The March Hotline
On job hunting, a fashion symposium, and top secret plans
As promised, all February paid subscriptions to 1-800-VINTAGE were donated! Thanks to your generous support, I was able to send $373 to the Immigrant Rapid Response Fund. ICE “agents” may have visibly decreased their presence in Minneapolis for now, but they continue terrorizing communities with increasingly covert methods. City residents also face the challenges of long-term economic impact beyond the hurt, trauma, kidnappings, and killings.
Wherever you are: take care of yourself and your neighbors. Stay vigilant. Fuck ICE.
February was my month of side quests. I told everyone I know I’m job hunting, and said yes to every random freelance gig thrown my way. I picked up extra shop shifts, did a three day luxury vintage show in SoHo, delivered & set up a Valentine’s Day bouquet bar, styled a shoot for a major fashion house, helped my husband backstage at an NYFW show, scanned tickets at the door for an anti-ICE fundraiser party, did an impromptu photoshoot in Prospect Park with friends, and pulled vintage selects for two movies and an editorial. Whew.
That being said, I’m still seeking part-time employment! If you’re based in NYC and you’re looking for a highly competent bar manager, bartender, store manager or social media manager, I’m your girl. My qualifications are that I’m a Virgo and the eldest daughter of an immigrant mom, but I can also send you my resume.
On My Calendar…
Last year, I gave myself the goal of actively seeing more art and exhibits. I’m keeping it up in 2026, with the addition of trying to attend more events. There is so much great (and often free!) programming happening all over the city, so I’m forcing myself out of bed and into the lecture halls of NYC to make my brain big.
This Wednesday, I’ll be attending the live recording for the podcast Person Place Thing at FIT with my friend Sara of Agnes Carol Vintage. Host Randy Cohen will be joined by Dr. Elizabeth Way, MFIT curator of costume and accessories, for a conversation about the new exhibition Art X Fashion. At the end of the month, I’ll be returning to FIT to attendent their 35th symposium on March 27th. The schedule and (free!) registration link are here if you’re interested - please let me know if you’ll be attending so we can hang out!
And in between… I’m going to Mexico City! As someone who prioritizes food and art when I travel, CDMX has been at the top of my wish list for years. My husband manages the band Planta Industrial, so I’ll be joining them for Vive Latino festival, one of the stops on their upcoming tour. I plan on checking out as many markets as I can while I’m down there, so expect updates on that after my trip!
A dear friend from Mexico City has already shared her Google Maps list with me, but I’d love to hear of any can’t miss recommendations if you have them.
What Else is Happening in NYC Vintage…
To See:
DIY Grrrl: Constructing, Disrupting, and Reclaiming Girlhood in the 1990’s on view at 80WSE Gallery until March 7th
Spanish Style: Fashion Illuminated, 1550-1700 is on view at the Hispanic Museum & Library until March 22nd
The Endless Garment: Atlantic Basin is on view at Pioneer Works until 4/12
The New York Sari is on view at The New York Historical until 4/26
To Shop:
The Sturbridge Show, March 20th & 21st
Pickwick Vintage Show, March 21st
Distressed Fest, March 28th
In The Shop…
What’s Selling: At Part Two show, vintage fur continued its reign! The only thing I saw shoppers more feral over were the bags in the booth next to mine. I wish I took videos of people descending on the Fendi baguettes, it was like a scene out of a movie. Between Part Two and Seven Wonders, all of the fur coats I found in Paris sold!
What’s Sitting: I thought the fur hats I brought back from Paris would be instantly snatched up alongside the coats, but I think I miscalculated by picking up the wrong shapes. I watched dozens and dozens of try-ons of every style, and I could tell by the reactions that a lot of people just don’t feel confident enough to pull off a hat that looks “too vintage.”
What I’m Sourcing: I’ve been sitting on a secret new vintage venture for way too long. I’m great at coming up with ideas, generally terrible at executing them! But I’m determined to follow through this spring, so my sourcing lately has involved hunting down some finishing touches to officially launch. More from me about that soon!
In My Closet…
What I’m Buying: I did way too much shopping this month! Oops. Please hire me!
I fell in love with a 2004 Junya Watanabe for CDG bag at my friend Rong’s (Adult Graduate) booth at Part Two, but it thankfully sold before I could delude myself into buying something so out of my budget.
Part Two was the best vintage event I’ve participated in since 2024 sales-wise, which was much needed. The weekend came to a blissful close with an almost two year long Gem alert finally coming to fruition in my inbox. My “Tory Burch pierced Size 10” saved search finally pinged a pair of barely worn, still in the box, $400 Pierced Multi-Strap Heeled Sandals for only $150 on Depop. It felt like a sign! I had resisted the urge to buy anything at the market, so I allowed myself a little Depop treat for my hard work. They’re beautiful and perfect and I can’t wait until it is appropriately warm and dry enough to wear them.
I’m not really a shoe girl, but somehow those become one of FOUR pairs of shoes I acquired this month! My husband and I went shopping (his idea) and ate mofongo (my idea) for Valentine’s Day, and he bought me a pair of Adidas x Wales Bonner sneakers. I didn’t think I was a Sambas girl, but the satin uppers and corded stripes added just enough whimsy to woo me. I’m a big fan of Grace Wales Bonner, so I’m excited to finally have something of her even if it’s just a collab sneaker.
