A Coat, a Clock, and a City That Knows How to Start Again

There's a coat in my shop that has been waiting for this moment. Cream bouclé wool, mid-1960s, a classic cut that would have been at home under the marionettes in The Crescent's holiday windows. Inside there is a union tag from the years between 1963 and 1974, and on a large satin label, the name of Spokane's beloved department store, The Crescent.

I've been thinking about what that label means, and why this coat feels like it belongs to this moment.

The Crescent was born in the aftermath of fire. Originally called the Spokane Dry Goods Company, it opened on August 5, 1889—one day after the Great Fire gutted downtown Spokane. Founders Robert B. Paterson and James M. Comstock found themselves holding urgently needed goods at a moment of crisis, and they chose not to raise their prices.

That detail moves me. In a city still smoldering, with people who had lost everything, the choice to sell at fair prices wasn't a marketing strategy. It was a decision about who you wanted to be for your community. It set a tone that lasted more than a century.

Reading The Spokesman-Review's 2022 remembrance of The Crescent (“Like an enchanted land: Remembering the Crescent department store, historic Spokane’s Christmas destination”), I was struck by how much of that original spirit survived. The doorman who remembered customers' names and opened car doors as they arrived. A shoe department head who treated every woman like Cinderella receiving a glass slipper. A store that sent buyers to New York and Los Angeles to bring back the same fashions sold at Bloomingdale's, then made sure only one woman in Spokane had the dress for the big event.

And the clock—everyone made plans to meet under the Crescent’s clock.

What I love most about The Crescent story is the way Paterson and Comstock set the tone. The store built its reputation on service expressed in details—purchases wrapped in tissue paper and beautiful boxes, an entire alteration department, and a candy department where children could watch sweets being made. None of that was strictly necessary. All of it was the point.

More than a century later, this cream wool coat with its handsome Crescent label has become part of another Spokane story. I’m offering it through my Vintage for Spokane collection, with 50% of the item price going to Innovia Foundation to support continuing wildfire recovery in our region.

I think about that August day in 1889, and about the people rebuilding now. The question is much the same: What do we do with what we have? How can we help one another?

This is “just” a coat—beautiful wool, a union label and a store name that still makes longtime Spokane residents pause. But it also carries memories of Christmas windows filled with mechanical marionettes, of a clock where friends met, and of a city that dressed to the nines simply to go downtown. A business that opened the day after a fire and chose to be fair.

The Crescent name disappeared in 1988, and the Frederick & Nelson stores that succeeded it closed in 1992. But the building remains, and so does the clock. The spirit that says we take care of one another remains, too.

Half of this coat’s price will go to wildfire recovery through Innovia Foundation. The coat honors something older: the simple idea that a good coat, like a good store, is about more than what it sells. It is also about who it serves.

The Crescent coat in my Etsy shop

More Vintage for Spokane offerings

One of a Kind, That's You: Betty Bone of Spokane

Betty Bone apparently didn't believe in disappearing into the wallpaper.

“Dazzling fashions that make men weak...” promised one of her tiny newspaper advertisements. Another offered “delectable pastel clouds of diaphanous glamour.” Still another invited Spokane women to “wear those designer labels that Movie stars wear — GLAMOUR GALORE.”

After looking through Betty Bone advertisements from the 1960s and 70s, I began to understand the woman whose name is written in bright pink inside this dress.

Betty had started somewhere quite different. She became Washington state's first licensed female dispensing optician, eventually opening her own optical shop in Spokane's Davenport Hotel in 1961. But fashion apparently beckoned. The optical shop grew into Betty Bone Boutique, and Betty built a career around helping women find clothes that made them feel extraordinary.

And she seems to have meant it when she said one of a kind, that's you.

Now one of Betty's wonderfully noticeable dresses gets to do one more thing for Spokane →See Betty Bone’s dress and all current Vintage for Spokane offerings

The Shoes Laura Danced In?

There may be nothing quite as personal as an old pair of shoes.

A dress tells us something about the person who wore it. But shoes carry the evidence of the person herself. They take the shape of her feet. Their soles record the fact that she stood in them, walked in them, went somewhere in them.

These belonged to Laura Martin Hartwell.

I introduced Laura recently through an extraordinary beaded silk chiffon dress that had remained in her family for a century. It has now sold as part of my Vintage for Spokane wildfire fundraiser and is on its way to a new home.

But the dress wasn't all that survived from Laura's 1920s wardrobe.

There were these shoes.

They are tiny—marked 4 1/2 B—and almost impossibly lovely: golden-bronze floral brocade trimmed in silver leather, with slender ankle straps, tiny mother-of-pearl buttons and silver-covered heels.

For shoes approaching a century old, their condition is remarkable. The brocade is beautiful. The silver still gleams. Even the delicate straps have survived.

And then you turn them over.

The soles are worn.

Not ruined, not heavily damaged. Just worn enough to remind us that these weren't beautiful objects sitting untouched in a box.

Laura went somewhere in them.

Where?

I wish I knew.

Laura was born in 1879, so she was already in her forties during the 1920s. She wasn't the young flapper who has come to represent the decade in our imagination. She was a grown woman—a wife and mother—wearing a blush silk dress covered with beads and rhinestones, and slipping her feet into silver heels when she went out.

Did she wear these with the beaded dress? They survived together, but I can't know. Did she dance in them? I can't know that either.

But I do know that she wore them.

And perhaps that's enough.

There is something profoundly moving to me about standing, figuratively, in the footsteps of the women who came before us. Their lives weren't lived in black and white. They weren't merely names in newspapers, dates in genealogies, or—as I discovered while looking for a photograph of Laura—names carved on gravestones.

