Firooz Zahedi's life was changed by an unofficial photo assignment for a Hollywood legend.

In 1976, Zahedi, a scion of an Iranian political family, had passed up a diplomatic career to try to break into the world of freelance photography. At the time, his cousin, Ardeshir Zahedi, the Iranian ambassador to the United States, happened to be consorting with Elizabeth Taylor and introduced the actress to the young photographer. Subsequently, Taylor was invited on a goodwill visit to Iran and she insisted on taking Firooz Zahedi as a travel companion and photographer.

In Iran, Zahedi shot Taylor amid the ruins of Persepolis, outside the entrance of a mosque in Shiraz and draped in scarves found in Isfahan bazaars. At this point, the two-time Academy Award winner eschewed the conservative Yves Saint Laurent dresses she had worn to state dinners with the shah in favor of T-shirts, peasant blouses and flared jeans. Taylor presaged the trends of today by layering her bazaar finds and chadors over contemporary fashion pieces.

After the trip, Zahedi, who was the Washington, D.C., correspondent for Andy Warhol's Interview, told the artist about the snapshots taken with Taylor in Iran. Warhol decided to plan a cover story on Taylor for Interview around the photos. Not expecting compensation, the budding photographer received a  check for $200 from the notoriously thrifty Warhol -- marking his first big professional break and the start of a successful career.

Since then, Zahedi, based in L.A. since 1978, has gone on to shoot celebrity covers for Vanity Fair, Time and InStyle. Most famously, he lensed the iconic poster for Pulp Fiction featuring Uma Thurman in a black bob, smoking a cigarette.

Zahedi’s photographs of Taylor on that trip are the subject of an exhibition, "Elizabeth Taylor in Iran," opening at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Saturday and scheduled to run through June 12. He invited All the Rage to drink Persian tea at his modern-art festooned Wilshire Corridor condo while chatting about his upcoming show.

All the Rage: How did the show come about?

Zahedi: I was meeting with the curator of the Middle East department at LACMA. We’re trying to form a committee to raise money to buy contemporary Iranian art from contemporary Iranian artists based in Iran. She said, "I’m looking for some photos of Iran in the ’70s, prior to the revolution." I told her I had been there with Elizabeth Taylor [in 1976]. I sent her these photos. She said, "Let’s do a show."

This was pre-revolution, so there wasn’t a strict dress code?

Elizabeth Taylor had come to Washington with a few suitcases and found out that she was going to go to Iran and meet the shah and the empress. And she had no clothes. Saint Laurent had a boutique across from Saks Fifth Avenue in Chevy Chase. I went on her behalf and bought several conservative outfits for the trip like a blazer and some dresses.

On Saturday, I checked out the second annual Inspiration Los Angeles vintage clothing fair held at the Queen Mary in Long Beach. Inspiration Los Angeles is the brainchild of Rin Tanaka, a fashion journalist who publishes the cult "My Freedamn" book series that meticulously catalogs a wide range of mainly American-made menswear including jeans, biker jackets and surfer T-shirts culled from flea market and antique dealers across the country.

The year's Inspiration Los Angeles was scheduled to take place the same weekend as the Pasadena Rose Bowl flea market and drew about 2,500 international visitors, according to Tanaka, including industry names such as Diesel’s Renzo Rosso, en route to the Diesel Black Gold New York Fashion Week show, and a design team from Amsterdam-based G-Star. Levi’s also used the fair to showcase its $250 U.S.-made 501 Levi's XX collection, constructed with Cone Denim fabric from North Carolina.

“We have no men’s vintage show in the world -- more women’s or costumes,” said Tanaka, who splits his time between Japan and his home in San Clemente, explaining what germinated the fair.

Rosso said he heard from his design team that Inspiration Los Angeles was “unbelievably nice, very cool.  The best items are very expensive but they are interesting for our museum. Vintage always inspires collections not only for Diesel, but, in general, for all fashion giants.”

But what determines what vintage is collectible and what isn't? Feal Mor owner JP Plunier, who displayed his brand's trademark French sailor sweaters, offered this explanation: “Vintage is stuff that works after the trend’s over.”

