A Beginner's Guide to Buying Vintage: First 4 Steps

I scrapped my belated Holiday posts and New Years greetings in loo of a more productive type post. So since it's the new year and I'm in full self-improvement mode I've been cleaning and been surrounded by piles and piles of vintage.
Therefore, I decided to put together a list for those of you who like me, love vintage but I want to save you from the purchases I've made that I wish I didn't.

Or, incase some of you have turned over a new vintage leaf a few simple things to remember in your exciting travels into the wonderful world of vintage!

So here they are, my: first 4 steps to consider when buying vintage.

First and Foremost my #1 rule: Utilize your modern technology
We may be old-fashioned gals, but much like the ladies who came before us we should be smart and savvy. And that means not being taken for a fool and not wasting time or money that you cannot afford to lose. So taking advantage of smartphones, ipads, laptops and tablets is imperative.
- use google to research the tags on clothing items, check prices for similar purchases and make sure you're not going to be feeling buyers remorse when "vintage" and "used" are two words that do not go synonymous with "easy to return."

2) Do your research. Know what you're looking for and where you might be able to find it
Sometimes the greatest finds when it comes to vintage are unexpected surprises that you didn't even know you were looking for, so in that case this doesn't exactly apply. However, when I say know what you are looking for I mean use and abuse etsy and ebay. If you know you want an embroidered 1950's circle skirt be familiar with the prices they seem to be listed at, what sizes are easiest to come by and what can fit most easily into your wardrobe. Not every vintage or thrift store is a good deal, sometimes they can be nothing further from light on the pocket and knowing what is a good find and what you're willing to spend a bit more on can help you in the long run.

3) Carry your own little vintage tool kit
During the search for my perfect vintage dream wardrobe I've found having a small bag with a few essentials can be almost as good as having another two hands to help you dig!
In my bag I like to keep the following:
A Measuring Tape - Never rely on tag size alone, vintage size and shape vary so much from brand-to-brand and decade-to-decade so especially if you can't try it on go to your measuring tape. and ALWAYS know your own measurements
A Tube of Simichrome Polish - to test for bakelite. Depends on if the store will allow it, but when you just aren't sure if it's worth the gamble having the option to test it and check can be the one thing to save you from hours of regret. (Don't forget to throw in a few q-tips!)
Saftey Pins - Incase of a bad zipper, lost button or small defect while trying on the garment or securing a damaged piece to the rest of the item safety pins are always a lifesaver.
Hand Sanitizer and Hand Cream - Now this is a personal one that you can take or leave, but I've found after handling old and sometimes dusty things with a bathroom no-place in sight - these two are a real must!

4) Learn the difference between thrift, second hand stores and antique malls or vintage boutiques
Now this is where my next entry will pick up and get a little more in-depth on but it is quite possibly the most helpful of these tips is to know what you can expect to find and for what depending on the location.
Just Keep in Mind the Following:
Thrift & Second Hand have no specialization of era or quality.
Antique Malls & Boutiques have items specially collected just to be sold there, but at a much higher price.


Until we meet again...

The smallest of updates

I'm afraid I am really only writing this post so that I can convince myself I am not completely being too lazy to maintain my own blog. There haven't been things I really think are worth sharing to say. I've been cleaning out, cookie baking and shampooing the carpets this week while spending most of my weekends doing chores and christmas shopping during the day and my nights at Disneyland. If you follow me on Instagram @Damfino you know I spend my fair share of time at The Mad T Party, which still totally alludes me. I think it reminds me of my old Hollywood days. Maybe even my pre-Hollywood days when all I needed to worry about was where I was going to get money to go to my next show. I still can't believe how many bands I saw and how music used to really be everything to me. Anywho, this is all a bit la-di-dah trivial but I think I've had too much coffee today accompanied by too many giggles and now I'm feeling a tad nostalgic. I don't know when I got so old and how I managed to acquire so many memories to look back on. Next post will be more exciting, promise. Xx

We all have Guilty Pleasures

Now that it's November I have decided to work my way up to Thanksgiving by being a little more introspective about not only what I am thankful for but things I wish to change, or re-evaluating exactly what I think it means to be me and what I want to continue to hold important. It's probably just a part of that 'quarter-life crisis' I seems to have come down with.

Anywho, in this post I thought I'd share my top 5 'guilty pleasures'. I wouldn't say I actually feel 'guilty' about them, it's more along the lines that I think of them as 'time killers' The activities that I find myself spending much longer then I had intended on and wondering where my day has gone.

