I’m finally ready to tell all…

…about my eBay and Etsy search terms

Hey you little fashion plates,

That’s what my mother and her friends always called chic women- “she’s a real fashion plate.” I don’t know when it stopped being slang that people could decode, but I recently said it to a Gen Z friend and he looked at me like I’d asked: “good sir, can you point me to the nearest stable? My horse is very tired and he shall not last the night.”

Anyway, earlier this week I told you a little more about some of my mother’s fashion fixations. In it, I basically referred to myself as a tacky bitch. But just because I’m not always making “elegant” choices doesn’t mean I don’t have a perspective. We ALL have a perspective. I am attracted, generally, to things that feel specific, evoke a cultural connection and an emotional memory, and have a detail that would make someone uninitiated think: “what the fuck is that?”

Combine that with chronic illness and long stretches spent in bed, and you have a recipe for a very intense relationship with eBay and Etsy (you also have The RealReal, Vestiaire and Depop, but somehow none quite feel like my demo- if they were women, The RealReal is your friend with a sleek middle part and an expensive espresso machine, Vestiaire did coke and can’t make it to brunch and Depop is so liberal she somehow came back around to being conservative. Whereas eBay is your intense, single aunt and Etsy is a tattooed nurse from Olympia, Washington.)

I shop second-hand for the obvious reasons: the environmental cost of fast fashion, I only wear second-hand leather, and you can play around more when you’re not saying the word “investment piece” to anyone who will listen. I have also always believed that clothes are meant to travel – 90% of the time, if someone seems delighted by something I own, I hand it to them. Same goes for my mother, who says she is practicing Swedish death cleaning every time she meets a cool young person with size 10 feet and a long torso and then sends them the kind of vintage gift box you wait your whole life for.

I also love the stories that the sellers tell, often without meaning to– I could write a movie about the relationship between the woman selling this Romeo Gigli dress and the person on the couch in the background:

Or this rather unremarkable mirror I bought purely because the seller shared photos of her mother adjusting her wedding veil in its reflection some 30 years ago:

(BTW, don’t judge the basket of 7 items- that’s a liminal space, a bardo if you will, where items either reveal themselves as absurd and go back to being anonymous crap or sing to me like sirens until I finally relent. This can often go on for months, because eBay doesn’t do that outrageous basket-emptying move everyone is pulling these days.)

It sometimes feels like I have a second life lived in these places, a sort of alternate self who is back at Unique Thrift in Cleveland in 2006 just fucking around. And just like Unique Thrift (where I once bought a pair of insanely cunty platforms only to realize they were actually just flats but one had a lift to accommodate a leg length disparity), these places are what you make of them.

And what you make of them is your search terms.

I find, more and more, I really do look for the things I admired as a child and either couldn’t have, or had but didn’t properly appreciate. The searches often aren’t about shopping- they can be about gathering ideas for directing mood boards, trying to remember garments that figure prominently in my past for an essay, or just admiring appealing things because it’s soothing.

The Lena having her second life looks a little like this, I think: wearing a piece of polka-dotted extra yardage with a ripped hole for the neck, and a tube top constructed of multiple headbands…

cheer up, love- don’t like your clown dress!?

A note: Plus size vintage is tough. Firstly, it depends what you want- size 40 waist men’s 501s? Gold mine. Oversized coats from The Antwerp Six? Plenty. But for true vintage and truly historic fashion, it means knowing your measurements and bonding with your local tailor. I’ve had panels of contrasting fabric added, made two dresses into one and worn skirts as tops and tops as skirts.

On the day that Lu and I went to the courthouse for our marriage certificate, my friend Christy of Guild of Hands took my mother’s linen wedding suit by Japanese brand Matsuda…

…and turned it into this:

I’m even wearing Laurie’s cream and white spectator pumps (as she said, “kitten heels, about as kitteny as you could get.”)

And so, without further ado, recent Etsy and eBay search terms (with some killer links for whoever is feeling bold.):

All custom artwork is by Phoebe Ward

This was Betsey’s low-priced junior sportswear brand. House of Sunny, Shrimps, Ulla Johnson- the entire world of power clashing is in debt to her. A lot of the pieces are stretch and/or oversized, but this is really an ideas hunt term. I mean, there are too many ideas in the above image to count.

Whoever ends up with this Palm Beach dream is blessed. But while we’re at it, here’s a newer Betsey hat that one of you must snag and it’s priced to move.

Sidenote: during the pandemic I lived in the same oceanside trailer home community as Betsey and her trailer was flamingo pink, as was her golf cart. She could be spotted every day at sundown driving it onto the PCH, adorned with a flag that said- simply- Betsey. Aging fucking rules.

