Cheap Dresses

The 1940s wool crepe jacket with its seven neat buttons and nipped-in waist was the lucky find that inspired Kathleen Lepidas’ wardrobe renaissance.

She discovered it at a vintage boutique in Denver, Colo., and brought it home to Toronto, where she decided she would wear only vintage and vintage-inspired apparel — classic and tailored, like the navy jacket.
“I fell in love,” says Lepidas, a book editor. “And I wanted more.”
As hard as she looked for more garments from the 1940s and 1950s, scouring stores all over the city, Lepidas couldn’t find much. So she took matters into her own hands. The 51-year-old tracked down authentic vintage patterns online, bought fabric and started having the items she coveted made from scratch.
She is one of many vintage lovers turning to reproductions — carbon copies of dresses, skirts, shirts and pants sewn from vintage patterns or using a garment as inspiration — as real vintage clothing becomes more popular, harder to find and increasingly fragile.
Since Betty Draper and Joan Holloway sashayed onto the small screen in 2007, vintage lovers have chased Mad Men-era dresses, leading sellers to compete for a dwindling supply of garments from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Hippie and hipster duds from the 1970s and 1980s are abundant but if you’re looking for anything stitched before then, good luck.
Veteran sewer Veronica Cizmar, owner of the online boutique Some Like it Vintage, has begun to add reproductions to her shop.
Last month, she introduced six full-skirted 1950s-style dresses, sewn in her Etobicoke home and modelled on authentic vintage in her own closet.