The Importance of Vintage Fashion: Timeless Style with a Story

Vintage fashion, why have we as consumers become so obsessed with this line of style. Vintage  clothing has its own fashion world, millions of designers and artists who have worked to make  timeless styles which have always been more than just a trend. Each design no matter high end or  day to day of clothing has been influenced by some context. What's trending right now? What do  people want to buy? Somewhere along the line however clothing switched from unique designs to  mass-produced items, somehow with the tag 'Vintage' trending, fast fashion label their items as  vintage and vintage shops label fast fashion items as being retro, why? To make money. Fashion  is not all about profit, many designers create for a plethora of different reasons, some for art and  some even as far as political activism, a factual statement however is that major brands create  only for financial profit, killing the environment and the artistic side of fashion with them.  

So, vintage fashion, a trend or timeless, the answer is both. And why is it so important to be  discussing this topic? With AI, consumerism and mass production hitting the art world like a  wrecking ball, it's important to acknowledge products we have created with human heads and  human hearts and that is what makes vintage fashion so precious, it was made in a time without  the artificial resources we possess in modern day.  

In the 1970s, designer Vivian Westwood created the iconic punk band The Sex Pistols to market  her designs, designs which still now are logos for the incredibly successful fashion house. In the  1980's when Westwood hit her peak her punk mentality and designs remained. Westwood is one  

of the thousands of examples of the deep context behind vintage design during the 1950's to  early 2000's. Vivian Westwood as a fashion house continues to create designs after her passing in  December 2022, many however have argued the designs are not to the original standard due to  the influence of consumerism and mass production. Regardless of opinion Vivian Westwood  certainly made her mark alongside an outstanding legacy. 

There is something timeless in vintage fashion, designs made by people before us when ideas felt  more fresh and often risqué, that doesn’t mean modern designs are not beautiful and unique, it’s  just a shame when they’re made only for sake of profit in my opinion. Clothes should make us feel good, and the people designing what we wear create with the delightful idea in mind that another  person will be wearing their designs. This piece isn’t just about vintage style, clothing or the  designers behind them, it's about what it truly means to create fashion and the difference  between now and then. Consumers of fast fashion are not necessarily the issue, we're all guilty of  it! But, something I think from time to time is the beauty of wearing art another person has created  and the intimacy behind that and if there’s one thing we know about vintage clothing, we can be  sure it's much more human than clothes created now. Vintage clothing, a trend or timeless? I  believe it is always timeless and I believe it's important to always remember why. 

Written by, Libby Massey