Here I am in another box. Seems the last couple of years I've been moved from box to box. I've been up and down the east coast several times already. I remember when I was new as if it was yesterday.

Once upon a time I was the well loved prize from a Manhattan shopping trip my original owner took with her daughter. My soon to be owner was hesitant to take the Greyhound all the way from Baltimore but her daughter didn't have time to make the trip back so off she went after cooking and freezing a weeks worth of meals for her husband and son. Looking at the world with excitement and a bit of trepedition my soon to be owner climbed aboard the bus in Baltimore. She rode for a couple hours to Philadelphia, home of the Liberty Bell and then on to New York City. Of course there wasn't enough time to see the sites in Philly and my soon to be owner would not have ventured off on her own as she had never traveled this far from home.

She really had not traveled. She was the daughter of truck farmers in Frederick, Maryland. She married the love of her life who first taught school at Middletown High School back in Frederick and then they moved to Baltimore for more opportunities. They had a nice brick row house in a nice neighborhood. The only thing missing was a big garden but she made due with a smaller version and grew for the most part tomatoes. It was a simple life and she knew where she belonged. She was the ultimate homemaker and a bit of a political hack. Her husband went to the Greyhound station in Frederick when they lived there and picked up the Daily News from New York so she could follow the news of the day and keep up with the politics of the world.

Her daughter graduated from Middletown High School and joined the army for a chance to see the world. After the service her daughter decided to go to New York City to try her hand at acting. For the most part her daughter had bit parts far far off Broadway and waited more tables than she ever thought she would. It became harder to come home for a visit each passing year as the parts became fewer and fewer and coming home meant admitting defeat.

Thinking her mother would never venture to New York my soon to be owner's daughter suggested a visit to the big city where she would take her mother to just off Broadway plays and shopping in Macy's bargain basement. Imagine her surprise when her mother, encouraged by her father, said yes. I imagine there was a flurry of cleaning and I'm sure when her mother arrived she gave up her own bed for her mother and used her sparse spare linens to sleep on the davenport.

Throwing caution to the wind the daughter called in sick to work and took her mother to the Empire State building and the Statue of Liberty. They ate lunch at the automat and then went to the Village to stroll through the boutiques. Her mother swore the saleswoman at Elaine Starkman's Boutique looked just like that folk singer, Mary Travers, but of course the daughter told her of course it's not her. What would she be doing selling suits in a boutique in the village!

While wandering their way through the bargain basement of Macy's her mother came upon me. Sleek in gray marble patent leather I glistened and flashed in the fluorescent lighting. I was a little rumpled looking from too many weeks on display but her mother had to have me. She glanced quickly at my price and winced a bit. However, she decided just this once she would splurge as gray went with everything and she bought me. Once we made our way back to her daughter's apartment my owner's items were transferred from her old worn black purse to me. We looked right together and in the next 2 days of her visit we saw the sites of the city together.

We left on the early morning Greyhound bound for Baltimore. I watched in silence as mother and daughter said goodbye, the litany the same as it was each time they parted. "You know you can come home to live anytime you want." "I know Mom but I just need a little more time to make sure. "Okay honey but you know we'd love to have you." Silently they turned from each other and we made our way onto the bus.

Of course as soon as we got home to Baltimore I was emptied out, stuffed with tissue paper and a sachet and put in a box and up in the hall closet. For years in the early fall she would take me out and sit on her bed stroking me and thinking about that trip to New York. Then she'd put me away again for another year.

One fall led to another and another and several years went by without me being taken out. Then one day I was pulled from my shelf along with a lot of other long forgotten pieces of clothing. "We really need to clear the clutter and now is as good a time as any", said her son's wife. "Oh my gosh just look at this purse! It's like brand new. I wonder where your mother got it? Of course it's not my style at all. Best to donate it to the Salvation Army."

So I was boxed up with a couple pairs of shoes and a moth eaten cardigan and we were dropped at the local Salvation Army. I was cleaned and set out for sale. Another lady checked me out and grabbed me rather roughly checking out my frame to make sure I was in good working condition. From her conversation with her friend I deduced that she was an Ebay seller and I was going to go to a new home. Hope sprung eternal and I could not wait to see what was going on out in the world.

