{"product_id":"virtual-vintage-isbn-9780812992007","title":"Virtual Vintage","description":"Vintage clothing has never been more chic, with everyone from celebrity trendsetters to style-conscious professionals searching for wearable treasures from the past. Virtual Vintage is the first and only guide that helps both the novice and the fashion connoisseur evaluate and confidently participate in the thriving vintage marketplace that exists online. No other book explains how to get it, sell it, fix it, or wear it with flair. Authors Linda Lindroth and Deborah Newell Tornello equip readers from head to toe with\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•  more than 100 chic sites—rated and evaluated\u003cbr\u003e•  instructions on contacting sellers \u003cbr\u003e•  smart strategies for bidding in online auctions\u003cbr\u003e•  advice about evaluating the size, quality, and colors of a garment\u003cbr\u003e•  tips for cleaning and repairing vintage items\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Whether you’re looking for a 1960s Rudi Gernreich knit, Gucci hipster trousers, a Claire McCardell for Townley shirtwaist, or a Chanel suit in pink wool with black patent-leather trim, Virtual Vintage will help you build a unique and sensational wardrobe.“Any girl would be out of her mind to buy anything online without consulting\u003cb\u003e Virtual Vintage\u003c\/b\u003e. From Pucci to Fiorucci it’s the ultimate source.”\u003cbr\u003e--Simon Doonan\u003cbr\u003e\"Don't even think about about venturing onto the vintage Net until you've read this book. No more wasted hours trawling through mountains of cyber junk...Lindroth and Tornello have unearthed a vintage goldmine of handpicked sites plus a wealth of information and clever, canny insider tips for buying and selling online.\"\u003cbr\u003e-Tracy Tolkien, author of \u003cb\u003eDressing Up Vintage\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Deborah Newell Tornello and Linda Lindroth have created a terrific guide for the modern fashion enthusiast.\" \u003cbr\u003e— Michael Volbracht\u003cb\u003ePart One\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFive A.M., Noon,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNine-thirty P.M., Midnight\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSelect One and Let's Go Shopping\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBasics About Buying Online\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow much would you pay for an old pair of jeans? Ten bucks?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet's say these are a pair of vintage Levi Strauss jeans from the  nineteenth century. Would you pay $150? Consider that nearly  everything belonging to the San Francisco-based Levi Strauss  Company-designs, records, and drawings-was destroyed in the 1906  earthquake and fire. Could these jeans be the only pair from the late  1880's in existence?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf these jeans were to appear in an Internet auction, would you bid  $46,000? If you did, you'd lose.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSeveral bidders who participated in an eBay auction on May 24, 2001,  registered their interest, during the final hours, in what can only  be described as damaged goods: There was a fifteen-inch tear in the  fly area-ouch!-and holes in the right knee, not to mention a lost  buckle and label. But-whoa, Nellie-we are talking about the very  fabric of American fashion history, not just any pair of indigo  vegetable-dyed denim jeans with mounted metal rivets stamped L.S. \u0026amp;  CO. PAT MAY 1873. These may in fact be the earliest example of the  only article of clothing turned out by mass production in the  nineteenth century. The pants were found during the excavation of a  Nevada mining town and given to the consignor who reproduces  historical clothing. Perhaps coincidentally, Jacob Davis, the tailor  who shared that patent with Strauss for a pair of trousers with  copper rivets at its stress points, was himself from Carson City,  Nevada. The Levi Strauss Company, whose $46,532 bid ultimately  claimed these jeans in the final moments of the auction,  authenticated the garment. The auction, conceived of as a promotion  by the History Channel and Butterfields auction house in San  Francisco, became a powerful marketing tool for each party. The jeans  were probably worth the unusually high winning bid.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter the auction, the Levi Strauss Company displayed the jeans in  their flagship store in San Francisco. This extraordinary auction  clearly established the significance of vintage fashion items as  worthwhile purchases.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile most of us might not be able to match this level of expenditure  when acquiring our personal collections, our passion for the prize is  just as great. We fall in love with things and buy them or bid on  them with care and genuine enthusiasm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Romance of It All\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVintage clothes take us back to times past, perhaps to younger,  wilder days when we wore miniskirts and hot pants, or to imagined  evenings of an elegant era when beaded flapper dresses were all the  rage. Vintage garments have a power to comfort us and elevate our  moods on a gray day when we are feeling what Holly Golightly  described as the \"mean reds\" in Breakfast at Tiffany's.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFirst Steps: Shopping at the World's Online Marketplace\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf you're like us, you've shopped at tag sales and flea markets,  going through racks of used clothing looking for treasures. You may  have favorite consignment or vintage clothing stores with names like  My Secret, Second Hand Rose, or Consignment Originals. You've browsed  charity bazaars, the Salvation Army, and Goodwill looking for  cashmere sweaters and great coats among the donated clothing. You're  no novice, to be sure, but shopping the Internet for vintage clothing  is an altogether new experience.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEBay is by far the largest online auction site and an excellent place  to start; there are riches galore, and it is relatively easy to learn  the ropes. We'll use eBay as an example, since most auction sites use  a similar process.