They chose beautiful things. They got dressed. They went places.

Laura eventually made her home on West 13th Avenue in Spokane. Her shoes remained in her family through the generations, eventually coming to me through my dear friend Linda.

Now, almost a century after Laura wore them, they are going somewhere again.

I'm offering them at auction as part of Vintage for Spokane: From Spokane, For Spokane, with 100% of the proceeds benefiting SpokAnimal's work helping animals and families affected by the wildfires.

→ See the Vintage for Spokane auctions and offerings

I can't tell you where Laura walked in these shoes.

But I know where they're going now: to help the city she called home.

The Foley Dress

A dress with a story to tell

Occasionally a vintage garment tells a story. Between the bold lettering on the fabric and the accompanying photograph, this dress provides many of the pieces to its own mid-century puzzle.

I found this extraordinary red-and-blue corduroy dress at Tossed & Found, my favorite vintage and antique shop in Spokane. FOLEY marches down the front; CONGRESS down the back. It came with a photograph.

The dress was made using a simple shift pattern, in two bright shades of cotton corduroy. At the upper back is a short nylon zipper. Those white felt letters were cut by hand and sewn on with a machine straight stitch which occasionally wanders off the letters slightly. Someone made this, it seems, with some urgency. Was it a campaign volunteer? A local seamstress? A mother of one of the girls? A girl herself?

The photograph is stamped, “Barry Andrews, Spokane, Wash. KE 5-5185.” Andrews had a phone number using the Keystone exchange. Where did he shoot this photo? What was the event?

The start of Tom Foley’s political career

In 1964, Spokane-native Tom Foley challenged the 11-term Republican Walt Horan for Washington’s 5th District. In the photo you also see Washington Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, who was an important Foley mentor and supporter. Foley won the election and began the 30-year congressional career that eventually took him to the Speakership of the House of Representatives.

From the Spokane Chronicle October 28, 1964.

From Spokane. For Spokane.

I have kept the Foley dress for years because it seemed like a little piece of Spokane—and even United States political history—that had somehow survived. Now it feels like the right time to let it go. I'm offering it as part of Vintage for Spokane, with the proceeds helping our community recover from the devastating fires.

And, one last part of the puzzle:

Do you recognize anyone?

Besides Jackson and Foley, do you recognize anyone in this photo? It has been sixty-two years—do any of these girls and young women look familiar to you? Finding out could be the very best part of the puzzle.

I still don't know who made the dress, who wore this particular one, or exactly where Barry Andrews took his photograph. Perhaps someone in Spokane will recognize a face—or remember the dresses. After sixty-two years, I'd very much like to know.

→ See the Foley dress and all current Vintage for Spokane offerings

The Beaded Dress on West 13th

A 1920s dress of the finest silk chiffon, shimmering with glass beads, rhinestones and silver embroidery—and a label reading simply “French Hand Made”?

I never expected to find such a dress in a box of family things in Spokane.

A year ago, when my dear friend Linda was preparing to leave Spokane, she gave me a number of items she had kept from her family’s history.

Among them was a box containing remnants of one woman’s 1920s wardrobe.

I opened the box, and there it was: a beaded silk dress, its blush pink chiffon glittering with embellishments. There was its original silk slip, a pair of silver brocade shoes, a long chiffon scarf, gloves, and a little box from Spokane’s Davenport Hotel.

The woman who wore them was Laura Martin Hartwell.

Laura was born in 1879 and married William G. Hartwell in 1906. Their marriage license appeared in the newspaper under the wonderfully straightforward heading “Six More Weddings,” listing them both as residents of Northport, Washington.

William would go on to serve as mayor of Colville and later represent northeastern Washington in the state legislature.

But what interests me just as much is the life that can still be glimpsed in the things Laura left behind.

A woman in the 1920s

Laura would have been in her forties during most of the decade—not the young “flapper” we’ve come to associate with the 1920s, but a grown woman embracing the extraordinary fashions of her time.

And what a dress she chose.

The palest blush silk chiffon is covered with hand-sewn glass beads and rhinestones in silver, pink, clear and white. Metallic silver embroidery curls among flowers, scrolls, arcs and other Art Deco flourishes. The beading becomes particularly elaborate around the dropped waist, where the chiffon gathers beneath it.

Inside is that tantalizing little label:

The original silk slip survives too. At some point Laura cut vertical slits into either side of its hem. I can’t tell you why. But I can’t help wondering if a little more freedom of movement was called for.

It was, after all, the 1920s.

(And as it happens, Laura’s great-granddaughter Susanne was a serious ballet dancer for a time.)

The house on West 13th

Laura eventually lived in a house on West 13th Avenue in Spokane. The house remained in her family for generations: Laura left it to her daughter Sue, and Sue later left it to her niece, Laura’s great-granddaughter Susanne.

I’ve been inside that house myself.

There is something about that connection that collapses the distance of a century for me. This isn’t simply a beautiful old dress whose history has disappeared. I know who wore it. I know something of her family. And I have stood inside the Spokane house that she called home.

Eventually, some of the things Laura had kept found their way to Linda, and Linda entrusted them to me.

And now Spokane is hurting.

Entire neighborhoods have been devastated by fire. Thousands of people and their animals have been displaced. Organizations throughout our community are doing everything they can to help.

I kept asking myself what I could possibly do.

Vintage clothing is what I know. Its stories are what I have.

And it seems right that one of these beautiful things, preserved here through generations, might now do something for the place that became its home.

From Spokane. For Spokane.

