I had the pleasure of heading to Los Angeles to see author, filmmaker & founder of The Sex Ed’s Liz Goldwyn’s packed-to-the-gills-with-vintage storage unit. Her pieces will be sold on October 11-13 from 11am to 6pm at Arcade at Row DTLA. (Though, you can RSVP to shop@arcadeshops.com to see if you can get in early on Thursday from 6pm to 9pm). Peep the invitation below!
For the uninitiated, Goldwyn, the rosy-cheeked granddaughter of the famed producer Samuel Goldwyn, is an author of three books and currently spilling the tea on Hollywood via her Substack,
. I was especially transfixed by the amount of research she put into the book Pretty Things: The Last Generation of American Burlesque Queens, which explores the rise and decline of American burlesque. And…she’s a total babe! The sort of It girl who ruled New York and Hollywood in the late ‘90s and ‘00s. You probably have already seen Liz cavorting around the city with Chloë Sevigny and a gaggle of cool downtown kids.
Now, Liz is letting go of many of her pieces from her archive storage unit, which she cleared out in preparation for a major move from Los Angeles. Remember: A storage unit is a trove, a significant unearthing moment of history and emotions. And how could it not be? This is why Storage Wars is so delicious to watch. We put our clothes in these steel sarcophaguses for safekeeping and then revisit them occasionally—or not at all. These are garments loaded with stories and experiences. You can’t reproduce that.
So you want to know the loot? Amongst the 600-plus pieces up for grabs is a glittering Reinhard Luthier showgirl gown with cut-outs that Tina Turner wore in 1975—Liz donned it on Oscar Night in 2010.
Another is a vintage piece from the ‘80s that Liz scored for $16 on eBay, which she debuted at a Beverly Hills art opening with Chloë in 2009.
A personal favorite is this ‘70s-era polka-dotted YSL top and skirt.
Also in the mix: Margiela, Chanel, Pierre Cardin, ‘70s era Saint Laurent, and, of course, hoards of vintage lingerie and a few delicious under-$100 racks! You can see some highlighted items below.
Bonus: Listen to our audio chat, in which she discusses vintage sizing tips, the pieces for sale, her work when she was in high school on the 1996 Reese Witherspoon film Fear (obsessed!), her love for Rudi Gernreich, the history of the atomic bra, what it means to wear good lingerie, her freakishly academic knowledge of burlesque, and much more.
MAJOR ITEM ALERTS!
The Chanel Pill Dress
A hero piece! A swishy light dress from the mid-2000s Karl reign of Chanel. The spring/summer 2007 dress is covered in pills, which I naively thought was a range of over-the-counter Benadryl and Lactaid tabs. Liz assured me that, no, these were hardcore pharmaceutical drugs. Ok!
Liz never wore the dress, which was a gift from a stylist from a shoot in Paris. While Liz notes that Damien Hirst’s installation “Pharmacy” most likely inspired this Karl design, this dress was given to her right before Heath Ledger passed away from an overdose in 2008. “When I was given this dress in January 2008 it was right after Heath Ledger tragically passed away from an overdose. The tabloids at the time were full of stories of Hollywood pill poppers and I wasn’t trying to get blasted by Page Six or US Weekly who didn’t get the cerebral art world reference of the dress. I’d gotten trashed by the tabloids before for making an art film and the headline was ‘Liz Goldwyn, Hollywood Royalty is making porn!’ So sadly, this dress sat in my archive for many years. Now it’s time to pass it on to a party girl who gives less fucks than I did.” I Regardless, I’d still like to think these capsules are antihistamines.
A fun, rare fact about this dress: It is a runway sample with the model’s name, Flavia, still inscribed on the tag.
A Burlesque-Inspired Custom bra and Panty Set Worn By Kendall Jenner
Vera Wang created this skimpy piece for a short film Liz directed, Love Meditation, starring Kendall Jenner, which was commissioned by Katie Grand for the LOVE Magazine Christmas Advent in 2016. The inspiration was taken from an image in Liz’s first book Pretty Things: The Last Generation of American Burlesque Queens.
Fun fact: Wang was a former ice skater and infused her rink background into the burlesque piece—a Liz special!—and drizzled the sheer nude net bra and panty with massive Swarovski crystal gems.
The Late-90s and early-’00s New York City Designers
Susan Cianciolo, As Four, Imitation of Christ, and Bruce will all be at the sale. Lap it up, baby! Liz was a longtime supporter of these then-fledgling designers. After all, Liz came to New York fresh out of high school in the summer of 1994. Remember: This was pre-9/11 when there was a boom of bohemian art-meets-fashion design. Cheap rents and boundless energy. Designers could truly come, discover, and explore.
I’m most delighted by the sleeper hit, Bruce, founded by the famously camera-shy duo Daphne Guiterrez and Nicole Noselli in 1996. This was an original downtown girl's label with slinky slip skirts, bitchy bomber jackets, and curve-skimming leather corsets. See the pieces for yourself at the sale.
That Early Denim Balenciaga Skirt
I’ve been on an obsessive Nicolas Ghesquière tear recently. (My fervor for the strong-jawed man might have to do with decoding the Louis Vuitton spring/summer 2025 with fashion archivist Eden Pritikin in Paris last week.) So, I was thrilled when I learned that Liz was parting with a delicious piece of her Nicolas collection, a denim Balenciaga skirt from his days as a creative director there. But it’s not simply a denim skirt; it’s one of the earliest examples of Nicolas mean cuts and his first piece of denim for Balenciaga. Nicolas made Liz’s wedding dress in 2002— the first couture wedding dress to come from the atelier when he took over the house. She has lots more of delicious Nicolas for Balenciaga, but you’ll have to pry it out of her cold, dead hands!
The DKNY Jeans Sequin Bodysuit
For any of you Donna Karan lovers, this is a piece for you. Liz has a white sequined bodysuit from DKNY from 1993 with matching black sequined cigarette pants. “I was going to wear it to a baseball game…” Liz told me. Sure, you will! A special archival moment: I found a photo of the baseball-themed top on Getty Images from a shoot.
Bonus: Tons of vintage lingerie, design pieces, and a few under $100 racks.
This is one of my favorite storage units. There is something for everyone at this sale! Liz is a lingerie archivist with hoards of collectible robes–a seductive home necessity.