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLog on to www.ebay.com, click on the Register Now button, follow the  steps, and select a user name. We recommend you go for one that's easy to remember and not too long, as you will want to type it in  quickly when you're ready to start shopping. Also, you should avoid  using your own name-or anything easily recognizable-in order to  protect your privacy when bidding and buying.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnce you've registered, you will receive a beginner's badge: the  number of transactions for which you've earned feedback. For a new  member, it's always zero, and it appears in parentheses; alongside,  you'll see a pair of dark glasses. You will have those newcomer's  sunglasses next to your user name for thirty days. The eBay feedback  system is based on the members' recommendations of one another as  responsible trading partners. As you would imagine, your first few  transactions are very important because they will reflect how well  you communicated with a seller and how quickly you paid for that  sweater, skirt, or coat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter thirty days the sunglasses disappear, whether or not you bought  anything. Once you accumulate ten positive-feedback transactions, you  will receive a yellow star next to your user name that identifies you  as a conscientious, enthusiastic member-in short, someone with whom  other eBayers can confidently do business. Different colored stars  indicate ever-higher amounts of feedback. As you will begin to see,  there are some eBay sellers-some of whom are called power sellers-who  have thousands of transactions to their names; these businesses  generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnce you've registered your eBay name you may be asked to submit a  credit card number to secure your identity, depending on the type of  e-mail address you have. If you are concerned about using a credit  card on the Internet, you should know that you do not have to pay by  credit card at any time in order to bid on items. Should you choose  to use an electronic payment service to pay for your purchase at the  end of an auction, you can make those arrangements then. (For details  about these services, see \"Pay the Piper,\" page 30.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy eBay: Your Own Custom-Made Shopping Assistant\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEveryone should set up a My eBay page. The website claims that it's  one of their best features, and we have to agree. Most of the work  involved in doing this-if you could call it work-is already done for  you by way of handy little sections entitled \"Items I'm Watching,\"  \"Items I'm Bidding On,\" and \"Items I've Won.\" These lists are  compiled automatically. If you save the eBay sign-in page-either as a  link or as a Favorite\/Bookmark, you can designate, via the  Preferences menu, that the \"Items I'm Bidding On\/Watching\" page be  your default screen after you\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003elog on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eItems on which you are bidding will be color coded: green means  you're currently the high bidder and red alerts you that you've been  outbid for that item. Clicking on the link will allow you to review  any active bids or to raise your numbers if need be. A quick glance  at the \"Items I'm Watching\" section shows the current high bid and  the time remaining before the auction closes. If you're no longer  interested in an item, you can easily delete it from your watch list  by checking the box next to it and clicking the Delete button at the  bottom of the page. Since you can watch only twenty items at a time,  it's a good idea to restrict this list to your must-haves.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd as if all that weren't enough, the My eBay page also allows you  to check on any items you are selling, read your own feedback, and  specify preferences for eBay notification services. The category  called \"Items I've Won\" lists everything that you have purchased in  the last thirty days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSearch and Ye Shall Find\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter registering on eBay, you can either search through everything  listed on the site or go to a specific category-like \"Vintage  Clothing\"-which you can find through eBay's category link  \"Collectibles\" on its home page. Once you are on the vintage clothing  category page, it's fun to browse through the first few pages, as  these are the auctions that are due to end soon, and bidding activity  can be frenetic and exciting. However, several thousand vintage  clothing auctions are generally listed on any given day, and  searching through them will soon exhaust you. If you see red type  that reads \"ends in three minutes,\" your competitive nature may get  the best of you, and before you know it, you'll have purchased a pair  of Art Deco rhinestone shoe clips. Won't they look striking attached  to your flip-flops or loafers?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKeywords: Unlocking the Language of Listings\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe like to search for items by using specific keywords-words or  phrases you enter in the eBay search engine. The items it then  retrieves will contain that word or words in their titles or, if  you've requested, in their descriptions. Some examples might be  \"sequin,\" \"ball gown,\" \"ankle boot,\" and \"Dolce \u0026amp; Gabbana sequined  bustier.\" The more general the keywords-\"blue dress,\" say-the more  lengthy and wider ranging the retrieved list of auction items will be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first order of business, then, is to create a keyword list; this  will include every variant name of each garment on your wish list.  Incorporate the names of designers, the eras, and the items  themselves. If you check the auction listings, you will see how your  objects of desire are most commonly titled and notice some  interesting points that may assist you in your search. For example,  the majority of 1950's garments are listed as \"50's,\" to save space  in the title. However, at least half as many listings leave off the  apostrophe (50s), while some sellers use a full \"1950\" in their  titles. Furthermore, while many designers are well known in the world  of vintage clothing-Christian Dior, Lilli Ann, Chanel, Norell, and  Halston, for example-others are more obscure, and the seller may well  choose to leave the name out of the title and concentrate instead on  the assets of the garment itself. So, entering \"Jerry Gilden\"-a  well-regarded but little-known maker of cotton 1950's frocks-into  your search box may not yield very many listings, despite the fact  that several such dresses are indeed out there, described more  generically as \"floral full-skirted dress\" or similar. In this case,  typing \"50's dress,\" \"50s dress,\" or \"1950 dress\" into the search box  and using the \"show all items, including gallery preview\" option will  allow you to easily see the dresses-or, at least, read the titles  thereof-and spot the one you're after. Alternatively, you can look  for obscurely named items by checking the little box that reads \"in  titles \u0026amp; descriptions.