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Rags to Riches: Vintage Clothing

Rags to Riches: Vintage Clothing

Mail order catalog shopping may work for mass-produced standard clothing from Eddie Bauer and J. Crew. But the World Wide Web is an ideal way to shop for that one-of-a-kind 1940s “Kramer” shirt, a white suit like the one John Travolta wore in Saturday Night Fever, or a pink satin Victorian reticule. There’s no need to rummage through dusty bins and racks in second hand clothing stores if you know what you want. Creating a print catalog of one-of-a-kind items would be a daunting task, but a Web site is a natural. Items can easily be added and deleted at minimal cost.

Vintage clothing dealers tend to have a specialty, such as a particular decade in our history like the 1940s or 50s, the disco decade of the 1970s, or the entire nineteenth century and the Civil War.

Moon Slice Vintage Clothing (moonslice.com) has clothing from all eras, from the classic to the offbeat. They have handcrafted jewelry, hand-trimmed hats, and will link you to other sites for books or household items that are relevant to the clothing.

Reflections of the Past (reflections.com) began as a small international mail order company in 1988 dealing in antique costumes and textiles. They sold to collectors, re-enactors, costume designers, decorators, and museums. They list their business as a source in all the print and electronic media catering to those buyers. Reflections promises that what you are getting is a genuine antique unless noted.

Joanne Haug of Cleveland, Ohio calls herself a nineteenth century proprietress and a twentieth century Web page designer. Haug links her site to a nineteenth century network, museums, library archives, and others. Her selection of clothing for men, women, and children from 1770 to 1920 is constantly changing. Customers will find apparel from the Civil War era, the Regency period, bridal gowns, Edwardian white lace dresses, christening gowns, underclothes, corsets, hats, purses, parasols, shawls, shoes, and fans. The selection includes European and American antique and vintage clothing and accessories, textiles, and decorative items such as bed and table linens and needlework samplers.

American Vintage Classics (vintage.com) caters to men who like vintage clothing from the 1930s through the 1960s, but lots of women like to wear clothing from this period, too. They have shirts, ties, cowboy shirts, and Hawaiian shirts.

Three Portland, Oregon college students with shopping lust started Rusty Zipper (rustyzipper.com) in their shared home. They discovered what might be the best way to sell one-of-a-kind clothing without a store. With the speed and ease of the Internet, shoppers can search for a particular item by vintage or decade with the Rusty Zipper search engine. If it is not in stock, customers can e-mail their requests and the Rusty Zipper crew will pore through secondhand bins and racks and find it. This not only keeps customers satisfied, it gives these entrepreneurs an excuse to shop till they drop. After all, the business began as a way to satisfy their own fascination with rummage sales and trash picking. The Web site business has given them a way to maintain a business without a huge overhead, and they get about 150 hits a day from all over the world.

Rusty Zipper was the first virtual used clothing store on the Web. Organized in 1996, Rusty Zipper is a labor of love that seems to be a success in every way. It allows the owners to keep their more secure day jobs while still making a modest profit. The Web site has also given them the chance to communicate with other vintage clothing fans around the world.

Rusty Zipper carries items that appeal to the owners’ interests, which means a good collection of 1960s and 1970s clothing from “Fly to Sly.” There are one-of-a-kind garments and odds and ends from the 1940s to 1970s. The most popular items are the disco era polyester shirts, leisure suits, 1960s mod styles, denim jackets covered in patches, mini skirts, 1940s neckties, and the two-tone vertical striped shirts made popular by Kramer on the Seinfeld TV show. Other collectibles are continually being added, such as James Bond books and videos from the television series The Twilight Zone, The Mod Squad, The Avengers, The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

There are about 250 items (in good condition) available and more being added all the time. Most of the Rusty Zipper merchandise comes from estate sales, local shops, and from various collectors around the country.

Vintage clothing shoppers are quite naturally bargain oriented, and most are not about to spend a great deal of money for a previously worn forty-year-old shirt. Rusty Zipper prices their clothing as reasonably as possible, with most items priced between $10 and $30, probably less than most real world shops.

By the end of its initial year, according to a report in Inc Online, Rusty Zipper had sold $25,000 of mostly one-of-a-kind clothing and cleared about $10,000 in profit. They will not get rich on old clothes, but they make a modest profit and put the money back into the business.

The trio of entrepreneurs could not afford the big bucks needed by a professional Web site designer so they became determined experts on their own. They began with a “work in progress” site in 1995 in order to keep people interested and get some comments from others. While this kept customers on the alert, all three spent many nights burning the midnight oil, drinking coffee, and reading all the Web books necessary to learn how to produce their own site. They claim to have spent less than $1,000 on the site. Now the site is automated so that maintenance and operation of the business takes about fifteen hours a week, or five hours from each partner. The monthly operating cost for the site itself is about $130, which they pay to a service provider. All the updates, however, are done in house.

The Rusty Zipper site is extremely user-friendly. Customers can search for items by the era or gender, then refine the search to color and size, get a list of about ten items with pictures, then zoom in to enlarge the picture. Naturally, some items photograph better than others, but most of the inventory is clearly visible. Customers can e-mail the store, read the latest press clippings, check out a “what’s new,” bulletin board, or join a chat group with other vintage clothing fanatics.

Rusty Zipper will make a refund to a customer if the item is returned within fifteen days with a copy of the receipt. Shipping charges are not refunded, however. There is a sizing chart included on the Web site, but if something does not fit, it can be returned. Any flaws in the merchandise, such as a discoloration or frayed hem, are described in the catalog descriptions, so returns for problems like this are avoided.

Netscape’s Commerce Server provides them security for credit card purchases. For Rusty Zipper customers who are still uncomfortable, an 800 number has been added so order information can be phoned or faxed twenty-four hours a day. Orders are shipped by priority mail for $5 anywhere in the United States. Orders to other parts of the globe are sent parcel post or global priority.

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