the weirdest/best/craziest/most beautiful thing you've ever
found?

I absolutely adore this Fred Leighton hand crocheted ecru gown. I have done fine crochet like this in the past and I marvel at the work that went into this:


What do you have in stock that you can't believe hasn't sold?

I have a variety of mens and ladies fedoras that are in just beautiful like this one.

What do you dream about finding?

I'd love to find a Claire McCardell. My mom was born and raised in Frederick, Maryland, the home of Claire McCardell and I definitely feel a connection with Ms. McCardell.

What do you enjoy most about working with vintage patterns?

When I'm working with patterns I'm listing I really enjoy it when there's a scrap of fabric in the envelope from the former owner or when the former owner has made some notations on the envelope or a piece of paper inside the envelope about what the pattern was purchased for or how the fit of the dress was. That's a treasure to me.

What do you wish someone would ask you about your site?

Why I am selling on Specialist Auctions rather than another site.

It's a good day at work when ...

I've been able to get my listings done, sold a few things, received some positive feedback and of course being mentioned on A Dress A Day.

If I ran the internet for a day I'd ...
Get rid of the pornography.

The blogs I read (other than ADAD) are ...

Always Playing Dress Up (my blog!), Diary of a Mad Fashionista, Zuburbia Vintage Clothing blog, She's a Betty Single Girl Guide and the VFG (Vintage Fashion Guild) blog.

You'd laugh if you knew this about me ...

I adore Tom Jones and Sean Connery. Could I have been a Scottish or Welsh lass in my past life?

A Rejoinder and Statement of Principles

I don't usually take the time to reply to negative comments that are left on this blog -- why encourage people who are spoiling for a fight? I'm not bothered by their criticism, for the most part (and if it's justified I do try to take it to heart, however unpleasant it may be to do so!). But most of the time replying to negative comments falls under the heading "Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty and only the pig enjoys it."

However, there have been a few comments on a recent post which I feel I need to respond to, if only for clarification. A commenter, mainly anonymous, but also signing one comment "7/10 split", suggested that I am a "professional what? writer/ advertisers? whose goal is to sell things", and also a "shill."

For the record: I am not a "professional advertiser". I am a writer, but of a very particular kind.

The same commenter (who may be this blogger) also suggested that I don't sew the dresses that I post here. If you would like to see pictures of ME in the dresses I have sewn (and I admit, I don't often post pictures of myself here because, all things considered, I had a better time in labor -- and I didn't have an epidural! -- than I do having my picture taken) you can see them in five out of the first six pictures here.
(The dresses shown in that link include a Duro, the pink jellybean dress, the blogiversary dress, the stunt Valentine's Dress, and the yellow-bird dress.)

Whether you enjoy my posts or not, I would like to state unequivocally that I do NOT accept money to post about any particular dress, fabric, pattern, pair of shoes, etc. There is NO payola or kickback scheme in effect on this blog.

For book reviews, I am, as is common practice in publishing, often provided with free copies of the book in question, to review or to give away.

The advertisers on the right-hand side are just that: advertisers. They have no influence on content, and I do *not* ask them for free stuff.

I accept pictorial ads ONLY from people who sell patterns, fabric, or vintage clothes, or are otherwise related to sewing. I must approve the ad before it will run. My ad rates are very low; $25/month (with a minimum three-month commitment, because I'm lazy and don't want to be bothered putting up and taking down ads all the time). I also participate in Google's AdSense program, which are the boxed text ads you see on the page, and in the Amazon Associates program, which gives me a commission on books purchased by Amazon customers who clicked on links to books from this blog. (To give you an idea of the revenue from those two sources; my last "payment" from Amazon was a $35 gift certificate which I used ... to buy more sewing books. Google pays every two months or so; I think my last check from them was in the $125 range.)

I have set up "Dress a Day Inc" as a LLC company, so that, if I say something libelous and am sued, the company will be the target of any lawsuit (and not my family). This means I file taxes on all the income from this blog -- if there is any, after paying hosting fees to my internet service provider.

As for the comments about the sweater in question, I am doing a little research on the subject; the commenter suggested that the sweater probably cost less than $1 to make, and that all the labor involved was sweatshop labor in Asia. I don't think that's right, given that the cost of a pound of even low-grade cotton is about .71¢ -- that's a pound of unspun cotton. From what I can tell, the spinning of one pound of raw cotton fiber produces 840 yards of yarn. That seems to be on the low end of the number of yards you'd need for a sweater -- any knitters want to jump in here? -- and the sweater I posted about was 14 gauge, which is a fairly fine knit). So, at least .71¢ in raw materials, plus the spinning cost, plus the fashioning cost, plus the cost of the buttons -- I think it would be hard to get the raw goods cost of this garment under $1. Even leaving aside that the garment is made in China (I called and asked) -- there's the cost of the coming up with the design, a job almost certainly done by an American at American wages. (J.Crew employs about 7600 people.) The same commenter said that the sweater I linked to could be found in discount stores for under $20; if, in fact, that is the case -- why haven't I found it there? It's not like I haven't been looking! Do you factor the salary of the designer into the cost of the sweater? If not, why not? Do you factor in the jobs of the catalog writers (Americans), shop employees (American and for the stores in Japan, Japanese)? The distribution center employees (in Virginia and North Carolina)? The UPS guy who will bring it to me? (Hi Luis!) The short answer, it seems to me, is that a narrow focus on manufacturing jobs is not helpful; if the company can't manufacture goods at a reasonable price, then all those other jobs I mentioned above -- they go away, too. Despite conjecture about how much of the price of the sweater is pure profit, large retail chains have VERY small profit margins -- one source puts it at 2%. Another source (from 1998!) puts the apparel profit margin at 5.4% ... and given the rising costs of commodities since 1998, I can't imagine that margin has gone up.

I apologize for such a long and tedious post, without even any pretty pictures to enliven it; I promise not to make a habit of this kind of thing. However, I do treasure the trust you place in me by visiting this blog, leaving comments, and contributing to a little oasis of dress-loving camaraderie online, and I didn't want to give credence to accusations of shilling, payola, and "blogging under false pretenses" by letting them go by in silence.

(Comments of the kind "all her taste is in her mouth," "this is soooooo ugly lol", and "i cant believe u wear this!" will still be ignored. De gustibus, etc.)

If you ever have any questions about me or this blog, well, my email address is on the right-hand side, towards the bottom. I do try to answer all the email I receive.