So Laura’s beaded dress is the first major auction in my Vintage for Spokane: From Spokane. For Spokane. fire-relief fundraiser.

100% of the proceeds from Laura’s dress will go to Project Beauty Share, which is distributing essential personal-care supplies to displaced families and first responders, including through local tribes and other emergency-relief partners.

→ See the Vintage for Spokane auctions and offerings

I’m not dispersing everything at once. There are other Hartwell pieces that I’ll share later, including another extraordinary embroidered 1920s ensemble.

For now, I want Laura’s dress to have its moment—and perhaps, after a hundred years, another chapter.

The Day I Met Shirley

Ritzville, Washington

I recently revisited a memory from eighteen years ago, when I drove to a small town to see a collection belonging to a woman named Shirley.

It started with a notice in my local newspaper for a massive family-downsizing sale in Ritzville, sixty miles away. The ad mentioned vintage clothing, so I called to see if I could preview the collection the next day. The woman on the line cheerfully agreed, and on a sweltering summer morning, my husband and I hit the road.

When we arrived, we found a large building with its doors flung wide open. Bright light flooded the room, giving it the feel of a gymnasium.

Tables of housewares filled the center, while racks of clothing lined every wall. My eyes darted from frothy pastel prom dresses to mod, bright prints, from tailored 1940s wools to kitschy square-dance outfits. These were pieces that had spanned generations. I remember thinking that you could open a well-stocked vintage clothing store using only the inventory in that room.

We were greeted by Shirley and her fiancé—a middle-aged couple embarking on their second marriage. Often, the events that bring me to these collections are heavy: a death, a move, an ending. But there is a lightness to people clearing the slate for a new beginning. Shirley and her partner were warm and welcoming, and though our conversation was brief, I felt like I caught a genuine glimpse of who they were.

There were very few things in that collection that didn’t interest me. There were endless well-made, stylish pieces—including wonderful novelty-print rayons by Mode O’Day—a staple of small-town main streets for decades—alongside sturdy cotton daywear and an array of Westernwear. I could trace the lives of the family’s children through the 1960s and ’70s by the cute tees, mini dresses, and bell bottoms. The collection spanned from a late-1940s his-and-hers square dance set to a quintessential disco-era dress, with sizes ranging from extra-small to extra-large.

Before long, the clothes stopped feeling like mere inventory. Instead, they felt like a family that took joy in life—a family that loved bright colors, sturdy fabrics, and clothes for every occasion, from bowling to dancing, school, work, and play.

Some of those pieces found new homes almost immediately. Others waited patiently, sometimes for years, until exactly the right person finally came along to claim them.

Over the last eighteen years, I have measured, photographed, researched, packed, and shipped Shirley’s dresses across the country and far beyond. I hope each one has begun another story. I only recently stopped to count the total: 571 pieces came home with me that day.

Five hundred and seventy-one pieces. What an honor to have been the steward of such a beautiful family archive.

In the Pink

It’s my theme, the words in large type on my homepage—but do I actually go looking for pink vintage fashion?

Perhaps.

Certain things seem to find me because I notice them first, and pink is something I simply can't help noticing.

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it: I don't love pink because it's considered feminine or sweet. I love pink in a visceral way. It makes my heart sing.

From brawling neon rose to the faintest blush, perhaps one of these pieces will make your heart sing as well. I hope so.

All are new in my shop.

denisebrain Glamazon Days

While much of the internet prepares for Prime Day, I find myself thinking about a different kind of shopping.

Fashion as sculpture, fashion as joy, fashion as fun, fashion as dream, fashion as grace, fashion as character—expect a variety.

The items in my shop are not arriving from a warehouse. They have already lived interesting lives. Some have crossed the country or the ocean. Some have survived decades in closets, attics, and cedar chests. A few came from collections I was honored to steward. All have stories.

So, again this year, I'm celebrating denisebrain Glamazon Days.

I've gathered twenty favorite pieces from the shop—pieces that remind me why I love vintage. Throughout the week, I'll be sharing a little about each one: what caught my eye, what story it has to tell, what makes it special. You’ll find these stories on Instagram and Facebook.

As part of the event, these twenty pieces will be offered at 15% off, with free domestic shipping on orders over $100.

If you're looking for something one-of-a-kind, I hope you'll take a look. And even if you're simply here for the stories, I hope you enjoy meeting these garments as much as I have.

After all, vintage isn't just about clothing. It's about preservation, craftsmanship, memory, and the pleasure of finding something that feels as though it was waiting for you all along.

June 23-26:

Here’s my shop, with the items discounted: https://denisebrain.etsy.com

Here’s a coupon code for free domestic shipping on $100+ orders: GLAMAZON

Storm Cloud Dancer Incarnate

After writing about Storm Cloud Dancer, I found myself thinking about a gown that has been with me for more than twenty-five years.

It belonged to the mother of a fellow symphony musician. She wore it when it was new and may have made it herself. The gown has no label, but it bears all the signs of a skilled hand.

It is not perfect. The color has faded unevenly over time. There are marks that cleaning improved but did not erase. Parts have been mended. Parts have simply endured.

And yet, perhaps because of all that, it has become more itself.

The original color has softened into a shifting range of slate blue, silver, pearl, and lavender-gray. Looking at it now, I realize that it embodies the very color I had been trying to describe in my recent blog: Storm Cloud Dancer.

Not a cheerful color exactly. But a breathable one.

There is a temptation to think that beauty belongs only to things that remain untouched. Vintage has taught me otherwise. Sometimes beauty survives because it changes.

This gown reminds me that wear is not always the opposite of grace.

See more photos of the gown in my shop.

