Sometimes women are accused of being far too interested in clothes and shopping.

Many women don't like to shop. Most of us do.

But Rebecca Glagola, who falls into the latter category, doesn't shop like the rest of us.

She shops vintage. She collects vintage. She sells vintage. She dresses vintage.

Looking to the past, although hardly 17th century, is what she does most waking hours when she isn't taking care of her brood ... husband George and three children.

She's just crazy about vintage, which she considers both a hobby and a means to some extra cash when she decides she can part with something.

All too often, she admits, she finds it hard to part with an item with a label she has sought long and hard to find.

That's why the closets in her Port Vue home are bulging and many bins in the family game room are overflowing.

While names such as Norman Norell, Adrian, Balenciaga and Pucci are part of her inventory, she also has clothing with labels from stores now gone such as Paraphernalia, Scoop, and Peck & Peck.

Ironically one of the items she has discovered and truly loves has a label, LaMendola. She never realized the designer behind that label was the late Jack Savage from Herminie, Pa. It adds extra interest to her find.

I shared with her the fact many years ago I visited Mr. Savage in Italy where he had his very successful boutique.

She considers the zebra-striped silk gown 1960s' vintage, her best find to date but she also raves about the construction of dresses by House of Branell and Luis Estevez.

I told her I once owned a red wool Estevez dress with a sweetheart neckline, possibly the sexiest dress I ever had in my closet. Who knows what happened to it. Maybe she'll find it.

What she considers non-vintage but a favorite find was an Issey Miyake five-layer pleated long skirt she wishes she had kept, and also a Gaultier tube dress and a Comme des Garcons sheer black tunic.

She can't put an accurate number on her discoveries from a variety of sources, but knows it to be hundreds and hundreds. She constantly studies fashion history and photographs from different eras in order to spot genuine items.

"My love of clothing began when I was very young," she explains. "I always had a sense about my own style and never followed trends but created my own, even in kindergarten.

"Love of vintage came from my grandmother, Bert (Bertha) Roma, whose party formals and other clothes were stored in her attic. I fell in love with the massive layered party dresses. Most of my finds came from her house, and I still find them there, even though she died in 1980. My grandfather still lives there. She never threw anything away."

She says she was pretty much dressing as far from the norm as possible through 12th grade.

"It was pretty much new wave/punk but nobody else in my school was dressing like that. I was even dressing in my grandmother's clothes and shopping at thrift stores and garage sales. I was also making my own clothes and taking orders from friends.

"My yearbook is filled with best wishes hoping I would become a fashion designer.

"When I really love something, and it is my size, I consider it mine," she says of her vintage discoveries. "I can't help it."

For Becca, the best thing about her interest is that she can do everything from her home and do it on her own schedule. She's there when her children get home from school. Family is very important.

"I quit the "real world work force" 12 years ago (she worked in the dietary department at McKeesport Hospital) and never looked back. Even if I did not sell or collect, fashion of every era is still a passion of mine."

The vintage market in general is completely saturated right now, she says. It's a very competitive business but she is driven by love of great designs, whether it is a Betsey Johnson for Alley Cat or an early '80s piece from Express. It isn't business frenzy which keeps her looking. It's fascination. If she can sell something, fine.

And she always has her eyes peeled for a Fortuny (the Holy Grail of any vintage collector, she says), or a Ceil Chapman, a '70s Stephen Burrows dress, an '80s Lacroix or a'40s Dior.

"I don't just wake up each day and decide to wear vintage," says Becca, who is 35. "It's part of my wardrobe but I also have jeans and T-shirts and a couple of running suits and sweats. Like most women. I mix them up.

"For some reason, however, I almost always carry a vintage purse."

She says her children vary in their opinions of vintage clothing.

Her son, Devin, 14, will sometimes wear vintage T-shirts, but Emily, 12, and Amanda, 11, are more particular.

"It's not as easy to get them to wear anything unless it is "in style" at the mall," she says, "so they aren't into it.

"Not yet," she adds with a glimmer of hope.

Her Web site is www.tribeccavintage.com)

You can reach Barbara Cloud at bcloud@post-gazette.com.