Fashion Blogs

Today is one of my favorite holidays right next to Halloween, it’s EARTH DAY!  Earth Day is more than a one-day event or annual environmental wake up call to the public, it is a catalyst for ongoing education, action, and change.  Could there be anything better than that?  Earth Day aims to inspire awareness of and appreciation for earth’s environment.  Planet Earth is really at a turning point now so I ask you all to plant a tree or flowers, stop to pick up a piece of trash on the sidewalk or s

First of all I wish you could just feel the weight of this black 80s Pauline Trigere cocktail dress…  It’s quite impressive….  Every detail about this black cocktail dress by Trigere is impeccable.  The puff sleeves, the wool with taffeta mix and especially the way this drapes on the mannequin…  The woman that originally wore this in the 80s to some cocktail party, I am willing to bet, made a fashion statement.  You know I lived through the 70s & 80s in Texas and I can assure you that a Texas la

OMG I absolutely love this vintage Bill Blass 70s dress with it’s MOD look.  Wearing a great pair of Missoni or ETRO stockings and a pair of fabulous Tom Ford heels you would break the box office!   You could even wear some fabulous Lanvin trapeze vintage pants under the dress to give it more depth and walk the red-carpet!  The great thing about vintage Bill Blass is that it is timeless….  He was a great American fashion designer that really did pave the road for many of todays American fashion

OMG when I saw the Sakowitz label inside this Oscar de la Renta for Swirl caftan I almost passed out.  Being from Texas I’m very familiar with Sakowitz but let me give you the 911 on it.   Sakowitz was a chain of family owned high end luxury department stores based in Houston Texas.  The store was founded by 2 brothers in Galveston Texas in 1902.  They sold high end luxury items and going into that store was the ultimate experience in luxury because one thing Texans do well is show off their wea

You know I love it when I get the opportunity to interview a fellow thrifter so without further adieu here is one fascinating woman….

Q:  Please tell us your name and what you do professionally speaking.

A:  Melanie Woodroffe and I am a copy writer for an online beauty, fashion and lifestyle magazine and blogger for Capitol de Beaute, which I founded in 2007.

I know I’m not the only soul that is so excited about today being the first day of Spring…. Spring we all welcome your arrival and it comes not a moment to soon.  Spring time is always a great time for you to get inside your closet and start that Spring Cleaning….  Go through your clothes and only keep the pieces you love, treasure and worship, the rest donate or consign.  Spring is the time when I flip through all my clothes and purge.    The ones I don’t want to wear anymore I gather up for Mo

I love Thierry Mugler.   He was an extraordinary fashion designer that when you see his pieces today they look just as fresh as the day he made them.  This is a very simple cotton dress with 3 snap buttons and the coolest of cool pockets…  I mean everything this man designed back in the 80s I WANT….  I’m always searching for vintage Mugler for my clients.  There isn’t one thing that screams out ‘outdated’ in this piece but then again when I’m out looking for recycled luxury pieces, this is exact

I’m a HUGE fan of Geoffrey Beene and always have been.  His earlier pieces are in my opinion national treasures.  Beene, Blass & Halston…  all national American treasures.   Let me first give you some info on Swirl.  Swirl was established in Philadelphia and it produces clothes since the beginning of the 20th century….  Swirl was producing dresses for the ‘modern’ woman in the 50s and by the 60s they began making women’s loungewear.  By the 70s, Americans were becoming ‘designer crazed’ so Swirl

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day. Everyone seems to have talked about its customary tradition of wearing green rather than its religious significance. We don’t celebrate this religious festival in Ireland here in Asia, but a fashion maniac like me dares to cross cultural boundaries for style sake. I joined the crowd to catch up with the go green trend. How’s it? Si o no?
Thank you Zalora Hong Kong for this glamorous Gothic Princess green precious stone leather cuff embellished with crystals for c

This vintage 80s Bill Blass dress really does have that Flamenco dancer’s flavor doesn’t it?  I love it and I love the mix of patterns and especially the bow on the side of the waist.  I love seeing bows on the waistline, it’s so very 80s….  Remember back in the 80s every woman had bows either in her hair or on her clothes…  I love it.  The weight of this dress is actually quite substantial believe it or not…  That’s a sign of really good fabric and when it came to Bill Blass he didn’t leave any

