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Chip Cordelli, Brooklyn, NY
About me: I am a NYC-based photo/ video prop stylist, set designer, and interior decorator for magazines like Real Simple, Instyle, Modern Luxury and others. I have lived in NYC for more than 30 years (since the late 80s) and have been in and around high fashion and luxury retail for decades. Through the years I found that sourcing items for specific events, photo shoots, and interior design projects was a valuable skill in a city that produces images, events, and interiors that influence how style is seen throughout the world. That said, I can say that I am a stealth shopping/ sourcing powerhouse, and can locate an antique or a special prop for a photo shoot, movie set, or fashion shoot with my eyes closed, and relish in the idea of discovering gems in the rough, and shining them up to have new lives in new closets, homes, and photo shoot sets.
I started my career in New York City in the late 1980s dressing display windows at Henri Bendel and Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in the glory days of true innovative story-telling windows in the days before the internet and Instagram. It was there that I learned the fine art of styling designer clothing & creating an aspirational & romantic mood with merchandise and propping that helps build a relationship with the clothes we wear, and the emotion that people have with properly presented merchandise. I had access to the finest luxury designer clothing like Claude Montana, Pauline Trigere, Coco, Mr Beene and others, and learned about expert seam construction, the feel and distinction of well crafted fabrics, the details that matter, and the high tech fabrics that were constantly being introduced that were/are constantly innovating the marketplace. It was also a time (the 80s) when the shift in the social food chain (read: society) began to change, a time when the Ladies Who Lunch began to be replaced by a new moneyed group of vulgarians who changed the way retail was conducted. Shopping was a sport not an event; it was about consumption but not mapping out the way clothes could be worn and the appropriacy of different looks, for day, for evening, for events. I witnessed the last gasp of the days when shopping—even at the mid-level—was an event, a treat, and *madame* was served champagne in dressing rooms and the clothes were explained and the ways to wear them were explored. Now we shop from rounder racks in discount departments for the best prices on designer clothes that we buy for the label, not necessarily for the efficacy of utility in our lifestyles.
Being around such glamorous clothing it was hard to not learn about what separates quality clothing from fast fashion, and I bolstered my fashion history knowledge with constant learning about the names of yesteryear and the designers who were the innovators in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, and am always learning more, to learn how modern clothes spring forth from their predecessors. My grandmother Gladys Schuck ran the Cancer Association Thrift Shop in Westport, CT in the 1960s and as a child I helped sort boxes of donated clothing, and she would tell me stories about the designers—Claire McArdell, Anne Klein, Anne Fogarty—and the fabrics (“say Duchesse satin” she said), and I learned a great deal about vintage clothing from her; my mother, after raising her children, was an antique dealer and auction and estate sale maven, so I learned from her all the time. The torch was passed.
I started buying vintage clothing at flea markets & estate sales on my own, and have built an incredible collection, much of it coming up for sale here (along with consignments from my fashion industry and magazine industry cohorts). My mother also wore lots of Bonnie Cashin in the 1960s and 1970s so I was aware of the modern minimalists, and sought them out for her when I found them.
Since I’m shopping constantly, and love fancy estate sales and sample sales, I scour them regularly and with great skill; the result is an online shop that I consider a finely curated collection of vintage clothing, home accessories, & mid century odds and ends from high end homes in the New York City area.
I also take consignments from fashion stylists & fashion editors I know in NYC who have packed closets filled with designer garments they bought, received as gifts from designers, or used on photo shoots and are in perfect condition--all sold here & ready for new fashionistas to enjoy them.
I have proudly sold tons of clothing & props to film & television prop & wardrobe departments including most of the new Netflix shows shooting in NYC, M@dMen, Masters of Sex, The Mysteries of Laura, Boardwalk Empire, The Carrie Diaries. I also sell to designers looking for inspiration clothing to base new designs from, and have many garments not listed that I show privately.
I love finding stuff, and love helping source stuff, and just KNOW that I have tons more stuff than is listed here, so if you are in film or television production just ask for specifics and I will probably have something for you, or be able to understand what you are looking for without wasting your time. I have been in the biz and know how it works. That said, I am happy to serve film production wardrobe departments and set designers and set prop people, so contact me with any queries about specific items you are looking for. I am a good and reliable resource.
Cheers!
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Chip Cordelli, Brooklyn, NY
Check out my other listings. My shop is constantly evolving, and new items are added weekly.