Magtone Color of the Moment: Storm Cloud Dancer

To me, there's a just right color now and then.

Eugenie’s shoes c 1854-1870 The Bowes Museum

I recently stumbled upon these mid-19th-century shoes on The Bowes Museum website, and the color hit me just so. It’s the color my nervous system wants at this moment—

The inside of a mussel shell.

A wool coat worn to the train station at dawn.

Rain seen through lace curtains.

19th-century satin.

The color, which I’m calling Storm Cloud Dancer, as a counterpoint to Pantone’s Color of the Year, Cloud Dancer, is not a cheerful color exactly. But it is a breathable one. This is the color that feels most like exhaling.

Here is the feeling, curated from Etsy sellers (many of these can be found in my Etsy collection)

Storm Cloud Dancer is a contemplative color, but not hopeless. There’s light in it, and air, and motion.—it’s a dancer after all.

How does this color look to you right now?

For My Mama on Mother's Day

I wrote this in 2020, and I find it still says what I would want to say—perhaps better than I could now.
So I’m sharing it again, with gratitude.

My mother at 6 in 1926

I miss my mother on Mother’s Day.

I’m sorry to say I lost my mother 38 years ago. She was and is my hero.

I know I could be accused of idolizing a merely good parent who died too soon. You tell me what you think. She was lovely but completely without vanity, highly intelligent (state math and science champion in high school, language study was her college degree), giving without asking anything in return, forgiving when forgiveness would seem impossible, compassionate, tolerant, and more open-minded than anyone I’ve ever known. She fought fearlessly for things she cared about, and never gave up on those she disagreed with. We could use more people like her right now.

It looks like I’m about 1 in this photo, and my brother is rocking a great little Hawaiian suit.

Mama was a natural teacher, always mentoring, always lending a hand. A dear neighbor from my younger days recently told me a story about my mother. Our neighbor’s young son was sick and she wasn’t able to get him to eat. My mother came over with a bag of Goldfish crackers and set him up with a fishing line of some sort for the boy to fish with. She said if he caught a “fish” he had to eat it.

He caught fish and started eating again that day.

Once when I was in elementary school I was very surprised to see my mother tutoring one-on-one in a small room in my school. She was working with kids on their speech problems and didn’t even tell us she was doing this. One of the classrooms that she volunteered to help with (never my brother’s and mine because I’m sure she knew that could be awkward) got the full Marian Wilds treatment: I remember a Seattle newspaper article about the gingerbread village she helped the classroom build. And yes, she baked all the gingerbread walls and roofs.

I still have the angel my mother helped me make in first grade.

When I was sick for an extended period of time in 1st grade, my mother took on a sort of home schooling responsibility, with lessons from the teacher. I remember we had an art project in Papier-mâché, and we went a little overboard, wheeling in a green dinosaur with a long tail, spikes down his back, big pink polka dots and a smile.

My mother was the oldest of three children and had great inner (and outer) strength. She worked harder than anyone I’ve ever known. She kept the house humming along with many skills including house painting and plumbing, but most especially with her exceptional cooking. She baked dozens of loaves of bread a week, giving most of them away. She made so many different kinds of Christmas cookies for so many people that she had to start a month in advance and freeze some in order to get them done in time. When you said you had to have dinner soon because of an evening commitment, she went into what she called her “Wilds short-order house” mode and whipped up something quick—something like Coquilles Saint Jacques. (Mama loved learning from Julia Child.) I made a cookbook of her recipes after she died because I knew this aspect of her was known and loved by so many.

Try this bread recipe of my mother’s—you won’t be disappointed!

Serving dinner to my father and his mother in the 1940s

Serving cake at a friend’s wedding in the 1980s

My father died when I was 13, and my mother had to go back to work at the age of 53—not an easy task now, let alone then. She found work as a legal secretary and was a loyal employee in legal offices until her death. She started off with the skills of a great office worker: a typing speed of 100+ words per minute, wicked shorthand, a fine mind and a natural desire to learn more. She became invaluable, a paralegal in all but title and salary. She took a bus to and from work in downtown Seattle, never driving a car.

She used a cart to go grocery shopping over a mile away, and take the wash to and from the laundromat. My brother and I walked and bused with her for our entire youth. By example, she taught me a lot about being dedicated, strong, self-sufficient and capable.

After my father died, my mother had the responsibility for shepherding my brother and I through college. I wanted to study at the best music school I knew, from the best horn teacher. We didn’t have much money but she wouldn’t allow that to stop me. She was my biggest fan, the cheerleader in the front row of my life.

Since I’m so in to fashion, you probably wonder, did I get that from my mother? Not particularly. My mother was not oriented to appearances, yet her style was what I would call simple and handsome. She sewed many of her own (and my) clothes, knitted, crocheted and tatted.

My mother with her mother. Mama was always knitting in that period of her life.

I love those shoes!

Classic pieces, hand knits, a trench coat, plaids …and the occasional killer heels. I admire my mother’s style.

I have kept some clothing and accessories of my mother’s, including this 1950s Finnish modern necklace by Seppo Tamminen, given to her by some Icelandic friends.

My mother’s father was a banker in Iowa farmland during the Great Depression. He sacrificed his job by refusing to foreclose on farmers when their accounts were in arrears. He worked with inmates of a nearby prison, helping them learn skills for when they were released. Have you heard of the Sheaffer signature pen? My grandfather helped a forger learn to do custom engraving on these pens. One man became a jeweler with my grandfather’s help. He was so grateful that he made a beautiful gold and glass ring, with glass the color of my mother’s blue eyes. When I found a simple 1940s dress, I decided to pose with the ring the way she had done 70 years earlier.