5. Saved eBay Searches
As I'm sure most of us do on our search for those one-of-a-kind vintage items I can blow quite a the many hours just re-searching through my top saved searches. Some of my go-to's are: vintage 30's dress, vintage charm bracelet and Howard Keel. :)


4. Old Disneyland/Disney World photos.


Now This is a pretty obvious one. Of course I would love this because it's two of my greatest interests put together! But it's amazing how many hours can vanish when I really get to digging through the online archives of strangers and their old Disney memories. And when I say old I mean from it's inception up to the mid 90's, I can get sucked into all of it. Throw Aladdin or Snow White in there and I could be gone for days. Although I love the old professional shots and concept art my favorites are peoples' personal snapshots. It's funny how we can pose the same places in nearly the same fashion now and it can look exactly the same and entirely different at the same time.

3. Podcasts

Since I spend a lot of time at home or near an iphone or ipad and I happen to harbor quite a fear of a thing called silence I have really grown attached to listening to podcasts. Since there are now so many different genres you can find a podcast for nearly anything under the sky. It all started for me with This American Life & Uhh Yeah Dude, but I've become quite the fan of giving just about anything a shot.

My current most listened to shows are: (A countdown within a countdown!)
5. The Smartest Man in the World
4. Dead Authors
3. Inside the Magic
2. Big Band Serenade
1. Comedy Bang Bang

2. Instagram

Enough said. Even with all the spam now I just can't keep myself off it. It's a problem.

1. Wedding Videos.


yeah, I know. I can't not love it. & I am talking all of them.

My first stop is always to check for new Disney related proposals first and foremost, but I genuinely watch them ALL. I love the moment when the girl knows it's real and something clicks and you can see that she knows what's happening and it's so magnetic.

I've spent so many hours on vimeo because it's chock-full of wedding related films and I'm obsessed with the HD quality. For a girl who's never even had a real relationship, and basically never had the slightest interest in marriage at all at some point I just became obsessed with them. I can be a real critic about them too and I end up giggling to myself about the ridiculousness of me and what I would change or what I thought was best.

A beautiful wedding trailer can bring me to tears in the very best of ways. See, I'm not so cynical after all.


What do you find yourself wasting time on & feeling a bit guilty about?

A very snowy Halloween

Halloween is my favorite holiday. 

Well that's what I always say, and I think I mean it. 

But what I've finally come to realize is what I truly love is the month of October, the month long 'celebration' and build up to the thirty-first. 

I love dressing up in a costume, that should be obvious, I love an excuse to eat candy, I love my little annual Halloween traditions like watching Thriller & The Lost Boys, carving my pumpkin and making carmel corn with my mother. 

When it comes to my costumes for the past 8 years or so I've tried to either find something vintage that is spectacular or make something myself. My first thought this year was a robot, I tend to gravitate towards costumes that allow me to do make-up I can't get away with on the average day. However, the outfit I had just didn't look the way I planned it out in my head and I had to come up with something new.

So, being the Snow White enthusiast I am and not wanting to repeat or look like everyone else in the traditional red, blue and yellow gown I decided to put together my own version of Snow's rags dress in the beginning of the film.

Now, since I had already bought items for a first costume I had to keep to a pretty small budget. I made the top in one night from a vintage brown top & an old pillowcase. 

I however did have to whip out ye olde credit card to buy the fabric and supplies to make the skirt, bow and poison apple. 

For the poison apple I found an amazingly easy blog post (that I will link right here when I find it again!) which was a very fun one night project. The skirt and bow took a few hours, mostly because my sewing machine's tension got all messed up and I had to resort to no-sew methods for a few bits and pieces. 

Anywho, it's not perfect but considering I completed the whole bit in a few days and only spent $19 I'm rather pleased.

what do ya' think?

I won't even start with the lack of costume cooperation from the pups this year. WHY can't they love dressing up as much as I do?! such disappointments ;)

Until next year Halloween. I'll start planning my costume now.

My introduction into waist training

So as many of us ladies all do I've always had some problems with my body. Years of dieting, and being a vegetarian/pescatarian and different workout trends and all of that have done me some good and bad here and there but I have finally decided to venture into something that I've been wanting to do for ages, which is waist training. I've never had as much of a waist as I desire for my pinup style dresses and such so here I am.Now I've been taking it real easy. I have been keeping my corset on anywhere from one or two hours somedays, to 8 or 10 others. I am doing my best to take it slow, and keep from inciting any tears or pain.

I've had a lot of questions on instagram and a few emails asking questions about what I'm doing, my goals and where I got my corsets and what have you so I'm going to try to be more diligent about posting on here and keeping you all updated.

Now I'm only a novice, so don't take my word for anything at all. I'm certainly not a doctor.

I'll get to more in later posts but for today I'll stick to the corsets.

