#GIRLBOSS ( PDFDrive )

appearance now and again, then this eventually evolved into
“architectural” and “avant-garde.” To be honest, I’m glad I’ve forgotten
most of these words and the taxonomy I used to arrange them. In those
days I ate, slept, drank, and dreamt search terms. I’d wake up, the sheets
and blankets a sweaty, tangled mess around me, practically shouting
“’80s Sequined Cocktail Dress!” into the dark.
I loved shipping stuff. I got as OCD on the USPS as I did on the
Subway BLT. I was a one-girl assembly line. I had a Rubbermaid bin to
my right, a Rubbermaid bin to my left, and all of my shipping
paraphernalia on my desk.
The bin to my right had all of the vintage items that had just sold and
needed to be shipped out. I’d grab an item and inspect it to make sure it
was in good shape. I’d zip zippers, button buttons, and hook hooks, then
fold it and slide it into a clear plastic bag that I sealed with a sticker. I’d
print out a receipt and a Photoshop-hacked note reading “Thanks for
shopping at Nasty Gal Vintage! We hope you love your new stuff as
much as we do!”—even though “we” was just me. Then I’d put it in a box
and slap a shipping label on. Only I didn’t slap anything—I took a lot of
pride in how carefully I affixed those labels. I had to assume that my
customer was as particular and as concerned with aesthetics as I was.
Anyway, the last thing I wanted was for her to think it was just one girl
hacking away in a room by herself. . . .
By the age of twenty-three, life felt surreal. I remember a typical
buying trip to LA, drinking canned beer in a friend’s backyard. At that
moment, I was watching my auctions close, totaling $2,500. I was making
more in a week than I’d ever had in a month at my hourly jobs. While my
mother was writing me long e-mails imploring me to return to community
college, all I had to do was look at my burgeoning bank balance to think
that maybe this time she had it wrong.
Sometimes there was so much demand for what I was selling that it
actually became a pain in the ass. I sold a gauzy, ivory-colored dropwaist
dress covered with silver and white beads, which looked like
something an Olsen twin would have worn on the red carpet. For months
after it sold, I received a barrage of sob stories from brides-to-be,
begging and pleading with me to find them another dress identical to it.
Sometimes they seemed convinced that I was holding out on them, but
little did they know that I was no vintage archivist, but just a girl patiently