Interest in vintage is as high as ever, including in Russia. The search for rare designer items or obscure but cute dresses, skirts and jewelry from the 1950s, 1960s and other decades is comparable to hunting, and large-scale vintage markets take place at least once a season, gathering thousands of visitors. Even retailers like Farfetch and Aizel have long had and expanded their vintage sections.
First of all, it is worth deciding what vintage is in general. Things that have crossed the 30-year mark are considered vintage. At the same time, collections from the 1990s can no longer be attributed to this category. Things that fit the search term must reflect a certain historical era and have a clear identification.
Non-vintage can be called things that are difficult to describe as belonging to our time and which look like finds from flea markets, but are made by modern brands and designers. It's important to note that these aren't exactly fashion quotes from the past. For example, Gucci has been heading for the 1970s for several years. In their collections, certain codes, silhouettes, and colors characteristic of the disco era are caught, but at the first glance it becomes clear: the collection was created quite recently, modernized, and the era has been passed through conditional filters.
- Rouge cardigan, € 170
- Jil Sander earrings, 11 650 rubles.
- Mir Stores bag, 6390 rubles.
- Blouse Paul & Joe, 13 800 rubles.
- Shoes Carel (Rendez-Vouz), 16 250 rubles.
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Neo-vintage, rather, about an almost literal reproduction of a thing from the past. Loose knitwear, string bags and woven bags, carved clasps on velvet bags, beaded minaudiers, and a dozen other similar items look like guests from the past, although they are made of modern materials.
Pseudo-French chic feels especially good in the wake of the popularity of neo-vintage: silk floral dresses that seem to be associated with the 1970s, but in combination with coarse lace-up boots remind of the fashion of the 1990s. Here you can add wicker baskets, which have been in the top of summer trends for several years, as well as glasses in the style of a retro.
Many brands create image stories based on such images. The list includes the American Réalsiation par (which is typical, the brand has a French name), Rouge, which was founded by French it-girl and influencer Jeanne Damas, who successfully plays on French fashion stereotypes. In Russia, the Moscow brand Not Fragile, which was launched in 2018 and currently exists only within Instagram, copes with this story by five points.
- Le Specs glasses, £ 96
- Rouge dress, € 175
- Rag & Bone Cloak (Net-a-Porter), £ 671
- Sophie Anderson's bag, £ 150
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All these brands do not just cite certain decades, but build a filigree and verified picture using linen fabrics, an abundance of crochets, natural shades or psychedelic prints. Many successfully create analogs of materials, the popularity of which fell on the previous periods of fashion history: tortoiseshell, ivory, amber. Stores that specialize in vintage jewelry (like More is More), as well as brands offering pieces in the same style, are on the rise this year. Sometimes it is simply impossible to tell where the earrings are from 1978 and where are from 2018.
A reasonable question arises: why pay more when you can go to a vintage store and spend not 20, but 5 or 10 thousand on the dress you like. Firstly, such places are not quite the right territory for finding exactly the thing that you need, for example, if you need a dress “the same, but with mother-of-pearl buttons”. In vintage shops, almost all categories of items (with the possible exception of jeans) are presented in one size. Only a few vintage shops repair time-damaged dresses or shirts, and not all customers will want to buy even a very beautiful but damaged item that needs restoration. Many are scared off by the smell of old things, although in fact this is an indicator that the thing has been processed.
- Dinosaur Designs (Net-a-Porter) Earrings, £ 159
- Yves Salomon fur coat, price upon request
- Rouge jumper, € 135
- Bag 0711 (More is Love), $ 700
- COS shoes, 14,990 rubles.
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In addition, vintage shopping can be compared to hunting: sometimes it takes a long time to rummage through a heap of garbage, but find your Peregrina. In short, there are a lot of subtleties here, and if you just want to buy as soon as possible a dress with a fluffy skirt in a Vichy check, like the one that Brigitte Bardot had at her wedding, short white gloves, a black leather coat with an accent on the shoulders, then you save a lot more time by going to a designer who specializes in something like this.
Neo-vintage can charm several generations at once: both millennials who love this style, hunting for things in vintage stores and second-hand stores, and wealthier people whose youth fell on the 1970s or 1980s, who do not want to comb the ranks of time "clothes.>