So, about the corsets. I was given a few suggestions a while back on what I should be looking for in a beginners corset and brands that were a good bet if I didn't want to invest too much to start off with. Of course I'd love to jump right into having a lovely custom corset but right now that's just not something I can afford. So I had to zero in on my basics. For waist training I knew I wanted something under-bust, and foremost needed something fully steel boned, which is surprisingly more difficult to find than you'd think. I had to pull out my glasses to really read the fine print on some descriptions, it's shocking the amount of plastic boned corsets, but hey - don't let me digress into my distaste for the lack of quality in the majority of modern clothing. Besides, I suppose not everyone is looking for a bit of body modification.



The one on the left here I've had a few years. I bought it for my annual trips to the renaissance faire, and being me I made sure to buy something relatively authentic that I could invest in for years to come. I found it on amazon,  i know there are a few other similar looking ones on there as well so be forewarned to investigate the product details because those are not real leather or steel boned. I used this corset for the first few days of my waist training, only for a few hours a day because god, it is not breathable. You cannot see it in this photo either but it is actually a halter style and it just makes longer wear far more uncomfortable than it should be. Although if you are only going to wear it a few hours, it's pretty swell I however would highly suggest skipping this one if you're in the market for a waist training corset.

You can find this first corset here: Click Click


Now the one on the right is my new corset, a much smaller number by Playgirl White Label. After reading loads of reviews and online blogs and on and on I decided this one would be a good next step for me and my budget. I first saw it on another 'boutique' website for quite a bit more, but rejoiced when I found this one on Amazon as well. Now I've only had this one two days so I can't fully elaborate but so far this corset is rather comfortable and I've had little discomfort besides the normal awkwardness that comes with corsets in general.

You can find this second corset here: Click Click


At this point I haven't had any noticeable results yet, but I haven't been wearing a corset the majority of the day by any means up to this point. Like I said earlier, I'm taking it a little slow. I'd rather ease myself into it and take my time. I keep reading it over and over that corseting should not be an overnight endeavor so I'm going to do my best to be patient and remember that.

Ticket to the Twenties

One weekend every year in September is set aside for one of my favorite small, quaint and very fun events themed in one of my favorite decades. The Ticket to the Twenties festival takes place on a few afternoon hours on Saturday and Sunday, on the beautiful historic grounds of the Homestead Museum in City of  Industry, California, and is an event I look forward to all year.

Now unlike your Gatsby Afternoon, or 'costume/theme required' events Ticket to the Twenties is not themed to a T, and most of the attendants are not only not in appropriate attire but you can buy food from food trucks and they use modern microphones, but that doesn't stop me from just scrunching my eyes and still pretending I've gone back in my time machine.

The event consists of two different areas for live music on different ends of the grounds, a theatre for viewing short silent films with live accompaniment, outdoor areas for vintage fashion shows, buying and perusing vintage goods and beautiful old automobiles, spots for learning mah-jong or to play the ukulele not to mention tours of the two homes on the premises, the gorgeous old gazebo and the gift shop full of cute, vintage inspired goods.
This year it was unfortunate that they weekend the festival fell on was a very, very uncomfortably hot weekend and therefore the outfit I had planned to wear would just not do. (certainly too warm to pull out my fur) So although my fashion suffered a blow, the day was still so fun.


Ticket to the Twenties is one of the few themed things my mother even enjoys, so it's always interesting dragging her along. This year she saw her very first Buster Keaton short! It almost felt like I was introducing my mum to my new boyfriend... well in my dreams I suppose.

Besides the Buster Keaton short (which we happened to see by chance, so I felt very lucky to have accidentally chosen it!) my favorite part of the event is always sitting on my vintage oriental silk mat on the grass and listening to Dean Mora's band. They really encompass the style and tone of the old days that I long for, though I never experienced it. I cannot stress how I long to see them more, and that anyone who enjoys old tunes really should check them out.

So until I find my time machine, or find friends who long for the old days as much as I do I will just keep looking forward to these weekends that are my tickets to the twenties.





Find out more about what I mentioned in this post at:
Homestead Museum
Mora's Modern Music

A very dapper evening at Disneyland

Yes, I've been away from the old blog for a good, long month. After all the chaos I just needed to not document how I feel and just try to shake things off & reload.

There's much to be said, however it will all have to wait because this post is about two very fun words: Dapper Day. Now that I've finally caved and bought a Disneyland pass again I could attend! (Although I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to plan my whole evening out.)

I ended up getting to Disneyland rather late (parking was an absolute nightmare) but what festivities I did take part in were fun indeed.

I was excited to find an excuse to wear my grandmother's stole, it's hard to get away with fur almost anywhere in Southern California. I ended up being a bit too much of a sleepy mess, but now I cannot wait till Spring!







Dapper Day is a bi-annual event that takes place at both Disneyland, California and Walt Disney World, Florida.
To find out more about Dapper Day, click here!