As I was combing through the broadsheet hum drum, I came across an interesting/amusing piece in the Times questioning ‘Vintage – RIP?’. Vintage fashion had in Ruby Warrington’s words ‘become a victim of its own success’ with indenti-kit rails of checked shirts, cowboy boots and floral dresses. ‚ÄúIt‚Äôs become so pass√© to say that something‚Äôs vintage. Everybody has been banging on about vintage this and vintage that for so long, it just got really boring.‚Äù says a fashion PR who wanted to remain annonymous. Warrington concludes by saying it’s time to ‘archive the vintage.’
These kinds of declarations of vintage being ‘over’ is only the case because fashion circles put the word vintage on some sort of a pedestal in the first place. If people turned to vintage in the first place for something ‘unique’ or ‘one-off’, then you get the problems. The truth is that no, that romper playsuit that you bought in a vintage store probably isn’t a one-off. That unless you shell out a bit more money on the higher end of vintage, it probably isn’t going to be that special. The thing is there is no need to care though seeing as the romper playsuit will probably be cuter than anything you’d find in stores brand new. If we just look at buying vintage clothes as buying ‘things we like’ as opposed to ‘search for the unique’, there is no need to think of ‘vintage’ as a dirty word.
However, the problem is that it started off with people just wanting to genuinely buy old things and not wanting to buy contemporary clothes. Which somehow then got turned into the search for the holy grail in fashion: ‘Looking unique and standing out.’ Actresses wearing vintage gowns at award ceremonies or the like. So then ‘vintage’ became a term to smugly name-drop. I remember when people and, some still do say ‘It’s vintage’ dripping with so much sticky smugness, it cowered you into never asking where someone got their outfit from. Then there is the issue of price. What one used to buy for pittance is now over-priced and tagged up in Topshop and Urban Outfitters. These are the bad eggs of vintage shopping and is in no way indicative of vintage shopping as a whole.
If the word ‘vintage’ has built up a bit of a bad rep, there are ways and means of avoiding those ‘bad eggs’ of vintage shopping. To shunt it completely and ‘archive’ it I think would be foolish indeed. I guess I never thought buying vintage was ever going to make my outfits more unique, but rather it’s just another way of adding a different dimension. I also happen to have a genuine interest in history and it is a way for me to incorporate that into my style. I feel that shopping for vintage clothes should never have become this ‘superior status’ badge but rather be seen as another way of shopping for clothes. That way, there isn’t the need to question its downfall.