Hipster's Paradise?
The word 'Hipster' has always baffled me to no end. The US/UK differing definitions. The bad connontations the word comes with which has made it derrogatory. The dress styles the word is associated with. It's a big black hole of a word right up there with the likes of 'Indie'. So an eBay shop named Hipster's Playground Vintage seems somewhat dubious to me.
I'll just have to ignore the name and look at the clothes and their attractive $14.99 starting price. Though I'm not really an eBay snob who ignores poorly presented eBay auctions with shoddy photos and scant description, it is a bonus when you get very pro-looking images with the right number of close-ups and that are well-styled. This is precisely what you get at this hipster eBay haven. There' a select number of items of listed and it's clear that they're all chosen for various trend-nudging merits. A purple satin dress that's very Lanvin AW07-8. A tuxedo dress that mirrors the 3.1 Phillip Lim one that Irina Lazareanu wore to the Costume Institute Gala last year. Oh, and of course, dabs of that azure blue. The trick is that they make their vintage pieces 'look' absolutely pristine and without any traces of age. Whether that is the case or not, I shall see as I'm watching a number of the listings at the moment.
80s' purple puff sleeve mini dress // 70s' blue-green tiered lace mini dress
70s' layered kimono ruffled party dress // 70s' lace tiered babydoll dress // 80s' black satin trimmed tuxedo dress
80s' blue sequin dress with black velvet fox tail fur jacket // 80s' black and blue military style dress
60s' striped wool funnel coat // 60s' red-orange mod sheath dress
My final words though are of confusion. Does any of this say 'Hipster' to you? I can't really see it myself so I'm calling for an eBay store name change but in the meantime I'll continue the eBay watch.
You always find amazing shops on e-bay.
Posted by: Allure | 12 January 2008 at 11:01
i don't really know what "hipster" means in this case but i surely love all the clothes.
Posted by: cate | 12 January 2008 at 11:23
This shop has been on my ebay favourites for a while now and I swithered over that purple dress when I first saw it. I'm really surprised no-one snapped it up.
Posted by: DJM | 12 January 2008 at 11:48
Thanks for the post. Great clothes, but you're right..hipster???
I'm not really sure what exactly hipster means either but I'm sure this isn't it!
The photos and presentation of these listings are great, but I reckon the best eBay fashion gems are to be found hidden away in the realms of terrible blurry photos and three word descriptions where nobody else will find them....
Skinnywolf x
Posted by: SkinnyWolf | 12 January 2008 at 11:54
Thanks for the post. Great clothes, but you're right..hipster???
I'm not really sure what exactly hipster means either but I'm sure this isn't it!
The photos and presentation of these listings are great, but I reckon the best eBay fashion gems are to be found hidden away in the realms of terrible blurry photos and three word descriptions where nobody else will find them....
Skinnywolf x
Posted by: SkinnyWolf | 12 January 2008 at 11:58
the details on that purple dress are gorgeous. but when i think hipster i think neon, across forehead bands,scraggly hair, and cory kennedy.
Posted by: ana | 12 January 2008 at 12:11
oh i was just looking through your links and saw that i was under the french blogs. i was fooling around with language settings on blogger and changed my blog into french. im not really french, im from The Netherlands but I live on the east coast of the US.
Posted by: ana | 12 January 2008 at 12:22
Just great! I have known about this seller for a long time, now you have just invited new buyers to make vintage EVEN more expensive than its worth.
Posted by: J | 12 January 2008 at 12:35
I love the lace babydoll dress
Posted by: Lyndsay | 12 January 2008 at 12:39
That purple dress with the puffy sleeves is killing me - i passed on that dress in white this summer for $4 at the Salvation Army -geesh.
Posted by: Meghann | 12 January 2008 at 12:44
HOw cute ! If I just could I would shop eBay and those right now. But it's just too exiting for little girl like me.
juliet xxx
Posted by: juliet | 12 January 2008 at 13:08
oo nooo i love this seller! i'll bet the bidding goes up a storm now! haha well it's ok really, i do love this seller (though prefered the black hair) and like you said, the pieces seem carefully selected, rather than any old tat that might sell, but I never end up buying anything because I always assumes it looks too good to be true on her! It's not shown in the auctions this week but alot of the time she sells 80's ski jackets and neon catsuits! also she sometimes teams it all with pvc or fluro AA leggings. I guess that's where the hipster comes from!
