Dancing Shoes

When we first started throwing parties, the three of us had a terrible problem of devastating our designer shoes with countless nights of dancing until 4am. Our solution was found in a shoe company called "Pleaser USA". They specialize in costume shoes basically for strippers and sexy nurses, but since these shoes were made for "dancers" they out lasted many pairs of designer shoes (RIP Vintage Helmut Lang and YSL frienship shoes) . We started out with matching $27 basic 5in pumps, but now they are making insane knock offs! Here are some shots of our originals verses their knoch offs.

My Prada Booties
Tif's Burberry Booties
I love this pair, it is kind of my guilty pleasure! Maybe a Designer should knock these off of, all you have to do is replace all of the ACRYLIC with LUCITE! Presto!

- C

Topped: Part II

Topshop nude tank dress embellished with twill tape.

This afternoon, Christina and I were making our weekly rounds through Topshop (we never get sick of it), when we came across this nude dress embellished with twill tape. Christina didn't even need to say anything, we both immediately were stunned by the similarity the dress bears to the elastic cage dress we made for Susie Bubble during fashion week this February. While the Topshop version isn't exactly the same, it definitely looks like an abridged version of our dress, criss-crossing across the body in the same way to create a bondage effect over the nude background. I wanted to try the dress on to see if it fit similarly, but unfortunately all the sizes they had left were huge. After the fuss Susie made over her cage skirt, Topshop put out their own version last month, and I'm wondering if they got the idea for this design from the same place? Perhaps both pieces are part of a Susie-tribute cage group? Either that or we must have some telepathic bond with the designers over there, since this is the second time we've seen something we've DIY'd end up in a very similar incarnation on their high street shelves.

Christina wearing the original elastic cage dress.

-Tiffany

Industry Secrets: Odds Costume Shop Closing Sale

Vintage studded jersey dress, YSL boots, Iosselliani ring, Givenchy makeup bag worn as clutch.

Part of me doesn't want to share this information, since this is currently such a quiet, secret sale I almost want to keep it for myself. Odds Costume Rental (231 W.29th Street, 3rd Floor, open to 4pm), an industry rental resource for over twenty years, is closing its doors next month, and are currently putting their entire enormous archives on sale. For the past few weeks, the sale has been open only to designers, costumers, and stylists, but according to the ladies who run the sale, it will be opening to the public starting this Friday. Yesterday, Christina, Brandon and myself stopped by to do some shopping (thanks to a tip from Hector at Frank Tell), and I went back again this afternoon to take some pictures.

The sheer volume of goods is daunting to say the least---racks upon racks of clothing organized by decade and style, in addition to rows and rows of boxes full of shoes, hats and accessories. While they have your typical selection of vintage shop finds (40's house dresses, 70's polyester dresses, 80's spandex, etc), they additionally have plenty of amazing costume pieces that would be difficult to find anywhere else. Racks full of Victorian dresses with petticoats that weigh in at over forty pounds, 1890's mutton sleeved jackets with matching ballooning bloomers, Marie Antoinette styled dresses, bustle pads, and full-on Renaissance fair outfits are some of the more unusual and incredible highlights that had my jaw dropping. And of course, they had outfits for any Halloween costume that you could dream of, from Santa's little helper to a burger chef. You could easily spend hours wandering through the overflowing aisles, and thankfully since the sale was still semi-private, there were only a few other people shopping, almost all of whom were costumers pushing fully loaded shopping carts.

The only thing that was disappointing were the prices, which were just slightly below your average Manhattan vintage shop. While you will find a few bargains, and you can haggle on the prices, they will only give discounts if you are either buying in bulk (like forty pairs of trousers), or if the item is truly damaged. Much to my irritation, a hole, or anything that requires a little bit of hand stitching, does not count as damaged, since, as a costumer or a designer, you can obviously mend this yourself (or at least, so goes their logic while arguing with me, I personally believe that damaged is damaged). And even though there were a lot of things I loved, I only picked up this black studded dress with metal latch openings in the front that reminded me of Thierry Mugler via Hot Topic. It needs mending in several spots, but I picked it up for $20.

Anyway, it's definitely worth stopping by. It is worth noting that many of the items are worn and need some small repairs, and also, I noticed that many of the best women's costumes were on the small side---usually my size (I'm a zero or a 2), or smaller. They will be closing the first week of July, and the ladies expect things to be cleared out as soon as they open the doors to the public on Friday. Go ready to scavenge and haggle, here's just a tiny sampling of what they have in stock...

The places is crammed with rack upon rack of costumes.

From the section devoted to Victorian underwear and crinolines.

The maribou boa section.

The beginning of a long rail full of Renaissance and medieval styled dresses.

A Stevie Nicks style lace maxi dress from the "hippy" section was so ethereally dreamy I almost bought it, but it was still $85 and full of stains so I passed.

One of the accessory drawers was full of these amazing straw bags.

70's sequined dresses

Most of the accessories were organized in these banker boxes with descriptions on the outside.

A Marie Antoinette style costume that weighs around forty pounds, and is almost impossible to get on.

-Tiffany