An afternoon of thrifting with my bestie miraculously yieled me two pairs of great shoes in my size, which my fellow large-foot ladies know is almost unheard of. I came home with a pair of black leather Frye harness boots that zip all the way up the back, and a lovely vintage nylon Ferragamo flats. Sometimes I’m tempted to keep shoes I don’t need just because they’re in my size, so I may end up selling either pair if I don’t actually reach for them often enough.
I picked up an extra shift at Seven Wonders Collective only to spend the day’s wages on a very fab Y2K Miss Sixty sweater/jacket from my fellow vendor Seacret Vintage, who ships her colorful Euro collections in from Spain.
What I’m Wearing: Much of February yielded a city that was a perilous maze of frozen snow piles sprinkled in unbelievable amount of dog poop, so I did a lot of deeply uninspiring jeans/boots/dirty puffer jacket combos. My winter coat and I are like a toxic couple that keeps breaking up and getting back together. She’s tired, and we’re sick of each other! I’m so ready to give her some peace.
While NYC was hit with our first blizzard in a decade, I took the opportunity to put on some very old vintage and do a bit of frolicking (and selfie-taking) in the park behind my apartment.
I was so kindly gifted a gorgeous Alpaca sweater from low-waste knitwear brand The Endery! I will never promote or accept gifts from any brands that don’t align with my personal values, and I’m very picky about anything non-vintage that I introduce to my wardrobe. The Endery produces all collections with at least 60% deadstock waste, ethically handcrafted by Peruvian artisans. I have a lot of sensory issues and generally avoid animal fiber knits, so I was a bit worried that I’d find the Alpaca/Merino blend itchy. I’m happy to report that my Louise Cardigan one of the softest, most cloud-like knits I’ve ever worn, and it miraculously didn’t bother me even against bare skin!
I wore my cozy new cardigan to style a shoot with Major Fashion Brand That Shall Be Revealed at a Later Date. We spent the day at Prop Haus in Ridgewood, the vintage time capsule home of my dreams. If you want a hint on who I was on set for, I was working with looks from the Spring 2026 Runway and each outfit had a minimum of eight pieces. As always with this brand, there were tons of layers, and everything had to be tied, tucked, and folded just so.
On My Mind…
What I’m Reading: Finally revisited Bunny by Mona Awad after urging by my dear friend Simone. I finished it, but still found Awad’s earlier style a bit unwieldy and repetitive. Her concepts are interesting, but I think she really developed as a writer by the time she wrote the much better (in my opinion) Rouge. I followed that with Banana Yoshimoto’s The Premonition which was… interesting. I don’t think I recommend it.
Simone and I talk about books often, and she’s gifted me a lot of very thoughtful reads over the years. They’re primarily non-fiction, which always take me months (or years) to slowly parse through at a pace entirely unlike my typical 1-3 day sprees through novels. I’ve been visiting one of her gifts, Women in Clothes, each morning while I have my coffee.
I’ve created a Fashion Library page on ShopMy, where all of my recommended fashion reads are linked via Bookshop.org!
What I’m Watching: I’m gonna be real with you, I didn’t watch shit this month. I revisited clips from Love Story for the 100 Fashion Films Project, but I couldn’t bring myself to actually sit through the whole thing again. I was so busy that my media consumption was limited to horizontal scrolling and re-watching Criminal Minds for the 500th time.
On Display…
What I Saw: Went to a great lecture by the Frick’s Associate Curator Aimee Ng about their new exhibit of Gainsborough paintings. The ticket included museum admission an hour before the lecture began, but I wanted to see the show after hearing more about the art. I just went back to The Frick a couple of weeks later to actually see the exhibition, and I was glad I waited to view the works with additional context.
Ng’s lecture focused on the importance of fashion in Gainsborough’s portraits, and how style and dress was used to communicate (and often obfuscate) status and class. Portraits were once similar to selfies - what you see isn’t always reality. Gainsborough was often re-hired to paint new, more in-fashion outfits over outdated styles in past works, or to paint subjects in clothing finer than they could afford in real life. Some of his work was done as trade with artists, friends, and family of similar stature, and he bucked convention by portraying his peers in the attire and poses of those in higher status than they actually held in society.
What I Would See If I Could Teleport: Marie Antoinette Style at the V&A South Kensington, presented by Manolo Blahnik and closing on March 22nd. After which I would make my way to the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow to see Women in Print: 150 Years of Liberty Textiles.
If I do say so myself, I put out some great writing in February! Avery Trufelman of Articles Of Interest joined me to break down the preppy class fantasy of Movie #17 on the 100 Fashion Films Project, Love Story.
I posted about my vintage pricing piece over on Instagram, and it has since blown away anything I’ve ever posted on that app. It’s been reposted 150+ times, send over 300 times, and saved by 600 people. I received a truly incredible and overwhelming response from both other dealers and shoppers, and it brought quite a few new faces here: Hi!! Welcome!
That Vintage Isn't Overpriced
When I first started selling vintage, I felt the constant need to defend my work. Every eye roll at a price tag felt like a personal attack, every insulting offer for a “better” price was wou…
I wear the same shoe size as you, so anytime I hear of someone scoring amazing shoes in our size, it's a win for us all!