What have I left out? Mama was a cellist through high school, and she could draw beautifully. She was a voracious reader of history books and historical biographies. She read every word of the newspaper before recycling it. Her favorite movie was probably The Third Man, followed by Witness for the Prosecution. Whodunits, legal dramas, dapper gents and brilliant acting were some key elements of a great film for my mother.

Every flower was her favorite. When I ordered flowers for her funeral, I just said “everything.”

Mama did not spoil us children. We had to learn to do things for ourselves. She taught me to knit, sew, garden and cook; and to get credit, balance books, negotiate, and make important decisions. She also taught me to help others, and to knock on doors for causes that mean a lot. She insisted I take responsibility for the world I live in just as she always had. I hope to be informed and to never quit learning, with Mama as my model.

I’m not a whole lot like my mother by nature—I think I’m more like my father—but I learned from my mother. She once said that if I weren’t her daughter she would want to be my friend. And she would have been that friend that counterbalanced all my problems: The smarter one to keep me on my toes, the one with all the adult skills to help my right-brained tendencies have grounding, the loyal one who would defend me against unwarranted attacks, the curious one who would know countless fascinating things, the fearless one who would stand by me at the toughest times. The humble one who put me ahead of herself.

Come to think of it, she was just that to me, and I’ll always be better for having her as my mother.

Happy Mother’s Day Mama! I love you so much—more than ever, and I’m so very grateful to have had you in my life.

Six years later, I see even more clearly how much of my life rests on what she taught me—often without saying a word. I’m still learning from her.

Still Choosing Vintage

On Earth Day, my vintage business turns 27.

1999 → 2026

Loving old things has always felt like a way of loving the future.

I’m grateful to still be here, still choosing.

Thank you for being part of this long conversation with clothing.

Endangered Vintage Items: Dress Clips

Some vintage accessories go extinct because they were impractical. Dress clips are not one of them.

They’re small, portable, and surprisingly clever — little bits of wearable engineering that can turn a plain neckline into something considered, secure a gaping wrap, or add sparkle to a coat or jacket. And yet… they’ve largely vanished from modern wardrobes.

Let’s give them a moment in the spotlight.

1930s enameled clips with rhinestones (denisebrain photo)

What is a dress clip?

A dress clip is a piece of jewelry that fastens with a spring clip rather than a pin stem. The finding usually includes a hinged, toothed paddle or plate designed to grip the edge of a garment — a neckline, strap, lapel, or fold of fabric.

That edge-gripping function is the key difference. Dress clips were made for places a traditional brooch pin can’t easily — or safely — go.

1930s pearlescent bead clips (denisebrain photo)

Although dress clips are often associated with matching pairs, period advertisements show they were sold both singly and in pairs. Some were designed for symmetrical placement, while others were intended as a single focal accent.

When were dress clips used?

Dress clips rose to prominence in the late 1920s and were at their peak of popularity in the first half of the 1930s. At a time when many women were making the most of garments already in their wardrobes, a small jeweled accent could refresh a dress, alter a neckline, or lend evening polish without the expense of a new frock. Period advertising emphasized novelty and Parisian flair, but practicality may have played a role in their popularity as well.

Clips stayed popular into the 1940s, showing up in both fine jewelry and costume jewelry. Then, as mid-century styling shifted and standard brooches returned to dominance, dress clips gradually slipped out of everyday use (many sources place that decline around the 1950s).

How were they worn?

If you’re used to thinking of a brooch as “left shoulder, end of story,” dress clips are more like useful little actors who can take various roles.

Period advertisements sometimes blurred the lines between dress, hat, bag, and shoe clips. The same jeweled ornament might be suggested for a shoulder strap, a handbag flap, or an evening pump. The message was clear: if it clipped, it could be styled.

Fashion writers also praised their practicality — clips were said to secure slip straps, fasten scarves, and even replace buckles on evening shoes, while being “the final syllable in chic.”

Department store advertisement, 1930. The Courier News (Tepper’s, Main Floor).

Period styling — and modern wear — includes:

• Paired at each side of a neckline

• Clipped to dress straps or shoulder seams

• Centered at a V-neck or gathered bodice

• At the back neckline — a little accent that’s especially lovely on gowns and party dresses

• At the top of the shoulder — almost like a modern epaulet flair

• On accessories — clipped to a bag strap or flap for instant personalization

• On turbans and hats — a quick way to make headwear feel composed

• As a pendant — slipped onto a ribbon or chain to become a necklace

• At the center of a deep, low back neckline — a dramatic placement that feels very vintage eveningwear

• On the side or the vamp of a shoe

• They are especially at home on garments and accessories with edge definition or distinct focal points, which helps explain why they shine on everything from bias gowns to tailored coats to wrapped turbans.

In other words: they were made for clothes that had edges, folds, straps, and drape—and vintage fashion has plenty of those.

Materials and design

Dress clips appear in nearly every vintage jewelry language:

• Art Deco rhinestone geometry

• Molded and carved plastics

• Fruit and floral motifs

• Gilded metal and paste stones

• Sculptural mid-century forms

Because they were often worn in pairs, designers frequently worked with mirror-image balance — something less common in standard brooch design.

Why did they fall out of favor?

Dress clips gradually fell out of regular use after the 1940s — not because fashion became simpler, but because garment construction changed. Earlier decades favored necklines, straps, and edges that invited clip-on ornament. By the 1950s, silhouettes became more structured, with finished facings and built-in trim — in other words, fewer “clip invitation zones,” even when the overall look was more elaborate.

