Vintage Fashion: Old Gold or Plain Old?
“Where did you get your top?”
“Oh, it’s vintage!”
Tell me you have not heard those lines before. Emma Watson donned vintage Ossie Clark dress for Harry Potter premier. Factories are racing to feed us with vintage-inspired clothes. Thrift shops are now flooded with the young and hip as opposed to a few quirks and indies. Vintage has never been more mainstream that it is now. What is it with the hype in what formerly deemed as junk?
I was pondering of the reasons why these people (including me) are hunting for bunch of clothes coming from the 20s to 80s. Yes, the material quality is top notch, and today the world is starting to care for the environment hence clothes recycling is the way to go. But, really people? Do we really aim for long-term usage when we shop? Our Blackberries and iPods certainly do not think so.
There must be something beyond this craze that even the Chinese do not deem secondhand clothing as a sin anymore. I remember how I used to get a certain stare when I said my brown leather sling bag used to be mum’s. When you are in a Chinese community, going thrifting is a secret you should keep to yourself. But now I see metropolitan city kids in Indonesia flocking Bandung not merely for factory outlet clothes but the major secondhand market.
Same goes to the A-listers. Those with good eyes for vintage items are now our role models. We fell for Tavi Gevinson and her Style Rookie since its first bloom; adoring her grandma fashion musing. Florence and the Machine is exciting not only for their Dog Days are Over but also for Ms. Welch’s vintage vibe. Zooey Deschanel is now a mainstream darling with her vintage prep – noone sees her the way she is seen today 5 years ago. She is suddenly the trendsetter as opposed to the indie kid.
And then it hit me. That we all are hungry for vintage items for there are so much identity in it. When we see shift dresses, we know it is the mod style from the 60s. Full skirts and perms belong to the 50s, wide-legged pants to the 70s. There is enough time for trends to develop, be absorbed, and define an era. A pleated dress never tried to be anything more than it is supposed to be, no over the top floral details, for instance. Vintage fashion respects clothes by letting each part of them shine. Such kind of purity is lacking in modern clothes - we excessively see cheap chiffon dresses with Peter Pan collars in today’s boutiques.
Fashion trends could never be separated from role models of an era. There used to be only Audrey Hepburn, Jackie O, and Twiggy setting trends. But today people look up to completely different figures – be it from the indie scene, the pop, the punk, the bloggers, other street stylers. The world is so connected that it enriches fashion trends in a way. But, it also is blurring the era. There is no name for the millennium era after the baggy 90s.
Is it a sign that people are now seeking to rediscover communal identity through the resurrection of vintage fashion? Could as well be. Designers would not hail vintage fashion for inspiration if the era is not worth of celebrating. The time is moving so fast that sometimes we get overwhelmed by how fast Youtube sensations, social issues, and trending topics change. We long to have enough time to sit back and absorb new developments before the new ones arrive – the good old feeling we get when we listen to golden oldies on a Sunday morning with a printed magazine at hand. Such sentiment is the real gold beyond the plain old vintage pieces.