On the same Christina Ricci theme as yesterday her she is in vintage Azzedine Alaia. This is from a few months ago so it also gives you a direct comparison on her new hair do as in the picture below! Which do you like better?I also wanted to take a minute and talk pricing. I had a few clients email to say that they thought some of my pricing was getting a bit high. That though my stuff is some of the best there is on the web (thanks for that compliment by the way!) that they can't buy it! OK, so I want to take a minute to talk pricing. For some vintage pieces; and I am talking the designer pieces here; if you are a girl who has been doing this for a while you get a pretty good idea of the "market price" or what the current value of a piece is. You see other sites, you watch and attend the major auctions, you speak with other dealers.... all that fun stuff. There is a certain set value the market will bear and accept, just like with any other goods out there for sale. I think my designer label pieces are actually priced fairly low for the most part when it comes to this particular niche in vintage selling. Just take a minute to Google and look at some of the overseas sites and start doing some currency conversions in your head. Once you do a conversion or two you can see that while our prices seem the same at first glance - convert the Euro or the Pound and yikes its becomes a big ol' difference! I actually sell a lot of my designer pieces overseas or into the big markets into the US (NYC or LA) and quite frankly I know that they are probably ending up on the racks of the big boys stores in this business. AND at much higher prices cause their market can bear that higher price. And god bless em too. Cause if I ever open a store in a major market, well I will do the same thing probably, being the enterprising girl that I am. Now for the non-designer stuff you have to go on A) the market, B) the rarity and beauty of a piece and C) condition. All of my pieces are cleaned before they leave and I only choose pieces that are wearable and in as near perfect condition as I can find. And I like to think that I have pretty good taste and my site is extremely well-edited with stunning pieces. A lot of sites have so much junk on them it gets discouraging to find that one treasure. I hope you see so much you get frustrated in narrowing it down to one or two pieces!! I also take returns for store credit so you are never stuck with an item and that is a huge risk for me but one I stand by because vintage just fits different and I think it is just not fair for you to buy a piece and hate it and feel stuck. I want you to be my client forever! And I like to think my clients are educated enough to know a little minor tweaking may be required to get the perfect fit but if we are way way off they need to know that they are safe buying from me. And the other thing is that I myself buy expensive clothes on a regular basis. I know what a $400 or $600 dollar dress will buy you in a store today brand new. I am a label addict and even as addicted as I am to new clothes I am more addicted to vintage because it is just better. And no one else has it. So if a dress is priced at $300 in my store you are getting a damn good dress. Its in great condition, it's the only one you will ever see and you can bet it's going to hold up side by side with the $600 brand new dress in your closet. That being said I also do not want my vintage to sit unsold because the fabulous girl who is not rich can't afford a Shrimpton piece. And I have a lot of vintage that needs to get up and on the site on a regular basis. It is still a business and to be successful I have to be able to sell pieces. So I went back to the site and re-priced SOME of the pieces. Not every one by a long shot and you won't see a change in pricing again after today. But I don't want a girl to sit and lust for a piece that she can't have because it is just out of her reach. So I am going to keep stuff as low as I can from here on in, but please realize that some of the pieces are just worth what they are worth. So I hope if you are one of the girls who wrote to me that the piece you lusted for is now attainable. And I will do layaways too if you still need the help. You are dealing with a girl who once bought a vintage coat and ate peanut butter sandwiches for 6 days till her next paycheck cause that coat drained her account. Trust me, I get it. xoxoxocherie
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