But if you wear vintage (or even vintage-ish), dress clips are still wildly practical.

How to wear them now (without harming your clothes)

A few ways to reintroduce dress clips into modern outfits:

• Use them where the fabric is sturdy: wool knits, heavier cottons, brocade, velvet, coating fabrics.

• On delicate fabrics, give them a “buffer”: clip through a small ribbon tab, a facing, a seam allowance area, or a doubled fold rather than a single layer of silk.

• Try them as a closure: a clip can gently persuade a wrap neckline, scarf, or cardigan edge to stay put.

• Think in pairs: if you have matching clips, put them to work framing a neckline or sitting symmetrically on straps (very 1930s, very satisfying).

• Think of them as portable focal points: centering a bow or tie, placed in a chignon, or sparkling on the edge of a cuff.

Dress clips may have slipped quietly out of fashion, but they were never obsolete. They were designed for clothes with edges, folds, and movement — and those clothes are still with us. If anything, they reward attention: to construction, to placement, to detail. Perhaps that is why they feel so satisfying now.

And yes—dress clips are also simply beautiful objects. Art Deco geometry, floral scrolls, rhinestone “constellations,” molded glass, Bakelite, enamel—there’s a whole design universe packed into two inches.

Several of the dress clips from my shop inventory, made of carved Bakelite and enameled wood.

When a 1970s Dress Finds Its Way Back to Its Designer: A Susan Locke Reunion

Dress by Susan Locke. denisebrain photo.

I sell vintage clothing hoping each piece finds a loving home, a new custodian to cherish its past. That's a good day. But sometimes, magic happens. Real, almost unbelievable magic. This is one of those stories.

Recently I sold a 1970s Susan Locke tunic dress — a beautifully made piece in a pink-red-brown check with ornate trim — to a buyer named Rob in the UK. Shortly after purchasing, he sent me a message that stopped me in my tracks:

Looking forward to getting it… it would be great to get it as soon as possible as I will be seeing the very same Susan Locke on Thursday the 21st. She’s my partner’s aunt!

I had assumed the dress was simply heading to a new wardrobe. Instead, it was going to be seen by its original designer.

Sleeve detail of dress by Susan Locke, c. 1970. Photo by denisebrain.

I packed it with extra care, running my hand over the textured wool and the golden braid that had pulled me the moment I saw the dress.

Dress by Susan Locke, c. 1970. Photo by denisebrain.

Susan Locke London label, c. 1970 dress. denisebrain photo.

I found it in a small shop 4,700 miles away from London. Who made this lovely dress? I said to myself, and, why is it here?

A little while later, another message arrived — along with photos. Susan Locke had been reunited with her dress. Rob wrote that she was delighted and amazed that it was still in such good condition after all these years.

Designer Susan Locke with her great niece Bea Freyer, reunited with the dress. Used by permission.

Moments like this are very rare, and they move me.

Vintage clothing is often discussed in terms of era, style, fabric, and construction — all things I care about greatly — but at heart, these garments were made by people and worn by people. They lived real lives before they reached our racks and closets. Occasionally, those lives and stories reconnect in the present.

To see a designer encounter her own work decades later — preserved, wearable, appreciated — feels like witnessing a circle close.

It also says something important about craftsmanship. Well-made garments endure. They travel through time not just physically, but emotionally as well.

I’m very grateful to Rob for sharing the photographs and allowing me to tell this story. It was, in his words, “a lovely moment all round.”

And it really was. A moment that reaffirmed why I love what I do – connecting the past to the present, one stitch at a time. To witness such a joyful reunion is a privilege.

Bea Freyer looking like she was born to wear her great-aunt’s dress. Used by permission

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I doubt I will ever know how the dress surfaced in Spokane, Washington, but I now know much more about the designer, Susan Locke.

Susan Locke: King’s Road Designer

Susan Locke was a London fashion designer and boutique owner active from the mid-1960s through the early 1970s, during the years when King’s Road in Chelsea became one of the most closely watched fashion streets of the period. Contemporary newspaper coverage from the period describes her as a young designer who opened a boutique at 414 King’s Road (World’s End), SW10, where she designed and sold her own garments.

Press features from the time show that her shop quickly drew attention. She produced and retailed her own designs, including dresses, trouser suits, and tailored separates, and was mentioned repeatedly in London newspaper fashion reporting. Articles name customers such as Susannah York, Pattie Boyd and Jean Shrimpton, and note that she worked with textiles associated with Miki Sekers, with some designs reaching wider retail through Selfridges.

One particularly interesting period report notes that her boutique was an early stockist of shoes by a then-emerging designer, Terry de Havilland — a detail that places her shop within the active King’s Road fashion network at the time. Later coverage in the early 1970s describes the boutique continuing in business and undergoing updates. A 1973 newspaper advertisement announced a closing-down sale at the King’s Road address under her name.

Taken together, the surviving press coverage shows Susan Locke as part of the independent boutique movement of 1960s London — a designer-retailer creating her own work, running her own shop, and contributing to the distinctive character of King’s Road style.

Sources: Contemporary newspaper coverage 1965–1973 via Newspapers.com archive.

Back in Style: My Best of 2025

This year I kept the rhythm of selling and creating, but also looked to the deeper purpose behind what I do. Vintage is never just fabric and design. It’s care, it’s memory, it’s hope stitched into style. It is the history of having hope, even in the most difficult times. And in 2025, I saw again how much that still matters. More than anything, this year reminded me that the most meaningful moments don’t come from numbers — but from where things land.