The big trend revival that I witnessed at the fair was Native American-style prints and clothing from makers ranging from Pendleton and Ralph Lauren, including a denim wrap skirt for about $800 featuring an embroidered leather rustic tableau. But the real visual draw was the crowd pimped out in their finds, including a woman wearing a Raggedy Ann and Andy apron and a man with a handlebar mustache who looked like he could have worked on the crew that built the 75-year-old cruise liner.

-- Max Padilla

 Top photos: Attendees at Inspiration vintage fair. Credit: Summer Browner / Feal Mor

Bottom photo: Rin Tanaka, left, and Max Padilla.

Some years ago at the Alfred Dunhill men's boutique in Beverly Hills — when there was still a humidor upstairs — a man walked into a room of cigar-smoking sirs flaunting a new $600 shirt he'd bought from Ascot Chang. Jonathan Kanarek, owner of Jake Vintage in Los Feliz, recently recalled what happened next:
“Check out my new dress shirt,” the man said.

“Dude, that's not a dress shirt,” Dunhill's humidor manager responded, echoed by the other men: “Not a dress shirt.”

“Yes it is,” said the man.

“No, it's not,” said the manager.

After some back and forth, “OK, why?” asked the man.

The manager walked up to the man and slapped his chest pocket. “What's that?” he said. “You're going to put a pack of Marlboros in there? Dress shirts don't have pockets!”

“Dress shirts don't have pockets,” echoed the room.

“Dress shirts don't have pockets,” continued Kanarek back inside his Hollywood Boulevard shop, "because if you're wearing a suit, the thought is you've got enough pockets on you.”

As he told the story, Kanarek was wearing a retro green suit and a new pocketless shirt of his own design that he began to sell at his store recently. Though the shirts aren't vintage like the rest of his boutique's classy men's fashion from the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, their inspiration was: two pieces of 1960s Sears and Roebuck deadstock he found at the Rose Bowl Flea Market. Kanarek took the shirts' basic design, stripped it of the pockets and placket, added standard-size rounded barrel and double cuffs in homage to the British manufacturer Turnbull & Asser and kept the collars short. The fabric is soft but resilient super 120's sea island cotton, single-needle tailored. At $150 each, in two and a half weeks, Kanarek sold out his first run of 50 and has been working his way through his second.

After three years of owning and operating Jake Vintage, tucked just east of the busy Hollywood Boulevard and Vermont Avenue intersection, Kanarek is showing some staying power. He was one of Esquire magazine's 2007 best-dressed real men in America, a 1960s’ style expert on the special features portion of “Madmen’s” Season 2 DVD set and has garnered a pretty decent client list of Hollywood A-listers — Brad Pitt, Kiefer Sutherland and Ryan Gosling, to name a few.

The shirts are his first foray into designing and he said he was pushed into it out of necessity.“I'm a rule guy,” he said, “You got guys wearing [narrow] cuts and then these big Paul Smith British collars and ties and everything, and I'm like, 'You can't do that.' So, really, the main reason was to complement the suiting that is popular right now… It goes back to one of the principles of the shop: It's all about fitting the frame, knowing yourself and confidence through looking your best. And guys are trying to do their best, but they're a mish-mash, a Frankenstein of stuff together. So I said, 'All right, you know what? We need a great, great shirt to match what's going on out there.’”

He also realized that his larger clients were having trouble finding vintage shirts to fit their frames: “So I'm like, all right I'll build it.”

Since the runs are kept small Kanarek said he can adapt quickly to uncommon sizes with each new order. He has begun working with his Hong Kong manufacturer on a sample book of fabrics with different colors and patterns that will work within the same price range and shirt template. Also in development are a couple of Jake Vintage-brand suits inspired by American and British post-war designs — done the “old-fashioned way,” he said, with floating panels to give drape and movement — which will likely be released this year and sell for under $800. About 2%, he estimated, of his original product sales will be donated to the nearby Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

“I focus primarily on timeless classic apparel,” said Kanarek. “I tell people, you don't have to throw away your magazines, you don't have to stop your trendsetter-buying but you will be called upon one day to do the speech or what have you and you'll need a good suit to do it. And what's out there ain't gonna cut it.”