Posted by: selina | 12 January 2008 at 13:22
The tier lace dress is divine. And I never get why people use the term "hipster" almost as an insult, I mean, aren't you just really calling someone hip and fashionable?
Posted by: miss woo | 12 January 2008 at 13:43
Nope, more elegant than hipster.
Posted by: WendyB | 12 January 2008 at 15:24
The items look miles better because of the well lit photos- I do like the blue-green tiered minidress, though...
Posted by: laurakitty | 12 January 2008 at 16:07
interesting... love it !!
Posted by: Sage | 12 January 2008 at 16:18
I love both the lace tiered mini dresses, and the black and blue military style dress is great. It really doesn't seem hipster to me either.
Posted by: Jill | 12 January 2008 at 17:17
J: I'm sorry... I don't really think my posting this is going to get people going bidding mad though.... I'm not really into keeping style secrets to myself either.... so I apologise if I ruined the secret for a lot of Hipster's Playground Vintage fans....
Posted by: susie_bubble | 12 January 2008 at 17:25
Haha, people are so snappy these days!
Such a lovely find, Susie. I'm loving the lace tiered dress and the red-orange sheath.
Posted by: buttonsandstars | 12 January 2008 at 18:25
The purple dress is extremely lovely, as is that crazy funnel-necked coat. And agree, definitely don't see hipster in these.
Posted by: fashiontoast | 12 January 2008 at 18:49
I too have had them on my favorite sellers list for a while. Though sometimes I end up not bidding because there's a lot of poly.
Posted by: bigglassesgirl | 12 January 2008 at 18:50
Ah, I remember bidding [and losing] some amazing over-the-knee emerald green Zodiac boots from that seller ages ago! I still mourn them.
Posted by: valuska | 12 January 2008 at 21:00
this used to be one of my favorite shops, but i stopped checking over the last year as it faltered for awhile. looks like it's picking speed again!
on the topic of the purple dress, i suspect it's the same dress that was originally sold on the olive shoppe. at that time, it went for $264!! i wonder if the seller of hipster's playground was the winner...and then she didn't like it or something so now she's reselling it. ah...i'm just making up stories in my head...it could just be that there's more than one copy of that dress floating around. :) i did a post on how i missed out on various ebay pieces, and i included that purple dress in it! here's a pic that i saved from the original auction at the olive shoppe:
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q191/thunderscall/blog/ebayloveslost3.jpg
seriously...that has to be the same dress!
Posted by: dreamecho | 12 January 2008 at 22:52
dreamecho I remember that dress too!!! It looked super familiar but I didn't remember the bow having a gold center. With the image you saved, looks like that's the only difference
Posted by: bigglassesgirl | 13 January 2008 at 00:52
Definitely not hipster. But can someone please fill me in on why people have disdain for hipsters?
Posted by: Kat | 13 January 2008 at 01:52
Oh my gosh!
I had to blink a bit; are my eyes were deceiving me, or does that 3rd pic ("70s layered kimono ruffled party dress") totally remind you of this Helena Horstedt dress!? It was the model's pose that gave it away...!
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h193/fizzymartini/HelenaHorstedtNo3.jpg
Posted by: Tiddywinks | 13 January 2008 at 01:58
That white dress is styled so fabulously! I love finding great little eBay shops like these, unfortunately the prices always go up much more than I'm willing to pay so I'm stuck with the stores with the merely okay packaging... but no bidders in my way!
Speaking of which, I recently bought a set of vintage belts (pre-Not-Buying) for $5 USD from a pretty innocuous store that mostly sold little kid's clothing...
Posted by: heather | 13 January 2008 at 03:24
wooooo wooo I definitely love the purple satin dress ,the 70s' lace tiered babydoll dress (so cute and very romantic) and the 80s' blue sequin dress &hearts :) love it so much !!!!
Posted by: mash | 13 January 2008 at 12:55
Dreamecho & Bigglassesirl: Nice bit of eBay investigation there.... will see how much this purple dress goes for....
Heather: $5 for a set of belts? That's definitely up there with my 0.99 cents dress that I bought a while back...
Tiddywinks: Ah... it does... but only ever so slightly. Helena Horstedt is of course far superior.... oh you've got me wanting that now instead of the vintage dress which I have on watch...
Kat: I haven't a clue.... perhaps others would like to enlighten?
Posted by: susie_bubble | 13 January 2008 at 13:21
the tuxedo coat is quite nice.
Posted by: Prêt-à-Porter Prostitute | 14 January 2008 at 15:36