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We Goofed: Vera & Vera

  • While we've only heard from one reader who spotted our Vera Maxwell mistake in Alligators... we can't believe we made such a dumb mistake and we want to correct it. We confused two designers, both named Vera, and the woman we wanted to identify in our book is Vera Neumann (see page 182 in the hardback edition). Vera Maxwell was also a design legend, with a career spanning fifty years, but it is Neumann whose screen prints appeared on everything from dresses to napkins and tablecloths.

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« March 2005 | Main | July 2005 »

1 entry from April 2005

Hooti & The Media

Blouse_shop_detail

"...Not long after Ms. Houtte opened (Hooti Couture), I began making pilgrimages there every Saturday afternoon, driven as much by the hope of finding a 1940's alligator purse that hadn't flaked or peeled as I was by the wish to hear her recount the events of her preceding week, rich as they were in episodes of enviable serendipity and baroque heartbreak." — Ginia Bellafante, The New York Times,
Aug. 1, 2003

"It's no wonder Alison Houtte has a hawk's eye for vintage couture. At the height of her modeling career in the Eighties, she catwalked her way down more than 20 runways a season." — Rebecca Dolgin, More magazine, May 2004

"Fashion as it is practiced elsewhere in New York City did not seem possible in Park Slope until Alison Houtte arrived...in 1997 with a vintage-clothing shop called Hooti Couture." — The New York Times, April 24, 2001

"An amusing little shop where one finds a lot of discoveries....(Hooti Couture) overflows with unbelievable energy." — French Vogue, August 2001

"Always a fun stop"....This "delightful" antique clothing store specializes in "funky, free-spirited" garb from 1930s-1980s, with a "terrific selection of vintage bags" and "good furs";  the "live-wire owner, who's got a great eye and the gift of gab," refers to items as if  they were people ("Isn't she a beauty"?), and the sayings she scrawls on the garment tags (e.g. "The dress I turned Ed down in") are, well, a hoot. — Zagat's Survey, New York City Shopping 2005

"Really a special place in Park Slope....The clothes are awesome, including dresses from the '30s to the present...jewelry, accessories, lots of rhinestones and even lawn ornaments. There's always new stuff and bargains to be found." — PAPER Magazine

"When it comes to fashion, what’s past is in, and unless you’re a Hepburn, Brooklyn’s HOOTI COUTURE is way better than your grandmother’s closet." — PapierDoll.net, spring 2005   

April 12, 2005 in Hooti Couture news | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Where Is Hooti Couture?

  • WE ARE ON HOLIDAY/WINTER BREAK! HOOTI IS CLOSED UNTIL FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2012.

    Late Winter/Spring 2012 Hours: Wednesday-Sunday, 11-8.

    How the heck do you get to Brooklyn? It's easy. You'll find Hooti at:

    321 Flatbush Avenue (at Seventh Avenue)

    Closest neighborhoods: Park Slope, Prospect Heights

    Best subway lines: B & Q trains (exit at Seventh Avenue and you'll find Hooti across the street)

    Phone: 718-857-1977

Find Your Way to Hooti!

What Is Alligators...?

  • Alligators, Old Mink & New Money, One Woman's Adventures in Vintage Clothing was written by sisters Alison and Melissa Houtte and is available in the U.S. and Canada in both hardback (top; William Morrow/Harper Collins) and paperback (Avon Trade). You can also buy the UK edition (Orion Publishing) in hardback in England, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales. Orion's paperback edition (below) is also now on sale.

    Orionpbcover_3

Alligators & the Media

  • Woman's Day, March 2007 issue; Heat magazine, UK Feb. 3-9, 2007, and many reviews and touts from 2005/2006, when our book was first published: People magazine ("charming memoir"); New York Post (3 1/2 star review); Women's Wear Daily; New York Times; OK magazine; TimeOut New York; All Things Considered, NPR (Jan. 15; you can hear it at npr.org); Glamour (British edition, "a must for all vintage die-hards"); InStyle, (British edition, "a charming journey"); Madison magazine (Australia); Body & Soul magazine; and Newsday, Associated Press, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Dallas Morning News, Miami New Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury, The Scotsman (Glasgow, Scotland), Pacific Sun and Sacramento Bee

Amazon

Clothes Quotes

  • A batch of vintage classics, with thanks to Hester Hull of Birmingham, Michigan:

    “Nothing is thought rare which is not new, and follow’d; yet we know that what was worn some 20 years ago comes into grace again.”—Francis Beumont

    "The purse is the mirror of the soul.”—Anna Quindlen, 1987

    “When in doubt, wear red.”—Bill Blass, 1982

    “These gems have life in them: their colors speak, say what words fail of.”—George Eliot

    “And she always took the clothes created for her one step further by adding something of her own, some small personal detail which enhanced the whole.”—Givenchy on Audrey Hepburn

    “Large handbags to carry all the family’s ration books were also practical rather than fashionable accessories.”—Carol Harris in Women Under Fire in World War II

    “Skirts couldn’t get any shorter and remain legal.”—Amy Greene, 1970

    If you adore her, you must adorn her. There lies the secret of a happy marriage.”—Anne Fogarty, 1959

    Just make sure no one has exactly the same dress I do. I want all mine to be original and no fat little women hopping around in the same dress.”—Jacqueline Kennedy

    “When a man says he likes a woman in a skirt, I tell him to try one.”—Katharine Hepburn

    "A woman’s dress should be like a barbed wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view.”—Sophia Loren

    “Each day Beryl would appear in the yard, looking as if she had stepped off the pages of Vogue. Silk shirt, perfectly cut jodhpurs, shining leather boots, little kid leather gloves. A broadbrimmed hat and leather whip tucked under her arm completed the ensemble. It was first class all the way with Beryl. That was all she knew. ‘ Tell them to bring the horses around, will you sweetie?’ she would say when she was ready.”—Mary S. Lovell in the biography of Beryl Markham (first woman to fly the Atlantic east to west), Straight on’ Til Morning

    “Just to flirt again---in a skirt again/ There’s no romance when you dance/ Cheek to cheek and pants to pants /Oh for an old fashioned dress!”—Irving Berlin.