Item of the week: A study in inflation from a NOS dress

As a vintage dealer, finding a NOS (New Old Stock) item is usually rare. I bought this pretty dress several years ago and never got around to selling it, then came a move and the inevitable packing away of stock. I recently pulled it out of its cozy rest in a storage box (I know..I know..) but was pleased (after rolling my eyes at myself for the delay) to find it with its store tags in place. I remember the auction I found it at; the sale of a "depression baby", a lady who grew up in the depression and, when she had means, stocked up on items just in case it happened again. There were hundreds of items with the tags still on them, something I'm sure I won't see again.


Click the image to see the listing

This pretty little number reminds me of the dresses seen around the office of Sterling Cooper on AMC's Mad Men. But how much would the average gal really have paid for it? The original store tags from Natelson's of Omaha says she would have paid $19.98. Not bad at all, eh?
I wondered what that would equate to today, though, so I found a price comparison gadget on the US Dept of Labor site: http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl. It turns out that the gal about town today would have pay $139.58 for the same item. Anyone who has gone to the mall lately would see prices pretty close to that in most "name brand" stores.
Hatfeathers Vintage will happily let you buy this pretty for just under half of that. If the boys in the office pat you on the tush for wearing it, though, you're on your own!