I was poking around the web looking for vintage clothing and found todays New York Times article about Foley + Corinna (thanks to a post on Hooti Couture). What an inspiration! I love to hear about multi-million dollar businesses that started out at the kitchen table.

With the help of a friend who could manage a needle and thread, Ms. Foley made more skirts and put them on a table at the old flea market on Avenue of the Americas in Chelsea. The first day, she made $2,000. The kitchen became a factory. “My kids were sitting there eating pizza in a sea of organza,” she said….In many regards, the story of how Ms. Foley and Ms. Corinna turned a flea-market friendship into a fashion company that now has $20 million in annual retail sales is uncommon. Neither one knew much about the mechanics of design or, for that matter, business. They have never been prominently profiled in Vogue or Elle, nor have they sought the Bryant Park runways. But Ms. Corinna has an eye for vintage fashion, and Ms. Foley is intuitive about how to make new versions of those styles for modern women.  (Read the rest of the article here.)

So I was doubly lucky because just the other day I was talking to my mother and we were trying to remember the name of a book I lent her a couple of years ago about Vintage Clothing and there it was right in front of me - Alligators, Old Mink & New Money: One Woman’s Adventures in Vintage Clothing written by sisters Alison and Melissa Houtte of Hooti Couture. Guess it’s time to pick up another copy!

• Hooti Couture
• NYT Article, May 21, 2008 (Foley + Corinna)
• NYT Slideshow (Foley + Corinna)
• Foley + Corinna

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