The Official Price Guide to Vintage Fashion and Fabrics (Official Price Guide Series)

Rating:
Summary: But I still have 1980s clothes in my closet!
Review: The Official Price Guide to Vintage Fashion and Fabrics focuses on the decades from 1900 through the 1990s. This handbook is divided into chapters by decade. Each decade is introduced by a quick summary of its styles and a list of common fabrics and manufacturer labels. The meat of each chapter is the list of garments and accessories with prices. This consists of the garment name, one sentence of description, price, and source. Although there are some black-and-white photos throughout plus eight pages of color photos in the middle of the book, most garments are not illustrated. Five pages at the beginning very briefly discuss buying and conserving vintage clothes. A "special interests" chapter at the end skims Victorian, children's, bridal, and Western wear.

Unlike some price guides, the author actually gives the specific price listed for a specific garment by a specific dealer, rather than slapping on a price and leaving readers to wonder where it came from. Unfortunately almost all the prices are from Internet stores. The rest of the vintage clothing market (brick-and-mortar vintage clothing stores, non-Internet mail-order dealers, thrift shops, vintage clothing shows, flea markets, and live auctions) is not really discussed. This gives a skewed view of pricing. Aside from the wildly fluctuating Ebay market , vintage clothing prices tend to be higher on the Internet than most other venues. Furthermore, many of the sites the author most relies on are ones I browse often--but never buy from, because they consistently have the highest prices I've seen anywhere.

In other words, this book enables you to gasp at the $2,200 simple 1920s lace evening dress and the $3,000 piano shawl and be glad you bought yours a lot cheaper. Hopefully, the current recession (like the last one) will bring down vintage clothing prices. Stay tuned to the prices currently listed on the websites the author used--not to mention prices in the cheaper venues!

Rating:
Summary: not particularly useful, with unrealistic pricing
Review: This book has a bit of a split personality. On the one hand, its decade-by-decade approach that lists (and describes the importance of) designers is well-done, if brief, just as it was in the previous incarnation of this book. Designers are also listed in multiple decades, which gives a good idea of the vigor of the designer.

Each decade is also given a good-sized overview. Quite useful and were well-done. The photos are mostly clear and one can see the garment, even when in black and white. The center of the book has glossy pages inhabited by a handful of color photos, but since the book is done in b&w and on (very) inexpensive/cheap pulp paper, the extra expense incurred for these glossy pages would have been better spent to include some mention of Victorian clothing (see below).

However, there's absolutely *no* inclusion of any Victorian fashions -- a *huge* omission as the Victorian era spans at least 5 decades. Additionally, if the author decided to include the decades 1900 and 1910 separately (many books lump them together) why not include at least a couple of Victorian decades? Frequently, the collector of Edwardian/teens fashions and even the 1920s also is a collector of at least some Victorian fashions. To take the trouble to include the decades of 1900 and 1910 but exclude anything that comes before it seems silly and incomplete to me.

An interesting/alternative approach is that prices are given for actual items. Many books present an item with a suggested price, but it is unclear whether this is the price asked by the dealer or thought appropriate by the author. Now while I find the "approximate going rate" approach a solid one, it was interesting to see what dealers actually charge(d) for specific items. Both approaches are worthwhile.

Another 'however,' however. The dealers chosen to represent current prices are pretty much Internet-only or Internet-mainly dealers, which might give a skewed idea as to prices. MUCH more significant is that the dealers chosen are the dealers who charge THROUGH THE ROOF for items. I can see charging a few thousand dollars for a Gallenga velvet cape, but many of the garments offered by these dealers have no label (or no significant one) and though very nice or beautiful are not unusual enough to warrent the high prices given.

My sneaking suspicion is that the dealers represented have an *extremely* exclusive clientele -- Hollywood stylists, fashion designers, perhaps even rich collectors and museums -- that seem to patronize these dealers heavily and the relationship built up with them allows the dealers to charge these (in my humble opinion) frequently outrageous prices.

So using these (very few) dealers so heavily to establish the market value of vintage is a highly problematic approach, and a big flaw of the book that limits its usefulness.

Lastly, there's a problem with the dealers offered as available via the Internet. Many of the websites listed are "under construction," or completely not there (not to mention the ones whose sites are very poor). As I write this it is January 2002. The book was published in October 2001. I think it is useless to offer a dealer as an Web source or to include the dealer's Web site if there's nothing there. Bad follow through.

I won't return the book, but I'm not sure it adds much value to my library, given it's flawed approach to pricing and its limited dealer scope.

Rating:
Summary: not particularly useful, with unrealistic pricing
Review: This book has a bit of a split personality. On the one hand, its decade-by-decade approach that lists (and describes the importance of) designers is well-done, if brief, just as it was in the previous incarnation of this book. Designers are also listed in multiple decades, which gives a good idea of the vigor of the designer.

Each decade is also given a good-sized overview. Quite useful and were well-done. The photos are mostly clear and one can see the garment, even when in black and white. The center of the book has glossy pages inhabited by a handful of color photos, but since the book is done in b&w and on (very) inexpensive/cheap pulp paper, the extra expense incurred for these glossy pages would have been better spent to include some mention of Victorian clothing (see below).

However, there's absolutely *no* inclusion of any Victorian fashions -- a *huge* omission as the Victorian era spans at least 5 decades. Additionally, if the author decided to include the decades 1900 and 1910 separately (many books lump them together) why not include at least a couple of Victorian decades? Frequently, the collector of Edwardian/teens fashions and even the 1920s also is a collector of at least some Victorian fashions. To take the trouble to include the decades of 1900 and 1910 but exclude anything that comes before it seems silly and incomplete to me.

An interesting/alternative approach is that prices are given for actual items. Many books present an item with a suggested price, but it is unclear whether this is the price asked by the dealer or thought appropriate by the author. Now while I find the "approximate going rate" approach a solid one, it was interesting to see what dealers actually charge(d) for specific items. Both approaches are worthwhile.

Another 'however,' however. The dealers chosen to represent current prices are pretty much Internet-only or Internet-mainly dealers, which might give a skewed idea as to prices. MUCH more significant is that the dealers chosen are the dealers who charge THROUGH THE ROOF for items. I can see charging a few thousand dollars for a Gallenga velvet cape, but many of the garments offered by these dealers have no label (or no significant one) and though very nice or beautiful are not unusual enough to warrent the high prices given.

My sneaking suspicion is that the dealers represented have an *extremely* exclusive clientele -- Hollywood stylists, fashion designers, perhaps even rich collectors and museums -- that seem to patronize these dealers heavily and the relationship built up with them allows the dealers to charge these (in my humble opinion) frequently outrageous prices.

So using these (very few) dealers so heavily to establish the market value of vintage is a highly problematic approach, and a big flaw of the book that limits its usefulness.

Lastly, there's a problem with the dealers offered as available via the Internet. Many of the websites listed are "under construction," or completely not there (not to mention the ones whose sites are very poor). As I write this it is January 2002. The book was published in October 2001. I think it is useless to offer a dealer as an Web source or to include the dealer's Web site if there's nothing there. Bad follow through.

I won't return the book, but I'm not sure it adds much value to my library, given it's flawed approach to pricing and its limited dealer scope.

Rating:
Summary: Read this book if you love Vintage!
Review: This is a very informative read! Lots of pictures and samplings from vintage clothing stores all over the country. As a vintage dealer, I highly recommend it for reasearch and as a way to get your finger on the pulse of vintage fashion.