Saving the best for last…it was a nice surprise to see at the end of the LACMA exhibit these very rare and wonderful pieces of clothing. Over 100 year old fetish boots, lingerie and corsets. The workmanship is unbelievable. I’ve been collecting vintage lingerie and fetish shoes and clothing for 20  years. So these boots are impossible to find unless you’re a very wealthy & connected collector.

I was lucky enough to acquire a few fetish stiletto heels & boots from the 40′s and 50′s when I modeled for a few fetish wear catalogs when I was 20. One being the famous Pleasure Chest in Hollywood Cal. I got to rummage around a very old storage room that had some really old boxes of clothing. I was given some shoes, boots and a few corsets to take home. They just thought they were junk but I knew better! I’ll post some photographs of a few pieces from my collection here in the upcoming days or weeks. So check back.

There wasn’t allot of 20′s vintage clothing at this LACMA exhibit, which is my favorite decade, but this harem outfit was one of the very few. There were only one or two examples of Edwardian clothing as well.

More from the LACMA exhibit:

The empire waist is one of my favorite styles. It was also very popular during the 60′s, when the modern version of the Grecian neoclassical look had a big come back. These photos don’t do this dress justice (none do really). The fabric was so delicate & the details on the bodice don’t show up enough in the photos but they’re stunning.

I’d love to see or know more about when & where the women would wear these fine white dresses. They must have gotten so dirty with that train on the ground. If I come across any more info I will add it here or if anyone knows more I’d love to post your comment.

Antique dress, bag and shawl

For my birthday this past Sept 30th, a good friend took me to see the History Of Fashion exhibit here in Los Angeles at LACMA, my favorite local museum. I recommend at least an entire day. It’s huge, at least 3 stories & numerous buildings holding 100,000 objects dating from ancient times to the present. It’s the largest art museum in the western United States.  But before we got started on the museum we had lunch at their restaurant located in the central courtyard, Pentimento. It’s one of my favorite places to eat in all of Los Angeles. I’m a  bit of a food snob too so my standards are pretty high. We sat outside on a beautiful relaxing sunny day. Their salads are amazing, but I’ve never had anything there that wasn’t great. I had their warm pear salad with caramelized walnuts and goat cheese and a decafe iced mocha, Donnel had a bowl of their homemade chilli. Both were great!

On to the clothing…I shot these photos with my trusty iPhone. I also had my 1952 Rolleiflex with me but that’s black and white and too slow of a process to post on a blog.  Some of the photos are a bit grainy and blurry, no flash was allowed. They don’t compare, of course, to the beauty in person of the fine fabrics and quality workmanship. Truly an art form. If you can make it to LACMA you should see the clothing in person.

Another reason this show should be seen in person is the scale. They’re all so tiny. It’s a step back in time. You can almost feel as if you’re standing next to the people who wore them so long ago. I’m used to the vintage clothing I sell at Posh Girl being small, because all humans were smaller back then due to our diets that are heavy in protein and fat that has increased over the years, but people were even smaller all those many years ago. Short and thin. The average mannequin was about aprox 4’10″or so. Even the men’s clothing were not much taller or bigger than the women’s. Allot of the items were French, who tend to be shorter anyway, even now. I went to Paris for my 29 th birthday and at 5’3″ I actually felt average to a bit tall. It was really nice!

I’ll add more photos over a few days or weeks. The collection was pretty large.

This was the very last modeling gig I ever did. I came across these the other day cleaning out some old stuff. David Perry is very talented. These went in his book Hot Rod Pinups & in a Speed vision calender.

Brigitte on the car & Gina on the ground

Shot in El Mirage dry lake bed race track