I got a new coat yesterday. Well not new I guess. It’s second hand (oooh vintage - la dee da) long grey wool. I’m immoderately fond of almost anything in grey wool. It’s fitted with a collar and, just below the waist, skirts out a little. I wore it riding my bicycle last night - I felt like I was in the French resistance or running messages on the Russian front. I have a grey wool cap, and if I wear the two together I look like a proper little soldier.

I hesitate to call anything vintage anymore. I worked in vintage and retro clothes for over a decade (yikes) and things are really getting out of hand. It seems that, since the eBay phenomenon, everyone has taken to calling every second-hand piece of crap thing they drag out from the bottom of their closet vintage. That’s not really how it works. There are guidelines and age requirements. True vintage, I believe, must be at least 25 years old. Otherwise you can call it retro - or be honest and just call it used. But Fashion does love a label, so that wouldn’t do at all…

Audrey Hepburn in vintage. Ha ha.

I sound bitter, I know, but really I’m just fashion mad. I have been since I was a little kid. I love clothes - new, old, whatever. My mom used to take me to Goodwill when I was young, so I’ve always appreciated the treasure hunt of second-hand shopping. I liked having things no one else had - and I liked to think the clothes I wore had a past. When I started working in boutiques and being able to recognize the histories of things I was utterly smitten. Over the years I have collected a few pieces that I absolutely adore: a blood-red silk velvet floor length halter dress from the 1930s, a turn of the century hand-embroidered-by-the-bride wedding shawl, a satin one-piece ballet tutu from the 1940s. I imagine the parties and recitals those clothes went to - about how the bride made every little stitch dreaming of her future. I have also amassed a formidable amount of nonsense clothing. Charity shops are a great place to buy things you only want to wear a few times - things that are just too outré to last (and too cheap to keep). I get a bit annoyed when someone tries to charge me $60 for a pair of 5-year-old vinyl shoes they just bought for $3. Vintage my eye.

Celebrities like Chloe Sevigny (pictured)
and Parker Posey know how to make the most of second hand -
without making a fuss.

It’s possible I need to learn not to get so worked up about things. It’s just that I think everyone has some kind of unusual style in them, and I think that the Fashion Machine teaches people not to trust themselves. Elites hold on tight to the couture (and anything that seems interesting), and then hand the world Banana Republic and The Gap and Urban Outfitters and Abercrombie and Fitch - the list is endless. It’s just the same crap over and over at different price points, and while I’m all for utility pieces and function, it quashes self expression. The thing about second hand is that it’s high fashion for low budgets, so until now, the fact that I couldn’t afford mad couture didn’t matter. But when it starts to be that I can’t afford second hand because the vintage boutiques are getting their stock from the thrift shops - and the rest of the world moves their garage sales to eBay and starts tossing around the word vintage to inflate the value of things they bought on sale at Le Chateau - I get a tiny bit pissy.

Hm. But I did get a new coat. It’s vintage, you know.
Wanna make me an offer?

coco.