By Mel Pingeton

If you’re looking for something totally amazing and OoaK (that’s One of a Kind) pieces of clothing, then we have the person for you: The Vintage Doctor.

The Vintage Doctor, who “Specializes in the designing art of unique accoutrement,” was founded on Ebay in 2003 by one woman operation Sarah, aka Doc. This 28 “years young” designer originally hails from Buffalo, New York and has been always been a “do it-yourselfer.” This attitude is how she began creating clothing: as a filmmaker (by degree and first love) she took it upon herself to learn how to sew era-themed clothing for her films. Besides sewing a stray button or two, Sarah had no formal training but it all fell into place.

“Somewhere in the middle of the very, very late nights, pricked fingers, thrown scissors ~ I don’t recommend this ~ and burned carpets ~ something else I don’t recommend ~ I started to understand it all. And grew to love it” she recalls.

During this time, Sarah began selling vintage Tshirts on ebay to help fund her films, keeping the “best, softest, funniest” of these shirts for herself, experimenting on the re-sizing to fit herself better. One day, she stumbled across a “growing grassroots DIY community” that sold mainly reconstructed t-shirts.

“I thought, ‘What are the odds?’” she says. Sarah averaged about 14 to 16 Tshirts on eBay every week, not only reconstructing the pieces but doing the photography and modeling herself. “When I wasn’t Photoshopping pictures, I was sewing, sewing, sewing, and when I wasn’t doing that, I was prowling the local thrift stores for my next batch of recons,” she says.

The Vintage Doctor has grown and now offers creations ranging from special occasion dresses to hoodies, blending vintage and retro fabric prints with the latest designs. Sarah made the “leap” from EBay to her own website (www.thevintagedoctor.com) in 2007. She hopes to expand the inventory, potentially adding pencil skirts. Sarah’s favorite OoaK dress is made out of Beetlejuice fabric ~ or, as she sums it up, “Tim Burton equals swoon.”

So how did she get a hold of this piece of Hollywood?

“I came across the fabric very late one night in an auction on Ebay,” she recalls. “[It] had no bidders because the title was misspelled. I nearly peed myself when I found it and couldn’t believe it when I actually won it!”

Don’t start rattling off famous designers or ask her about the latest episode of “Project Runway” because, as she explains, “Since I haven’t officially studied fashion design, I don’t exactly have any ‘famous designers’ that I look up to… or any that I can even name off-hand.”

Instead, Sarah chats with a slew of independent designers on an online DIY forum (www.DIYScene.com). “Amidst the madness of the occasional crazy customer, immense stress of running your own business, long hours and late nights, we keep each other sane,” she says.

Sarah’s busy season is prom time, from March through May, and she describes it as “CRAZY.” The busiest month is April, when she works every single day to complete 30 orders for 30 days of the month. Using a heavy-duty Brother sewing machine, a high-end Huskylock serger and a variety of other tools, it takes about 16 hours for her to complete a single more complex item like a dress or corset, and about four to five hours (depending on the detail) to finish a Tshirt reconstruction.

For now, Sarah is working from home in a three-bedroom apartment ~ and The Vintage Doctor takes up two of the three bedrooms. She hopes to get a larger work space soon that is just for her studio. She would also “love” to do more collaborations with models and photographers. “Dressforms can only do so much for clothing but live models can really make something pop!” she explains.

So what’s the Doctor’s self-prescribed style? When she’s working, it’s all about comfort: fleece pants and a beater. When she’s not working, it’s flared jeans, a beater (“of course”) and a chunky granny sweater.

“I love my granny sweaters… I would marry them if I could,” she says with a smile.

To see Sarah’s pieces and for more information, check out www.thevintagedoctor.com.