About 2025…

I don’t always know how to express what I, and many of you, are feeling. I’ve always tried to lift others during other rough times — 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, Sandy Hook, Covid 19. Now I am having a harder time, along with so many, dealing with where our country seems to be headed. I find myself choosing my words carefully. In real life, I’m showing up and working to change the harm I see done in our United States. In my business, I try to gently remind others of the things that I believe matter.

Against all of that, I kept doing what I know how to do: noticing beauty, sharing it, and sending it out into the world — sometimes very quickly.

One-Day Wonders: Items That Flew From My Shop

Comfy cotton in a leopard print from the 1960s, sherbet polka dots from the 1950s, late-1930s flowered cotton, late-1940s rayon with pink flashes — is it any wonder these didn’t stick around?

She Wears the Pants

Let’s face it, there just aren’t enough vintage trousers to go around! This year, I offered ’60s capris, ’50s clam diggers, ’70s wide-legs and ’80s tapered tweed. They walked out of my shop briskly.

Best in Show

I let the dogs out. I admit it.

Due to popular demand (from the voices in my head), I'm making videos now

As so many of us who jumped online to offer vintage in the early 2000s know, the job has never been simple, but it didn’t involve social media, which is now important for engaging our community.

Besides posting on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest, I now occasionally make videos to introduce items and collections. It turns out that making videos of clothes—their movement, their mood, their details — brought me closer to why I started doing this in the first place.

Gray Matters

Brown may have had a moment this year, but gray is a perennially favorite neutral. 1950s silk tweed suit by Betty Rose, 1970s feather jacket, late-1940s wool suit with wonderful details — neutral color, but not neutral style.

The Golden Hour

I finally let go of a jacquard dress with blue velvet trim and a satin bias-cut dress with back bands beaded with stars. These were worn by the same woman in the 1930s, and there is more where these came from. Don’t touch that dial.

Any Color, So Long as It’s Pink

Pink, for me, wasn’t sweetness this year. It was resolve.

The Cream of the Crop

These are the pieces that asked me to slow down. From an Art Deco hair comb to a 1930s cotton suit and ’40s tilt hat, to Gunne Sax and a Mexican wedding dress from the 1970s, cream rises to the top as always.

Geometry Lessons

Whether you favor squares or circles, I’m here for you. Even trapezoid lovers are welcome.

Flower Girls

Bouffant flower hats and roses galore. Who doesn’t want to be a walking garden party?

Very Happy Endings

This 1950s hand-painted satin dress came to me from a very generous donor, whose items I offer with 100% of the profit going to Dress for Success.

I replaced the original very worn buttons with some vintage rhinestone buttons that I had been saving for just such a special purpose.

The dress landed in just the right place — this review absolutely made my day.

And this buyer even took the time to show the packaging. Care doesn’t stop when something sells and it means the world to me when this is noticed.

This 1960s alaskine beauty found its way to a woman who would wear it for her daughter’s green and pink wedding in Southern California. She said,

“I don’t typically buy vintage online...but this dress was like it was made for my daughter’s wedding. The beadwork! The color! It’s beyond amazing.”

Still in Print, Still Loved: Wear Vintage Now!

Wear Vintage Now! continued to make its way into new hands in 2025, thanks to wonderful readers and shop owners like Kaylan of The Getup Vintage in Ann Arbor, who wrote:

“As a vintage brick and mortar store owner, I wish I had written this book! It’s the perfect addition to my employee manual and I’ve now purchased multiple copies to give to new hires. LOVE IT!”

Every new reader reminds me why I wrote this in the first place — to share what vintage means beyond trends: beauty, sustainability, joy, individuality.

Words Worn Well: Blogs That Meant the Most

I write fewer, but longer, blogs than I once did. In terms of sheer acreage, the blog of the year was about the history of brown in 20th-century fashion (Wearing Brown Then and Now).

I finally committed to organizing my thoughts about fast fashion becoming vintage — a tricky and timely subject. The blog is Fast Fashion: The New Vintage? A Question for Our Closets (and the Planet).

One blog, How Can We Find Joy and Purpose in Tough Times?, ended up being a bit of a manifesto for myself and, I’m happy to say, meant a lot to others.

Closing Thoughts

This year reminded me that beauty can last. That connection endures, even when the world feels fractured. That meaning is in the details — a well-sewn seam, a handwritten note, a perfectly timed dress for a September wedding in Southern California. That what we keep, what we pass along, and what we choose to protect — trees, manatees, and each other — matters.

Thank you to everyone who walked with me, bought from me, read my words, wore vintage with pride. Here’s to more style, memory, and joy in 2026.

With love,
Maggie | denisebrain

May you find Wonder in the year ahead

With my warmest wishes,

Maggie of denisebrain

What I Still Choose

I still choose to know where something came from.

Perfectly aligned plaids. Hand-sewn buttonholes. A 1950s wool suit that speaks quietly—but clearly—about craftsmanship.

Not just the country, or the decade—but who made it and why and how.

I choose clothes made with thought: a carefully finished seam, perhaps stitched by hand, or fabric selected for how it will look and wear over time — not how it would sell. These qualities rarely announce themselves loudly, but they quietly last.

I still choose to let beauty take time.

Time to be made.
Time to be worn.
Time to settle in and become personal.

This is one reason vintage survives when trends don’t. Trends are designed for speed. Vintage was designed for living.

Keeping something — repairing it, understanding it, passing it along — can feel out of step with the world we live in now. But I’ve come to believe that keeping can be radical and hopeful all at once: a challenge to disposable culture, a form of care for the object and its history, a belief in longevity and enduring value. It says: this mattered enough to stay.

A small business is a relationship that endures.