So off I went listed during a VBO sale (that's Ebay talk for Vintage Blow Out). I went to a buyer in Georgia. It turns out she was an Ebay seller too and bought me to re-sell. So off I went into a rubbermaid container with a bunch of other purses she was some day going to list. Another year went by and I was pulled from my rubbermaid tomb to be photographed and sold again in the VBO sale. So off I went to a new home in Pennsylvania. This seller was a little different. She liked to move her stores around. First l was listed on Ebay, then another auction site and finally I came to rest at Specialist Auctions. Before I knew it I had been sold to a wardrobe person for the musical "Jersey Boys." The seller was excited and so was I. Finally just like my original owner's daughter I'm finally going on stage right in New York, back to my roots!

Today I'm writing about how memories play into the collecting and selling of vintage items. I'm the oldest of 11 grandchildren born to my Nonna and Nonno.


Here I am at age 4 in my cream brocade and squirrel collar dress that my grandmother bought for me. Even then I was dressed in what is now vintage and boy do I wish I still had this dress!



My Nonna and Nonno lived in Garrison, New York but once a month went into the city to collect the rent on the apartment building they owned in the Village. We'd go to the apartment building and my Nonna and I would go floor by floor collecting the rents and the tenants always had a toy or orange, lime and lemon slice candies for "the little princess." My Nonno would talk to the super finding out what was going on in the building while we were doing this. Once the rents were collected and the visiting was finished off we would go.

The routine was to go to John's Pizzeria on Bleecker Street in the village for lunch. My Nonno would give me quarters to put in the juke box and I always played "Peppino the Italian Mouse" by Lou Monte. My Nonno would blacken the top of the pizza with black pepper and to this day I still blacken mine the same way. There's nothing in the world like brick oven pizza. After lunch we would head home to Garrison and I always fell asleep in the car tuckered out from too many orange candy slices and blackened pizza.

Fast forward 33 years to present day Dingmans Ferry, Pennsylvania where I run my vintage clothing store "Born Too Late Vintage." I'm out and about in my usual fashion and I stumble across this new without tags wool suit from the Elaine Starkman boutique in Greenwich Village.



Memories bombard my mind so I buy the suit and take it home to start my researching. However, I find there is very little on the internet about Elaine Starkman other than Mary Travers from the group Peter, Paul & Mary worked for Elaine Starkman at her boutique in the village. Over the next year or two I search the internet on and off for more information holding the suit until I know more about Elaine. Over time I find auctions of leather sandals that Elaine Starkman made and jewelry that she made as well. Elaine Starkman also had one of the first art galleries in Soho.

A friend named Scott was able to provide me this information, "Elaine Starkman had a boutique in the Village (149 Bleecker) in the early sixties, and she moved up to Lexington (between 64th and 65th Streets) in 1966 or so because most of her client base lived in that vicinity.

Leather goods were a Starkman specialty; the shop made leather pants to order in several styles (the most popular being the diagonally-zipped "peon" pants, which took about two weeks for delivery); they ran around $65 in the early sixties. Other Starkman offerings included such chic sportswear as velour separates in purple, ruby red, deep blue and black and pull-overs with drawstring hems. Prices were all over the board: from about $7 for simple tops to $35 for summer dresses and going all the way up to $200 or so for suede and leather sportswear ensembles."

Once I had this information I was able to list the suit I found almost 2 years prior, satisfied that I knew enough about Elaine Starkman. To my surprise the granddaughter of a friend of Ms. Starkman's contacted me in the last several months to ask me what I knew about Elaine. So I corresponded with her a few times to tell her what I had found over the last two years. She was able to tell me that Elaine Starkman is still living and doing just fine. So my adventure into the world and fashions of Elaine Starkman have come full circle.

My next foray into Greenwich Village boutique fashion will be about Fred Leighton's shop and my fashion connection with him. Until then think green and buy vintage. Save the environment one vintage outfit at a time!

Born Too Late Vintage