Coinciding with the revival of swing dancing over a decade ago, there has been a continual stream of articles alerting us to the popularity of vintage clothing in contemporary fashion. Unlike trends that disappear in a season or two, the interest in and demand for quality vintage has only increased. Given the fact that there is an absolutely finite supply of clothing made in 1955 (or any other year), it was inevitable that archival remakes would appear on the scene.

House of Vionnet 2007

The fashion industry right now seems poised in a moment of cognitive dissonance - watching the hype machine formula that served them so well contract and crumble around them, nervous about committing to a new direction while knowing that their survival depends on it. While there are no doubt many independent designers who relish striking forward into new visions for 21st century, the business machinery who back the vast majority of manufacturing and distribution are groping for a sure thing.

In her article for the Financial Times, Nicola Copping explains “fashion’s love affair with reinventing its own past:”

“The demand for archive pieces is huge in the fashion market,” says Jean Bousquet, managing director of Cacharel, which launched a vintage collection, in collaboration with Liberty, to celebrate its 50th anniversary in April. “We are arriving at the end of a fashion cycle; there has been nothing very new for a long time and a general tiredness has been established. The comeback of vintage testifies to a passion for the renewal of the past. We look at past successes to create the new. We might do several more archive collections in the future.”

It seems contradictory that the antidote to tiredness and lack of newness would be to remake old pieces rather than innovate new ways of dressing. But perhaps the sameness and monotony lamented refers more to what’s hanging on the racks in the mall right now - hundreds of thousands of similar versions of the same WGSN trend dictated pattern blocks. Against that backdrop, an dress from the fifties seems intricate and novel by comparison. Not to mention nostalgic:

“With all the recent concerns in the economy, people are feeling a bit nostalgic; they are looking to brands they can trust, who have a significant heritage and who offer great quality and value,” says Sir Stuart Rose, executive chairman of M&S…After all, when the future is uncertain, why not rely on the stability of the past?

It makes me wonder, though, how this demand for archival quality vintage remakes fits in with Cathy Horyn and Simon Doonan’s observations I quoted in an earlier post:

“It’s impossible to think of something you can drag out from the land of naffness and make cool,” Mr. Doonan said, referring to the process by which banal or out-of-date styles are brought back and, after much analysis and decoding and finally brand approval, become fashionable. He offered up the drop-waist denim dress, a wholesome style from the ’80s, saying it was rife with ironic potential.

I laughed. That was really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

When the term ‘vintage’ has reached the point where it is applied to intricately tailored designer suits from the forties and the pilled rayon floral drop yoked dresses from the early nineties all over the racks of ‘vintage’ stores on South Congress alike, it’s time to dig deeper and get more specific.

At which point I venture into subjective commentary that threatens to reveal the inner old lady I’m cultivating, who’s ever so sure that things were much better in her day… and wax poetic about my teenage days before vintage dealers had built alliances with thrift wholesalers to skim all the real vintage off before it ever reached retail. Even though there were already established vintage shops, our generation could still readily and easily find mint condition garments from the 50s and 60s, and even the occasional 30s piece. It was in the urine scented musty old warehouse of the Purple Heart deep in the barrio of Houston (a far cry from the sanitized, service oriented Savers stores now in middle class neighborhoods everywhere) that my eyes were opened to how clothing could be designed and built.

Those nasty floral rayon dresses commanding $40+ for ironic cred today were hanging in the racks of the malls 15 years ago (for about the same price) and were the very things that we were trying to find an alternative to. College kids can get away with sporting them today because, well, for the most part 20somethings are young and cute no matter what. If the tastemakers among them deem poly/cotton crayola colored schoolteacher clothes from Sears circa 1995 to be the indie cool thing to wear, thus it has been decreed.

Although the resources available now may not be as choice as what I had the good fortune to have access to, the basic phenomenon remains the same - acquisition of cultural capital - items laden with coded meaning signifying under the radar to those in the know that you are distinct from the mall rat masses.

10 years ago the thrift store racks were chock full of those rayon florals and leagues of out of fashion middle aged women were wearing them to suburban office parks and grocery stores across America. It is only now that the vast majority of those wearers have long sinced been shamed by their peers into abandoning those for a new round of crap from the mall that the style has finally become scarce enough to have the potential for ironic cred amongst those young enough to see the style as novel.