It’s conversation and trust. It’s the often unseen work: sourcing, mending, cleaning, measuring, researching, photographing, writing. It’s knowing that what we send out into the world will land in someone else’s life, not just their cart. Relationship-based commerce feels different because it is different. It asks for attention instead of urgency, care instead of volume — and that difference matters to me.

Here’s the truth I keep returning to: I’m not trying to compete with everything. I’m trying to be faithful to something.

And if you’re here—reading, choosing thoughtfully, valuing what lasts—then we’re already in conversation. What we keep, what we mend, what we choose to value… that feels like enough to build on.

Be Kind to Manatees

Each November, I dedicate my work to the gentle giants who need our help most — manatees.

I donate 10% of my earnings year-round to Save the Manatee Club, and during Manatee Awareness Month I make a special contribution and invite others to join me. This year, I’m hosting the Manatee Match Challenge, a celebration of kindness that will culminate on Giving Tuesday (December 3) — a global day of generosity.

Your gift, in any amount, helps protect manatees and the habitats that sustain them. Whether you donate on my JustGiving page, shop my Manatee Collection on Zazzle (with all proceeds going to Save the Manatee Club), or write your own Love Letter to a Manatee (a note, poem, or drawing shared on Instagram with #LoveLettersToAManatee, added as a comment below, or sent to my email, margaret@denisebrain.com), you’re part of the circle of compassion for these awesome creatures.

Thank you for helping me turn love into action for the manatees.

The Day Annie Hall Found Me

Diane Keaton (1946-2025)

Wearing my father’s pink-and-green tie and holding a photograph of him

It was the disco era. A fan of jazz, classical music and The Beatles, I hadn’t embraced the sound and style of this new phenomenon. I deeply missed my father, who had died several years before. He left two closets filled with his unique sense of style—suits tailored on Savile Row, a deep navy velvet tuxedo, tennis whites, Sea Island cotton shirts, tweeds, hand knits, fine wools. nothing was taken for granted in his sartorially splendid wardrobe. He was a genuine dandy. 

I began to wear some of my father’s clothes when I was a teenager. I was old-fashioned: odd, quirky, baggy…quietly rebellious. Papa’s clothes were a comfort and a sort of armor. He was there with me.

Then, in 1977, Annie Hall came out. I can still feel the moment I saw Keaton’s Annie. In that dark theater, I felt a shock of recognition. Seeing her reflected something real and personal in me. There she was, someone who dressed like I did, for reasons that were deeper than fashion. Even walking out of the theater, people noticed my style. Annie didn’t invent my style—she simply kept me company in it.

I made my father’s clothing my own—sometimes putting darts in pants to make the waist measure fit a bit closer to mine, or cuffing a hem—but I mostly left them as they were. The taupe cotton pants he wore for working on his car were worn to perfection, soft, loose and cool. His button downs were long enough for me to wear as a dress, sometimes belted with a neck tie. I wore a gray and white seersucker cotton blazer until the fabric was worn through. 

In 1978 wearing white trousers tailored from my father’s pair

I still wear ties from Papa’s closet, including a pink and green one I gave him. He wore it with a pink shirt and said it always reminded him of how much he loved me. 

This early form of my personal style never really left me. After my father’s death we had to make do with less as my mother went back to work after many years away from the workforce. I often made weeknight dinners and had less time and money than the average teenager. My fashion was make-do and creative. I sewed my own clothes by that time and sometimes used a sheet for fabric, without the money for new fabric (got myself in trouble for that!). With the pocket change I made shining shoes, fixing jewelry and doing dog grooming for friends and family, I began shopping at thrift stores. 

And now? Honestly, not much has changed. I still love wearing well-tailored men’s clothes, finding secondhand fashion and being creative in how I combine pieces. Clothing is still how I make sense of the world. For the last quarter century, vintage has not just been my way of life but my profession. What began as a way to hold on has become a way of keeping the conversation going—between the past and present, between my father and me.

Wearing my father’s green shirt, standing with my brother in the late 1970s

The Dress I Played My Heart Out In

I’ve had three Gunne Sax dresses in my life, each purchased new. But the first— a confection in pink voile and lace—left an impression that never faded.

I was 14 when I joined the Seattle Junior Symphony, one of the training orchestras for the Seattle Youth Symphony. We were required to wear long dresses for concerts. My mother, newly widowed and returning to work, was too overwhelmed to sew one for me as she might have in earlier days.

Instead, she took me to Bronka, a magical little boutique in University Village. There, I saw it: an unapologetically romantic dress in pale pink. It cost a small fortune—$45. My mother grimaced and said, “At that price, you’ll wear it for concerts, dances, get married in it and be buried in it!”

My dress, shown in an ad from the Long Beach Press Telegram, 1975.

Gunne Sax was wildly popular then—girls and young women loved its nostalgic femininity, worn without irony. Yet there was enough variety that few showed up wearing the same dress.

I hadn’t been playing horn for long when I wore that dress to my first Junior Symphony concert. But I can still recall the feeling: I loved what I was wearing, and that made me feel like I belonged onstage.

I also played in a horn quartet with three other girls at Eckstein Middle School. For competitions and recitals, we each wore long dresses. After one church performance, an older woman took my hand and told me I looked like a classic beauty. I said, “It’s the dress.”

The next year, when I joined the Seattle Youth Symphony, we wore a uniform blouse and skirt. Still, I wore that pink dress at every opportunity—dances, recitals, and anywhere it was allowed.

SYSO 1976

That dress lives on in memory, tied as it is to my mother’s love, my growing musicianship, my city—and my favorite color. She was right: I didn’t get married or buried in it, but I wore it into my future.