(sorting from lowest to highest price, always, and never being afraid of a missing chain or charm.)

Was I ever more jealous than during seventh grade Bat Mitzvah season, when suddenly every girl who’d nailed her Torah portion was sporting a Tiffany bean? Its shape- so silly yet so confident, so curvaceous yet contained. My friend Elissa got TWO and let me borrow one for a week, and I swear I felt ushered into a skull and bones society.

Well, to paraphrase Cher when her mother told her to marry rich, “Mom, I am that man who can get my own Tiffany bean.” And often, for under 100 bucks.

Then there’s Paloma, whose lineage requires her to be great with shapes. Her heart is the iteration that made high school girls gaga, but I’m most charmed by this cartoon daisy or this winsome scribble.

There was nothing chicer to me in the year of our lord 1997 than Patrick Cox and his loafer kingdom. Once, my mother found a pair of HOT PINK SATIN LOAFER MULES two sizes too big for me at Century 21 for $13.99 and I limped around in them, constantly losing a shoe wherever I went.

This beige pair have sexy librarian written all over them, while whoever can fit into the good as new baby pink mock croc has a lot to be thankful for.

They can be found for anywhere from 9 to 99 dollars, depending on condition. I think they look pretty fab beat up.

This is one of those bygone luxury labels that seemed to me, as an 11 year old reading Vogue, to represent modern womanhood. They took pride in making women look somehow both aggressively military and astonishingly trashy, like human macarons flashing thong. It’s the kind of chaos that really gets me going.

Often priced to move, check out this surprisingly demure dress, which lives in stark contrast to this going out top, although both would look exceptional with this coat the color of children’s chewable grape Tylenol.

Call me crazy, but I have a special affinity for diffusion lines! The odd choices, the zig-zagging identity, the absolute lunatic who designed this skirt to include leopard, neon AND a drawstring!?

I don’t need to own anything inside this catalogue- even I have my limits- but I like to remember the girl I was when it came in the mail and I flopped down on a blowup chair to examine assorted silver slipdresses with the focus of a comparative literature scholar. Look at the face that model is making! Basically, it was Delia’s for girls who needed to see a counselor twice a week.

The 2025 news cycle was so bleak that even your most self-involved, smug friends started to notice. But if there was any common place to connect, as if around a radio play during wartime, it was J. Law’s street style- and never was that more evident than when she busted this baby out:

It doesn’t even feel like a reference. It feels like Bob Dylan was actually just predicting this moment, as if he had a portal and was singing about a day when J. Law might do a casual errand in a cap meant for meeting a foreign dignitary or being Parker Posey in House of Yes.

Obviously Jennifer Lawrence has something most of us don’t, which is… being Jennifer Lawrence. But I want to believe, I have to believe, that there’s no person who can’t pull a version of this hat off if they want to.

There’s the rain version, the weird hand-painted pleather version (both under 20 bucks), the fancy designer version with a twist and the Goldie Hawn in Aspen version.

I’m going to be honest and admit I went new on this, but Helen Moore is a multi-generational woman-owned business based in Devon, England so I felt like it was a choice I could stand behind (you know, when I’m taken to court for thinking I could wear this hat.)

P.S. Speaking of Parker P, the deal on this Romeo Gigli party girl tulle LBD is nuts. I’m tempted to just buy a giant dolly and dress her in it, but some coquette needs it for a first date. Order a Shirley Temple!

“The peasant princesses!”

“Make his heart dance when you wear the new ballerina length!”

Gunne Sax dresses have a cultish appeal. Cottagecore and pandemic vegetable gardens may have soured you on the prairie dress, but I love how decidedly odd these are, ren-faire meets Hollie Hobbie.

I have a few Gunne Sax I got for under fifteen bucks and have altered, but there’s been a recent uptick in women looking to dress like “he has six wives, but we only have one husband- JESUS” so now we’re being price gouged.

However, there was another Gunne Sax era, less popular but perhaps even more compelling, when forever prom queen Jessica McClintock herself took over and things got… weirder.

What in the name of Danielle Steele!

I am jealous of whoever scores this 16 dollar 90210 dream. Send pics.

You may not know her name, but Wikipedia (which is NEVER wrong, like when it said I was a member of the Tiffany family which- if true- means I wouldn’t be hunting for dislodged silver beans) says that founder Giuiliana di Camerino, a Venetian icon in pearls, “has been credited with the concept of the status bag.”

Her most classic ones are printed velvet in geometric patterns and autumnal shades, but I’m partial to these odd, Memphis-y bucket bags, which I’ve seen on sale everywhere from 14 to 400.