I just read this fabulous article in the Huffington Post titled “This is What A Totally Green, Sustainable NYC Could Look Like”… click here to read…. The article starts off by saying that the people of NYC require some 4 million acres of food producing land just to grow enough food for New Yorkers to eat annually…  4 million acres of land…  that’s like the size of Connecticut people…  I loved looking at the futuristic city of New York would look like if it indeed went completely green and all th

Yes this 80s Pierre Balmain dress really does make quite the artistic statement doesn’t it?  Grant it I love solids and prefer them over patterns but for some reason I actually think this pattern is very upbeat.  This is just a fantastic French label, one of many, that has always delivered the goods…  I don’t know about you but when I see this label I swoon…  I’m Daniel Troppy your vintage luxury curator!  

Who in their right mind doesn’t love Carolina Herrera? Every time, and I mean every time, I get my hands on vintage Herrera I do my little victory dance….  To me there isn’t anything better than vintage Carolina Herrera because this dress was done in the early 90′s and it looks amazingly beautiful TODAY.  That’s the great thing about style, is good style never ever goes out of style and if anyone should know about style it’s Carolina Herrera.  Get yourself into some vintage Carolina Herrera and

You know I’m a lover not a hater so when my eyes met this Nina Ricci label it was love at first sight!  I really should have taken a photo of the inside of the shoulders because there is a lace extra lining underneath which tells me it’s all about the details with Nina Ricci.  This is a powerful old iconic label and when you look at this dress head-on and sideways you see that it’s a real treasure.  It looks just as amazing today as the day it was originally conceived…  I believe everywoman need

I love this vintage pink Pierre Cardin 70s disco dress with the original belt. Will you check out the belt? It’s not just the belt but it’s the shoulders & sleeves as well. This was just so beautifully designed and so well constructed that it’s timeless. I can put a woman in this dress today with a fun pair of Stella McCartney heels and she would look amazing because good simple designs never go out of style. The great thing about vintage is that the number of copies of an item is limited, not l

One of my most treasured fellow thrifter Dawn Kaufman came into Doubletake Recycled Luxury to consign this item and it just stopped me dead in my tracks….  This 3 piece early 70′s Oscar de la Renta polkadot dress is just stunning.  The dress has a ruffled attachable skirt so you can give it that extra dimension and then the belt.  The patterns of polkadots in this vintage Oscar de la Renta dress is just jaw-dropping.  When Dawn walked into Doubletake with it, I was talking to Paula who happens t

I’m a little annoyed at this moment because I had written a blog post on this Rachel Roy and Burberry outfit and it was erased…..  ERASED…  I sat down started typing the post and the next thing I knew it was ERASED.  So I don’t have it in me to even try to remember what the hell I said but I’m sure it was something of great importance…..  So here goes…  The top is Rachel Roy and the bottom is Burberry Golf…  God I’m so annoyed ……  I’m Daniel Troppy your luxury curator .

I swear if I were a woman I would live in this vintage YSL 70′s caftan.  I’m serious I would live in it.  It would be my version of the Snuggie, but only R$CH & CHIC.  This caftan is made of terrycloth so it’s super absorbent and it has pockets so while the terrycloth is soaking up the water your hands can be tucked away nice and safe.  This just screams St Tropez doesn’t it?  I mean can’t you see Elizabeth Taylor wearing this YSL caftan, sun bathing on some yacht in the Mediterranean?  I sure c

When I saw the actual label on this jacket, I almost chocked on my Tic Tac!  I know you would have done the exact same thing.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE finding vintage Thierry Mugler, I wish I could say that I find vintage Mugler every damn day but sadly I just don’t.  It’s a real treat to find this label because I consider him one of the finest French fashion designers EVER.  He was so futuristic and you see that with the details on this jacket.  It’s very Jetsons – space age !  If I could squeeze my a

If anyone was handed out the Best Dressed Award in Atlanta it would have to go to my friend Nancy.  She has been a collector of the finest of the finest items for decades and she collects with great style and gusto!  Nancy pays attention to every detail, when she finds a fabulous piece she touches to feel the fabric, she turns it over to look at the backside, she turns it inside out to look at the hem and the way it was sewn.  She digest the entire piece and that’s what I love about Nancy.  She