StyleLikeU » Vintage Collector

Liz Baca

'Funminitemi Oluwadare — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 17:27:01 +0000

Liz has an inner radiance that is echoed in her beloved happy face Moschino bag. She says of dressing in her different fashion personalities, “I am still in touch with what I was doing as a child… it makes me smile and it makes me different than you.” She can transform from what she calls a “sophisti-clown” in a purple gauzy jumper and spray paint can cap necklace to Parisian demure in a sheer white ruffled blouse, Chanel trousers and ’40s platforms in the blink of an eye and own it. Her obsession with multifaceted genres makes her as comfortable in ’80s art teacher’s pattern-on-patterns with a Joan and David saddle shoe as she is in a classic three-piece suit with wide-leg trousers.

Clothing is art for Liz, who is the product of a long line of antique dealers and vintage collectors, including her grandmother, who worked for the Salvation Army. “By dipping into history, you are predicting the future,” Liz says. Everything she wears could be hung on a wall, like the embellished Mickey Mouse sweatshirt that she sewed sequins on, a la Dolce & Gabbana and her ’50s Red Line Levi’s. I love the hint of colorful graffiti street influence from her Bay Area hometown that emerges when she adds a neon Chanel bag to a Disney motif and the original boyfriend jean. She has “always been attracted to items that are marketed towards the advanced.” History does not repeat itself as much as it is the basis for evolution when interpreted by the ones who get it and wear it as if it was better than brand new, like Liz does. “I am not trying to rush towards growing older, but I do welcome it with open arms… full of Bakelite bangles.”

Check out the online magazine that Liz co-founded.

If you love Liz, you may also like Lindsey Caldwell, CC McGurr and Shail Upadhya.

Shae Detar

'Funminitemi Oluwadare — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 02:30:30 +0000

Shae and I are are fellow history-obsessives and appreciate the beauty of handmade things. We might have known each other in another life, circa late 19th century Europe or America. We were ahead of our time in that we could easily be male or female when we dressed, only she was a boy and I was a man. Shae slides from suspenders, Amish hats and plaid shorts to delicate cotton dresses with eight million buttons like the Bronte sisters, who published under men’s pen names. Equally dual and passionate in our aesthetic, I have succumbed to safety pins when my Edwardian lace blouses and bustled men’s jackets tear. I am so desperate to wear what probably should be on a wall, like Shae’s treasures are.
It’s not a surprise that Shae feels like she was born in the wrong era, with a mom who hoards Victorian sofas and has nine in one room. Shae has been creating her own stories with her clothes since she was seven, wearing bloomers, vintage ’50s dresses and bonnets to kindergarten with her pail and chalkboard in toe. Still in bloomers, today her themes have evolved into a more eclectic palate of mixing 1900s vintage slips, jackets from Pride and Prejudice, Afghany belts and corsets from every decade of the last two centuries. Her modeling agency might have found her too edgy and quirky, but Shae has found a way to channel her visionary anecdotes with a burgeoning career as a fantasy photographer.

If you love Shae, you may also like Byrdie Bell, Kelle Calco and Sabrina Diaz.

Sarah McGovern

'Funminitemi Oluwadare — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:33:32 +0000

Highway child is the name of Sarah’s jewelry line, after the Bob Seeger song from the ’70′s. It’s about a hitchhiker and someone that Sarah strongly identifies with, for their shared case of wanderlust. Sarah’s vibe, in a vintage RRL plaid flannel skirt, fedora with feathers, signature navajo silver, beaded and turquoise jewelry, old American flag on the wall, and raspy, melodic voice, makes you want to live in a Bob Seeger song too. Despite the cozy, Topanga canyon decor and chirping birds that give her Brooklyn apartment an unecumbered aura, Sarah truly walked the walk by moving to the woods in Georgia for six months. It was there, living in a trailer on a lake with her boyfriend, that she felt most able to concentrate on her handmade collection of everything from headpieces to earrings, that are inspired by hippie cults, natural places with decades of history, ’60′s psychedelic music, and Anita Pallenberg. Calm and poised in her Aztec-inspired, Jill Stuart tunic, and floppy “Carly Simon” hat, I am tempted to light some incense, pack a knapsack, and get Sarah’s tattoo of The Bluebirds of Happiness (symbolizing desire, faith and truth), as my buzzer rings for the 50th time today.

If you like Sarah, you may also enjoy Pamela Love, Kelle Calco and Chase Cohl.

Sabrina Diaz

'Funminitemi Oluwadare — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 14:26:49 +0000

Always in a dress, Sabrina may look girly, but she has a very educated and sophisticated taste for clothes, and I love how she is okay with looking like she cares. Her biggest role models are glamourous: her mom, whom she vividly remembers watching getting dressed as a child, Audrey Hepburn, especially in the movie of her own namesake (“I like to pretend it’s about me sometimes”), and the iconic Edith Head,, “not only as a costume designer but for her own strong personal style” (I am super impressed that she knows who Edith Head is). Sabrina’s clothes are literally of her dreams and memories, like the leopard coat that her mother gave her after years of coveting it, the beaded robe she wears out at night and enthusiastically fantasizes was the dressing gown of a turn-of-the-twentieth-century Russian lady, and the coat she still has from when she was six (it is still amazing on her). One of her pastimes is eBay (not tv) and so into the archetypes is she that by searching for all things lace, she ended up with the white Victorian dress that she cut and wears with her signature black thick tights. Sabrina’s attachment to clothes is so soulful that she is habitually two hours late due to getting it just right. And I would imagine she does so all with her favorite movie scene in mind, when “Audrey Hepburn shows up to this party in this breathtaking white gown, and everyones’ jaws drop, and they all freeze because of how beautiful she looks in this gown. I love it.”

If you like Sabrina, you may also enjoy Celia Ingesson and Rachel Ballinger.