Yesterday an interview with Jessica was published and I felt compelled to share her view with you. In response to Anne Hathaway's Chanel Haute Couture gown that is being touted as being vintage around the web, our newest girl crush — stylist extraordinaire Jessica Paster remarked:
"I was very surprised that Chanel brought a dress out from 2009 [for Anne Hathaway]. 2009 is not vintage. It’s an older dress. Vintage is vintage. It’s something in the ‘70s, ‘60s, ‘50s. The ‘90s is vintage maybe, the ‘80s perhaps. But I thought she looked lovely."
Lovely to hear someone publicly acknowledge that vintage is more then just something from a few seasons ago. I love that she obviously knows her stuff and realizes that yes, there is a difference between vintage and "older". On Shrimpton Couture, our focus is of course real vintage but we still do fully embrace and showcase pieces that are more recent and what we like to call "future vintage" as long as they are truly fabulous. However, my team and I will always, always love true, proper vintage more.
Why? Well, besides the debatable point of "how old does vintage have to be before it can be called vintage ?", there is that very important extra element that basically boils down to the question of:
Has the item stood the test of time in terms of style, desirability and workmanship?
Assigning the moniker of Vintage is certainly not just a automatic qualification of literal years around our offices.*
The much bandied about word and what range of years you assign to it are not the important consideration — what is important when coining something as vintage is to recognize the word as a concept that covers oh so much more than just age!
Hunt for real vintage while you debate on this todayxxxcherie
*PS My own personal stance is that vintage can be termed vintage at about 20 years old. and after 100 years its an antique. If the hypothetical client who is able to buy vintage for herself and wear it, did not even exist when it was originally created that's good enough for me for it to be vintage and at the opposite end if few of the original owners exist anymore than it is beyond the term vintage.
PSS Vintage is absolutely NOT crappy resell shitty-made, mass produced, cheap YUCK that was made and marketed anytime after about 1975 — never. You may argue all you want but my fingers remain firmly in my ears and yes, I am yelling LALALALALALALALALA
PSSS Vintage or not, if Chanel pulled out the archives and let me wear Haute Couture 2009 — I am IN