And when that day comes, whatever you do, don't wear a shirt with a pocket.

-- Colin Stutz

Photo: White collared shirt by Jake Vintage. Credit: Jake Vintage.

The opening preview and party will take place on Friday from 6 to 10 p.m., with the show continuing Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $10. Cooper Design Space, 860 S. Los Angeles St., 11th Floor, Los Angeles.

-- Emili Vesilind

Photo: Liz Goldwyn in vintage Oleg Cassini from Siren Vintage in Pasadena. Credit: A Current Affair.

Shareen Vintage, the quirky secondhand and vintage store with a “no boys allowed” policy, has been one of L.A.’s most influential fashion spots for years. Erin Fetherston, the designers for Marc Jacobs, Vogue’s Andre Leon Talley and the costumers for “Mad Men” are among the tastemakers who’ve pored over impeccably restored and reconstructed designs from bygone eras at the L.A. outpost (Mitchell opened a second location in New York last year that’s equally lauded by the fashion crowd.)

The store’s prominence is due to owner Shareen Mitchell, a former actress with an impeccable eye for trends. If you want to know what’s coming next in fashion — be it boho or Bauhaus — Mitchell’s usually right on the money in her predictions.

And now the statuesque retailer is taking her work (and personal life) to the small screen. “Dresscue Me,” a new series that chronicles Mitchell’s day-to-day dealings, a la “The Rachel Zoe Project,” will debut on Discovery's Planet Green network in early 2011.

Mitchell has been bombarded with requests to launch a reality series for years, but said, “I was finally approached by a production company [World of Wonder Productions] I fell in love with. They’re an incredible group of four fabulous men who flirted like crazy with me and made me surrender…I knew I would be doing something that would have weight and be quality –- and not be silly or demeaning.”

The series will document Mitchell helping women get dressed, but will also follow her on buying trips, which can range from visiting Podunk stores and people's homes to excavating through 6-foot-high heaps of clothes in rag houses.

But Mitchell’s professional process only begins with buying; most items in her shops are altered by her team, sometimes beyond recognition. “I’m not particularly interested in vintage except in a way that it can be changed to compete with fashion,” she said. “The show will cover…how a vintage buyer takes these garments and makes them more fashion-friendly."

For example, "Marc Jacobs did 1950s with Louis Vuitton, and it was so incredible and sexy. I look at it and go, 'Yeah, I can do that. I have that. I’m wearing that right now.' "

--Emili Vesilind

Photo: Shareen Mitchell. Credit: Shareen Vintage

One of the more promising happenings planned for Fashion's Night Out is A Current Affair,  a two-day vintage pop-up in the penthouse of the Cooper building downtown.

Featuring wares from more than 20 vintage boutiques and private dealers, the temporary shop is the brainchild of Joey Grana, owner of the fashion-forward Scout boutique, and vintage dealer Richard Wainwright.

The product mix will feature designer vintage apparel, jewelry, accessories, eyewear, shoes and ephemera from iconic brands including Alaïa, Comme des Garcons, Givenchy, Gucci, Issey Miyake, Halston, Oleg Cassini and Yves Saint Laurent.

Prices will range from around $65 for vintage deadstock eyewear to around $3,000 for  contemporary Andrea Gutierrez bracelets hand-beaded using vintage beads from  purses.

A sampling of items: '80s Karl Lagerfeld earrings, $125; '90s Alaia bodysuits, $250 to $350; Chanel suits, $500 to $1,200; '60s Pucci sunglasses, $450; '70s Lanvin necklaces, $950 to $1,250; Laura Kranitz contemporary hats made using vintage millinery findings, $250 to $650; and '60s Pierre Cardin jackets, $800 to $1,200.

Vendors include L.A. dealers, along with sellers from Oakland,  Napa, Calif., and Scottsdale, Ariz. Among them are Allyn Scura Eyewear, Fashion by Robert Black, Found By, Golyester, L.A. Vintage Exchange, Laura Kranitz, Martin Atelier, Mercy Vintage, Miss KK, Show Pony, Monika Dickerson, Nakia Vintashee, Nyali, Reclaimed in L.A., Richard Wainwright, Scout, Sequels and Sielian’s Vintage Apparel. Admission to the shopping event is $10 at the door.

