I’ve always been drawn to vintage things. The idea of them has influenced me greatly.
If you walk into a true vintage store, you immediately get a sense of the place and how different it is. There’s that strange, almost musky aroma that usually permeates these places. You usually get the sniffles just because you entered one. The clothes are often disorganized, in odd sizes, and are probably arranged by type of garment rather than brand. If the place sells denim, they’re often so worn-in and faded that you can hardly compare them to a brand-new pair. If you happen to chance into one sells vintage furniture, the leather on a chair is usually so soft to the point of sinking.
It’s magical. There’s this sort of of feeling and essence to a vintage item that I can’t quite place that I’ve always been fascinated by. Vintage items are imbued with a certain kind of power that a brand-new item can never replicate. The fact that they’ve been used for years, or in some cases even decades, creates this personality to the item that you can immediately sense. Each piece has its own story built over the lifespan of the item, personal to the previous owner.
A vintage leather biker jacket might have been worn dozens of times while cruising along the highways. A skate shoe might have been there with the wearer as he or she grew up skating, imbued with all the bumps and bruises associated with skating. A band merchandise t-shirt might have been to concerts we could only wish we could attend. Imagine - the possibility of buying something that’s been around the world, around cities, or even just around the park. And each piece is distinct in that aspect.
These pieces are usually also of a high enough quality that they last long enough to make it to the store to begin with. It’s such a far cry from the current fashion landscape we live in now, with the speed of social media creating and getting rid of trends so quickly that fast-fashion places are the norm. I have nothing against Zara (except their straight-up copying of designs), but there was a study that said that most people don’t even give their Zara clothing ten wears. There’s no story there, just a forgotten piece of fabric.
Steve Jobs had a saying that the most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. That the storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation to come. I suppose that means that when you purchase a vintage item and use it as the previous owner once did, you continue the story being told. You become the new storyteller, and you make it your own.
