Moth-eaten and musty or a wardrobe must-have? Either way, the ‘vintage’ trend has prevailed over the past few years. Notoriously hard to define, I often wonder what is vintage?
Can I go into a charity shop, buy a jumper that belonged to someone older than my grandmother and call it vintage chic? When does it stop being second hand and start becoming the height of fashion? If, when complimenting someone’s clothing you’re met with the answer ‘Oh, thanks – it’s second hand’ you may well get put off, but if they tell you it’s vintage you’d probably think it’s cool, yet essentially it means exactly the same thing. If I'm honest, I’m pretty glad of this current trend as I have personally always had a retrospective look on fashion, particularly having some sort of life-long obsession with the 1960’s. I’m not too sure where this love started – predominantly playing in my Mum’s vast wardrobe as a bored child and my youthful love of itv’s Heartbeat which I favoured over kid’s shows because I‘liked the clothes and the music.’ I do believe that Nick Berry was my first crush too, but we all have regrets. I remember spending hours after school when I was terribly young in Mum’s wardrobe attempting to make myself look like Dusty Springfield or ‘Gina out of Heartbeat’, so imagine my joy when the trend really took off – just about the time when the clothes started fitting me, conveniently.
I remember shopping in charity shops quite a few years ago for woolly jumpers, dresses and gold jewellery but I was met with cries from some of my friends of ‘Oh my God that’s horrible, what if someone died in those clothes?’ There was such a stigma attached, yet now they all shop 'vintage' and it’s suddenly fine to get exactly the same items from a speciality vintage store. It seems that the idea of wearing second hand fashionably, or looking ‘vintage’ started in the mid 1990’s with the emergence of Brit-pop bands and people like Jarvis Cocker famously wearing clothes from car boot sales – he is once quoted as saying that his favourite pair of trousers during Pulp’s fame he actually got from a skip. Yet, it is only over the past few years really that the idea has really taken off on the high streets, sparking a national craze. Of course, at the high end of the market, vintage is big business and always has been, due to the tremendous value of stand-out designers and couture pieces, but the items within an average budget are fundamentally second hand, we just feel better calling them vintage.
It’s the musty attic, smoky smell of the clothes that’s one of the things I love about it. Naturally, always wash before wearing – it’s hardly as attractive as a signature scent after all, but it’s exciting, to me anyway, that behind every piece there is some sort of story. I have been known on more than one occasion to dream up some tale of heady 1970’s bohemia and imagine the person, or people, who have owned the item before me. I like to think that the clothes have had a life; it makes them more interesting and unique.
Think of any decade of the 20th century and you can conjure up a typical image, or various images that defined the fashions, with quite regimental time boundaries. Whether our images are fully accurate as we have not lived in them is irrelevant, it’s the very fact that we can do it that says so much. At the moment, we’re not pinned down to one new look or identity and are always looking back in time for inspiration, as opposed to in the twentieth century when fashion was predominantly about looking forward, finding something new. We've just reached the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century yet I can think of barely any new fashion ideas that will define our high street in years to come. Look at people on the street today and you will see an eclectic mix of various pasts – indie boys looking like Mods wearing Ben Sherman, Fred Perry and overcoats or going all 1950’s with waistcoats, skinny ties and tailored pieces, girls in pearls and 1980’s jumpers, slogan t-shirts or the high-waisted 1940’s silhouette, the list goes on. It’s brilliant of course, because I adore vintage and have always been fascinated by past fashions, but it just means that we don’t have much of a legacy to leave future generations (New Rave? No.) Whether actually vintage or an inspired piece with a fresh take, we haven't had huge amounts of innovation in the high street. Please note I am talking about the high street and not high end, dismissing McQueen and co would be blasphemy.
With so many gorgeous vintage and second hand stores in Liverpool as well as some incredibly good charity shops, it is a shame to fall victim to the glitzy window displays every time you shop. Try second hand once in a while. It will save money, look unique and support local businesses or charities. Team it with high street pieces to give it a fresh look and you can guarantee that nobody will be wearing the same.Simultaneously retrospective and contemporary, vintage is most definitely the way forward.