I wanted to gatekeep this denim one, but someone should have it who actually likes going outdoors.

The key here is pre-worn- we’re talking Amy Winehouse’s ballet slippers, beaten to shit, looking like a co-ed just took a solo backpacking trip in them. They look cool this way AND that’s how you pull them for 50-ish dollars. Although there are more and more vegan shoe options, I’d generally rather reuse something elegant and special than have loafers made of coke bottles or whatever.

Laurie also taught me there’s nothing that can’t be fixed at Leather Spa.

If you require regular medication of any kind, it really does make a difference to inject the ritual with a bit of beauty. My purse used to be so full of orange bottles that it rattled when I walked, until I realized I didn’t have to carry my full supply with me everywhere I went. Instead, I could always have 2 days worth hidden inside a pleasing object, like when mommy bloggers puree broccoli into popsicles or whatever.

Generational talent Sophie Buhai makes the incredible deco pillbox above, as well as this nautilus. Both are true works of art, but the price tag… Well, Laurie didn’t raise me to shop like that (another great lesson from my mother: “you don’t need to own everything in a museum to appreciate it, so why should it be any different with fashion?”)

So, using Sophie’s work as inspo, how about this mixed metals mandala under 15, this velvet lined scallop under 20, or this one from the 70s (reminds me of my grandmother, who had an 80s sink shaped like a shell.)

I lost my mind when I learned about this genre - shaped like a wrapped candy in a great aunt’s purse! And speaking of purses…

I’m crazy for cabochon- something about the way it looks both edible and religious. I recently got a friend a fat 70s cabochon cuff in reds and oranges and I’ve never felt like a better gifter because she wore it out of our date and to an event that very night.

I love the muted milky colors on this one. It also led me through the clickhole to this divine faberge egg charm.

When I showed this list to Laurie, she said “are you aware that I used to be crazy for cabachon? I was a cabachon nut!” When she was an art student in Rome in the late 60s, she would scour the street markets for all manner of cabachon, but she was over it by the time I came along.

Someone should really use us as the definitive nature vs. nurture test.

Scientist 1: “You mean to tell me she had absolutely no idea about her mother’s affinity for cabachon when one day it was all she could think about?”

Scientist 2: “Or so she says…”

Pretty self explanatory. Although Laurie Simmons once broke her ankle on a pair of Swedish clogs, and she’d basically prefer I smoked than wear these.

“vintage Lolita Lempicka”

These are nostalgic brands for me- brands I used to read about in Jane and Sassy or see my mother’s cool Gen X art students wearing. Because I have a “cool” mom and got to watch her and all of her friends wear layered black and ironic J. Crew menswear, I was never indoctrinated with an idea about how women are “supposed” to dress (at least not until I started dating- nothing like a straight man with no personal style to lay out the rules of fashion!) Anyway, these were the brands that the women a generation younger than Laurie were wearing- still tough, but with more second-wave high femme silhouettes.

Junior year of high school, I got the very Daryl K minidress you see above at a sample sale and wore it on a “go see” for “real girl models” after my friend and I were “scouted” by a representative from Teen People while loitering by the cube on Astor Place (I was not selected.) Then, on the subway home from Times Square, a very sweet man got up to offer me his seat, saying “please, I’d never let a pregnant woman stand on a crowded train.”

I got an Equipment silk blouse for the first Girls table read, and I literally started walking more confidently. They’re not quite old enough to be vintage, but they also have a sort of mid-2000s sexy professional energy, like a Cameron Diaz character would have worn one with slacks and Louboutins to indicate she could run a business but was also fun. The brand was started by Carine Roitfeld’s husband, so he knew what he was doing.This color story (and price) are both A plus.

Kate Moss did a collab with them years ago, and I found this exact blouse in an XXL for less than twenty bucks ON CHRISTMAS DAY. I plan to wear it with the drapey brown bomber jacket I got purely because this Etsy seller is a subtle merchandising genius.

I bought this for obvious reasons:

Because it’s beautiful and practical, an everyday basic that will work in any context. A “foundational piece” if you will. 🦇🧙‍♀️🔮

And you thought you would only hear about one Jennifer Lawrence hat in this newsletter...

She has her passions- in this case, Twilight- and I have mine:

The best 39 dollars (plus shipping) that I’ve ever spent.

Since this began as a newsletter about books and books are fashion too…

Here are some vintage paperbacks by important women. This is my favorite gift to give. It doesn’t have to be a first edition- it’s all about a slightly off-putting cover.

Short stories by Tama and Mary. Signed by Nikki herself.

Drop your search terms in the comments…

Sure, yeah, basically that! Or something!

Love,

“vintage Lena Dunham lightly worn”