"We felt there was a need for a fashion-forward approach to vintage," said Wainwright, "an event where a contemporary customer could shop next to the seasoned vintage buyer because the work had already been done for her."

The event will kick off with a Fashion's Night Out party on Friday from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., then reopen on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Cynthia Rowley's mobile "Store on Wheels" will be in the parking lot of the Cooper all day Saturday.

Wainwright added that the idea for A Current Affair started as a way to "bring together some of our friends who deal in vintage and have a more chic party in a beautiful loft downtown, add a DJ and a bar and create an opportunity to exhibit some of our best pieces as collectors — amongst friends."

Wainwright and Grana specifically wanted to avoid the dinge factor that often goes hand-in-hand with shopping vintage. "So many times when you hear about vintage sales they are happening in a dusty parking lot with racks so crammed you can't get into them," Wainwright said. "These are people who are really passionate about collecting and take pride in their presentations."

Cooper Design Space, 860 South Los Angeles St., 11th Floor, Los Angeles.

-- Emili Vesilind

Photo: A hat design by Laura Kranitz. Credit: Laura Kranitz

There's one more reason to visit Little Tokyo, aside from ramen and sushi: vintage clothing.

Standard Issue, a unisex clothing store specializing in apparel from the 1930s to 1990s, opened its doors late at night Aug. 14. Although it is prominently located on the corner of 1st Street and San Pedro, the store is hard to spot because a retro neon sign from a previous real estate business hangs above the door.

“That’s why we have these two huge 1890s American flags hanging on the wall,” said store co-owner Vinson Ferrer. “It grabs people's attention” as they walk by.

Like the flags, the clothing has a classic Americana, rustic edge. Items for sale include old rock band T-shirts, flannels, leather and jean jackets, hats, worn leather belts and cowboy boots. The store is tiny, with Chimayo rugs adding color to the terra-cotta tiled floor and antique props such as wooden crates, ladders and rusty stepping stools serving as tables to display accessories.

Ferrer and his business partner, Masa Ono, are longtime vendors at the Sunday Melrose Trading Post flea market at Fairfax High School. Although the two men have separate booths there, they have similar fashion sensibilities and would frequently trade items with one another.

Ferrer said that his customers at the flea market, which he said include the likes of Drew Barrymore and Scarlett Johansson, always ask if he has a store.

“It’s great to be able to say that I do now,” he said, “and that I have an even greater selection here.”

The store is open from noon to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and noon to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Standard Issue, 301 E. 1st St., Los Angeles; (213) 626-1555

--Jessie Schiewe

Photo: The interior of Standard Issue, with its eye-catching flags. Credit: Standard Issue

 

It seems like kind of a cruel joke, doesn't it? You set out months before your wedding day to scour bridal store after bridal store searching for the perfect dress -- only to fork over a chunk of cash for your dress of choice and then be told they'll contact you in a few months when the lovely design finally arrives in the store.

No wonder a bride can get cold feet. Take Tonya Clark, 48, of San Jose. A little less than a year away from her December 2009 wedding (and getting a little too close for comfort, in some store clerks' opinions), she'd scoured seven bridal stores when she found a $1,200 Casablanca gown that was pretty nice -- not something she thought was a knock-your-socks-off dress, mind you, but good.

Then the sales attendant said, "You're never going to find anything you're really going to like; this does fine," and Clark caved. She was making peace with the less-than-perfect dress until she picked up a copy of Martha Stewart Wedding and got that "this-is-the-one" feeling when she saw a stunning Matthew Christopher gown that even her fiance admitted was some dress.

She bought a Matthew Christopher, meaning she not only added a $3,500 purchase that was way beyond her anticipated price tag, but she also had to contend with the first gown. So Clark took to the Web.

Anyone who used to stop in at Shareen Mitchell’s always-crowded booth at the Melrose Trading Post flea market or frequents her nondescript warehouse on the outskirts of downtown L.A. knows about her well-edited stash of affordable vintage dresses, boots and blouses.