\" That way, if the name \"Jerry Gilden\" shows up  in the description-but not the title-that item will be included in  the resulting list. Avoid including these descriptions searches for  extremely common names, however, because the results can go on for  pages.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf course, the number of auction listings for clothing and  accessories has increased dramatically in the past couple of years.  Not that we're complaining, but this often means your search results  can indeed go on for pages, regardless of your keyword selection. The  technical directors at eBay are continuously streamlining the  website's search methods. One such improvement is the highlighted  \"Matching Categories\" box that appears to the left of your screen.  Whether you're searching for something with an extremely well-known  name-Calvin Klein or Chanel, say-or trying to unearth a piece by  someone less famous, you'll enjoy trying out this alternative  sleuthing method.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere's how it works: Suppose you'd love to own a vintage Valentino  gown. Before, if you wanted to cover all the bases, your keyword  search would involve numerous variants like \"gown,\" \"dress,\" and  \"ball gown,\" not to mention lead you through several  categories-women's clothing, evening wear, collectibles\/vintage  clothing-and even then, it was entirely possible that you could miss  a listing if the seller hadn't placed the designer's name in the  title. With this new feature, you can simply type \"Valentino\" into  the first search box you see on the eBay home page, also selecting  the \"search titles and descriptions\" option. Voilà, you've retrieved  a daunting eight hundred listings. But now look at the highlighted  \"Matching Categories\" box on the left and note all the subgroups in  which something Valentino appears-either in the title or description.  There are listings in \"Movies and Television,\" \"Antiques and Art,\"  \"Dolls and Bears,\" and perhaps even \"eBay Motors.\" Next to each  category, the number of Valentino listings therein will appear in  parentheses. Of course the ones you're after are probably going to  fall within \"Clothing and Accessories\/Women\" or \"Collectibles\/Vintage  Clothing,\" so you'll click on one of those category titles, and your  selection is automatically narrowed for you. Immensely. Once you've  browsed \"Clothing and Accessories\/Women,\" click your Back button,  return to the original lengthy and unwieldy \"pan-eBay\" Valentino  listings page, and select another category, such as  \"Collectibles\/Vintage Clothing.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf after all this you haven't found the Valentino of your dreams-and  the gown hasn't made an appearance either-you may well feel it's time  to let the website itself look for the elusive thing, which leads us  nicely to yet another approach.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen setting up your My eBay page you should take advantage of the  Favorite Searches function. This is a sort of personal shopper  program into which you enter up to three keywords-or sets of  keywords-so eBay will notify you via e-mail whenever an auction title  containing these words gets posted. We find the best use for this  function is to spot those items that rarely appear on eBay. You don't  want to keep typing \"Nettie Rosenstein dress\" over and over daily,  only to be met with \"Sorry . . . ,\" but if one of her dresses should  wind up on eBay, you certainly want to know. So, decide which three  items meet these two criteria-they rarely make an appearance and when  they do, you definitely want to be advised-and pare them down to the  fewest number of keywords that will still eliminate unsuitable items.  You might go with \"Nettie dress,\" since \"Rosenstein\" is more likely  to be misspelled, and \"Nettie Rosenstein\" alone will include listings  of her costume jewelry and handbags as well as magazines containing  photos of her designs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIncidentally, this clever keyword technique-using as few words as  possible in order to target your item but enough so as to eliminate  unwanted listings-is applicable to all types of keyword searches,  including your regular quests, not just to the Favorite Searches  function. And an added bonus is that you'll often catch the  misspellings: If you type in \"Armani,\" as opposed to \"Giorgio  Armani,\" you'll still see the listing for the \"George O. Armani  Evening Coat w\/ Sequence, No Reserve\" that seems to be  mysteriously-oh joy-devoid of competing bidders. Misspellings are  endemic on eBay, so try to imagine all the permutations of a name and  add these to your keyword list: La Perla, laperla, la pearla. And  don't say we didn't warn you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere is a sample list of keywords that you might use for eBay:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003evintage silk velvet\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKelly bag\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePrada\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChloé\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSometimes your search will yield items that say \"Prada-like.\" These  items were probably not designed by Miuccia Prada at all, but the  seller desires your attention and has chosen to do it this way. It  can be annoying and disappointing to retrieve these misleading  listings; eBay frowns upon sellers who use them, and often sends  warning notices to repeat offenders. Occasionally, however, you'll  make a terrific discovery.Includes a directory of more than 100 top vintage sites","brand":"Random House Trade Paperbacks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304640696549,"sku":"NP9780812992007","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780812992007.jpg?v=1767743479","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/virtual-vintage-isbn-9780812992007","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}