Viva Vintage at Golyester

In Los Angeles, there is no shortage of vintage clothing stores. A quick drive down Melrose reveals a plethora of shopping choices for the vintage junkie. From T-shirts to jeans to jackets, hats and shoes, cast-off old threads have become one-of-a-kind treasures coveted by hip and trendy Angelenos. However, in a city rank with vintage clothing shops, one store stands out among the rest. Palisadian Esther Ginsberg (known in town as Esther Eden) has owned and operated Golyester (136 S. La Brea), an amazing vintage and antique clothing boutique, for over 25 years. She has been collecting vintage since the 1960s, and many of her pieces have been displayed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Pacific Asia Museum and the Fashion Museum at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. Recently she and her husband, Harry Eden, an engineer with the Aerospace Corporations, attended the opening of Gaillierock, a retrospective of fashion designer Jean Charles de Castelbajac at the Galliera Museum in Paris where three of Ginsberg’s robes were on loan. Then they traveled to Amsterdam to visit the Tropen Museum’s ‘Beauty and the Bead’ exhibit, where several of Ginsberg’s antique beaded garments were on display. ‘I call myself the dinosaur of vintage clothing, having been around for so long in this field that has recently gained so much public interest,’ Ginsberg said. Ginsberg’s passion for vintage began around 1966 when she set off from Texas, where she was working as an art teacher, to become a craft designer for ‘Good Housekeeping’ magazine in New York City. While there she also worked for a toy company designing preschool toys. She arrived with little more than $500 and settled in the East Village, a neighborhood rich with artistic culture. ‘I was incredibly poor and started buying and wearing vintage clothing because it was 25 cents,’ Ginsberg said. Her frugality soon turned into a collecting hobby. She would scour second-hand stores in New York searching for cheap but interesting clothing that she could fix up using her sewing and embroidery skills. Items she didn’t wear, she used in her artwork. Ginsberg was most interested in garments that had a handmade element-items with intricate beadwork or stitching done by hand-that were truly one of a kind. Her first major obsession was turn-of-the-century Victorian and Chinese lace, a treasure she simply couldn’t get enough of. In 1974, after her job designing for a toy manufacturer folded, she moved to Venice Beach and opened an art studio, where she created sculptures using antique textiles, old purses and even cocktail dresses, on what is now Abbot Kinney Boulevard. Her collection of vintage threads was growing rapidly so she began displaying some of her favorite pieces in the front window of her studio and people started stopping in to buy them. Soon, her studio was shrinking as her storefront was growing and Golyester was born. It gained its name from a comment she heard frequently. ‘Golly, Esther!’ her friends would exclaim when she would show them her massive collection of vintage garments. Eventually, Ginsberg moved her store out of Venice and onto Melrose and later to her current location on La Brea. Through the years, she has continued to hone her vintage treasure-hunting skills, and she has hand-selected nearly every item in her store. ‘Each piece has to have something of interest or some appeal,’ she said. ‘I have to scour L.A. and the countryside, but it amazes me that after 30 years I still see things I have never seen before.’ A visit to Ginsberg’s store is proof that she has an expert eye for vintage. Everything in the store is truly fantastic, from the hand-made Romanian dance boots at the front of the store to the hand-embroidered shawls and beaded dresses in the back. Even more amazing things are hidden in Ginsberg’s workspace behind the counter at the back of the store, where she keeps the pieces she’s not quite ready to part with, including a beautiful silk Chinese robe with embroidered animals so intricate that they look as if they were painted; a leather jacket from the beginning of the punk era, personalized with paint and metal studs by its original owner; and one of her favorite recent finds, a small 1940s woman’s hat, small, white with a red flower and reminiscent of something one of Dr. Seuss’s characters might wear. With each piece more interesting than the last, it is easy to get lost in the merchandise, wondering where each item came from or who had already worn it. Still, some of the clientele come in, not for a new (to them) and unique outfit, but for inspiration. Although Ginsberg is too humble to drop names, some very famous fashion designers have been known to frequent her store. ‘It’s fun to be in on the creative part, working with these genius minds,’ she said. Ginsberg frequently recognizes new fashions and trends that have been inspired by items that were once a part of her collection and she always seems to know what the next big trend might be. However, some of the items she collected would never get the chance to inspire any designers. In October 2002, an arson fire was set in the space next door to Golyester. Every item in her store was damaged, either by smoke from the fire or flooding from the neighboring sprinkler system, and Ginsberg was forced to replace her entire inventory. She re-opened in February 2004, and was able to look at the situation positively. ‘It’s been an adventure,’ she said, ‘that confirmed I really wanted to be doing this.’ When not at the store, Ginsberg is usually out exploring the city. She is always on the lookout for something she has never seen before, whether it be a vintage piece to add to her collection, a new restaurant, tour or show. She recently discovered a place downtown called Pinata-Land, a big warehouse full of pi’atas and candy, and last week she visited the Moscow Cat Circus, where trained cats perform tricks. She also loves walking her big gray dog Tooey Bear around the Palisades with her husband.