In addition to her warehouse location (and her studio on 17th Street in New York, which you will only know is open for business when a red dress hangs in the window) Shareen Vintage wares will also be stocked in the Madewell store in Century City and SoHo starting Thursday, offering girls some well-loved pieces to style in with their matchstick jeans and lace-up oxfords.

Madewell’s marketing director Gigi Guerra and Kin Ying Lee, the brand’s head designer, have been longtime fans of Shareen Vintage, combing the warehouse for items when in town. “Shareen has such an amazing eye and a knack for pulling in pieces that are really ahead of the curve. She intuitively understands what’s cool, plus her prices are truly affordable,” says Lee, who admits to exiting Mitchell’s warehouse with bagfuls of dresses to take back to home to New York.

Madewell chose pieces from Mitchell’s collection that would specifically pair well with jeans, chambray shirts and jean jackets. “The collection has a very laid-back, high-summer vibe,” says Lee. “Think floaty dresses and floral skirts with a boy-meets-girl feel.”

Mitchell (who is currently taping a docu-series for Planet Green about her work and constant journey seeking out and buying vintage clothing, which will debut in late fall) also reworked Indian print vintage fabric into what she calls the “Coachella” top – a lightweight, batwing blouse that she can’t keep in stock in her own store and will have hanging in Century City and SoHo Madewell locations.

Madewell is having a shopping event to kick of the Shareen Vintage collaboration Thursday. The event is open to the public, but judging by how crowded Mitchell’s booth at the Melrose flea market used to get, you may want to RSVP.

-- Melissa Magsaysay

Photos, from top: Madewell items mixed with pieces from Shareen Vintage pieces. credit: Madewell; invitation to Madewell Century City event.

American women were defining themselves through fashion long before Lady Gaga doffed her bottoms to get to the top and Michelle Obama wore a J. Crew cardigan and pencil skirt to telegraph that she's just like us.

Gibson girls wore split skirts and went cycling to proclaim their independence. Suffragists dressed in tricolors to signify solidarity. Flappers shimmied in chemise dresses to express sexual freedom.

This liberated approach to dressing is the focus of a historical exhibition that opens Wednesday and runs through Aug. 15 at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. "American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity" looks at perceptions of womanhood in mass media from the 1890s to the 1940s, focusing on archetypes of femininity created through dress.

Galleries are devoted to feminine archetypes — the heiress, the Gibson girl, the bohemian, the suffragist, the patriot, the flapper and the screen siren — with period clothing culled from permanent collections at the Met and the Brooklyn Museum bringing those archetypes to life.

Brenna Egan, a former fashion assistant at Vogue, launched online vintage boutique CHIC&youshallfind on Tuesday. Specializing in vintage clothes, accessories and home wares, the site is a treasure trove of pieces that are not only trend-right, but wallet-friendly (dresses range from $42 to $78).

And Egan is still using her editorial experience -- each item is accompanied by a whimsical "story" about its past life that she personally pens. A Southwestern sweater coat, for instance, comes with this tall tale: "Anastasia had an enormous wanderlust and adventurous spirit. She ended up in 35 countries in three months, and this jacket was a souvenir of the surreal and amazing nomadic life she led. After all, why settle for a cubicle and daily Starbucks latte?"

Another feature on the site, the "Posh Pawnshop," offers e-consignment without the EBay hassle. Customers can e-mail snapshots of their items for approval, then ship them to the CHIC&youshallfind headquarters, where they will be professionally photographed and uploaded for resale.

"After all of the editorial downsizing last year, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to open my own window and follow my true passion, which is the discovery of amazing vintage finds," said Egan, who graduated from the University of Southern California and has also worked stints at Hollywood Life and OK! Weekly magazines. "I like to think I'm taking the dirty work out of vintage shopping."

-- Emili Vesilind

Photo: Blanca Babe Crop Top, $55, on CHIC&youshallfind.com. Credit: CHIC&youshallfind

Temptu airbrush makeup is hosting a shopping and makeup event this weekend. Come get styled in designer vintage duds, or should you not be in the mood to shop, stop and get a temporary tattoo or your makeup done -- airbrush style, of course.

The event is open to the public.

-- Melissa Magsaysay