Appraising Vintage Evening Dress

When you have found a vintage evening dress that suits your personality, you shouldn’t rush headlong into simply buying it.

It is not easy to find one that fits you nicely, so we can understand if you want to quickly make it your own before anyone else can have it. But you must be careful with what you pay for. Not all vintage evening dresses come in the same quality like dresses on sale in a departmental store. Even newly made goods in a store can have defects, let alone vintage evening dresses from different ages and owners.

The quality and preservation level of the vintage evening dress is a very important aspect of its value and therefore its price. Therefore it is essential that you examine each piece of vintage evening dress very carefully before you agree to take it.

The typical things to look out for in a vintage evening dress quality are stains, smell and any repairs made on the garment over the years. However, it is not to say that stains, smell and repairs are always bad and devalue a piece.

A stain with a story associated with a famous person adds on to the historical value of the piece and makes it more valuable. In the same way, a repair made by a re-known designer during his time also adds value to a vintage evening dress. It all depends on if these damages had a famous story to them.

Unfortunately, if you’re buying a vintage evening dress online, then you don’t have to chance to examine it up close before deciding on its purchase. Furthermore, artificial lighting and photo shop techniques don’t allow you to see the real condition of a vintage evening dress online.

Luckily, there is a widely accepted and practiced grading convection used in the vintage fashion industry for describing the condition of a vintage evening dress. These are mint, near mint, excellent, very good and good. The descriptions for each category are as follows.

Mint

Mint refers to a state of the vintage evening dress as almost perfect. Practically as though it was when it was first made without the slightest sign of wear.

Near Mint

The next highest grade after mint, this means that the vintage evening dress is nearly as good as new, with only very little signs of being used before.

Excellent

Most high quality vintage evening dresses fall into this grade. An excellent garment is one which is visibly worn from occasional use, but has no flaws or damages on it. These vintage dresses exhibit the best vintage “feel” without any unwanted aspects of an old piece of clothing.

Very Good

A vintage evening dress that is very good has some flaws or damage, but is generally good enough for wear and probably can be repaired to an excellent condition.

Good

The lowest grade among vintage evening dresses that are still wearable, beyond which, dresses are no longer considered to be suitable for wearing. There are probably major defects on the garment, so much so that even when repaired, it will not be able to be restored to an excellent condition.

Using the general terminology for appraising a vintage evening dress, you can better gauge the value of a piece and pay for its proper price. Knowing what quality of a vintage evening dress to expect also reduces the possibility of mismatch expectations when you actually receive the physical goods.