CINTRA WILSON GOES SHOPPING: Vintage Deluxe Edition

A little more than a year ago, Critical Shopper Cintra Wilson left L.A.'s famous vintage dealer Lily et Cie with a bitter taste in her mouth and the platform to tell the world about it. In today's Thursday Styles, she keeps closer to home at the somewhat less rarefied but somehow equally exclusive Shareen Vintage in the Flatiron District. Discreetly located upstairs, and open for extremely limited hours, Shareen seems like the diametric opposite of Lily with a broad range of merchandise to offer at reasonable prices and no boys allowed, ever. This policy is designed to have the effect of a genial locker room where, ideally, women can give each other advice and guidance,

I tried on a fluorescent pink-orange St. John knit dress from the mid-1960s — very “Mad Men,” with gold buttons up the front. With a visible question mark over my head, I turned to a girl who I assumed from various overheard remarks was an aspiring stylist. She appraised me with careful and squinty attention. “You know?” she eventually winced, through her big glasses, “maybe it’s not the greatest color on your skin.”

This kind of shopping is clearly not for the faint of heart or fragile of ego, but then a store hidden away on the second floor an open only five afternoons a week is probably only meant for seasoned pros anyway, right?

Critical Shopper: Adopting a Look, No Boys Allowed by Cintra Wilson (NYTimes)
Shareen Vintage 13 West 17^th Street, 2^nd Floor, Between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, Flatiron District