Vintage vignettes

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Walking around Portobello market and looking at the tiny and stuffy shops with rows and rows of vintage clothing stuffed in tight rails, I wondered what its lure really was. Why on earth would anyone ‘choose’ to buy old smelly clothes instead of buying fresh crisp new outfits in the latest cuts?
Vintage has always given me the witches of Portobello feeling. And the feeling that the fabric is so old that the dress may tear at any point in time. I look at a lace dress and wonder about its previous owner — she could have been a mad old woman who suffered from chronic disorders. Why, why, why would anyone be tempted to buy her second-hand dress?
But at some point in fashion, vintage did become more cool than haute couture itself. Until I imagine some celebrities had some major wardrobe malfunction. Kate Moss in a highly published event wore a vintage dress to a glitzy event at the Natural History Museum and her dress by the end of the evening had fallen apart. And she was trying very hard to pass off her black maxi dress as a mini number. Of course the paparazzi had a field day taking shots of her underwear.
I think it was cool to wear vintage when you could sort through a jumble of old clothing and come up with a ‘find’ for USD 20. And it could have been anything from a Jean Paul Gaultier jacket to a Chanel top or even a Ferragamo skirt.
Before vintage became a scam, you could go down small shops in tiny by-lanes and actually find an embroidered dress which was rare and beautiful. The idea of finding superb workmanship was appealing as fine hand-work is precious in today’s scenario when labour is so expensive. Also there was an idea that anyone can look good in haute couture, but to look good in vintage you have to be stylish.
Today, most vintage clothing dealers and shops are very professional. And they exactly know what they are selling at huge mark-ups. Nothing which is a ‘brand’ is priced less than USD 1,500 and at that sort of a price tag you can easily find a Gucci, Prada or even an up-to-date Ferragamo for that matter. To really find vintage ‘gold’ you need to be struck by a Hermes crocodile Birkin while rummaging through a heap of old rubbish. Good luck!
The writer owns a fashion brand based in Europe. She can be reached on info@amishi.eu [3]