The Victorian era may not have much in common with 1970s; yet when an 1835 Victorian corset is paired with a well-worn pair of Levi’s jeans, the unlikely age difference makes the combination for a perfect vintage match.
The advent and rising popularity of vintage clothing, vintage isn’t simply a cheaper alternative to the unused deal ““ it has transformed into its own genre and style of attire that is lovingly worn and recycled.
The Santa Monica Vintage Fashion Expo, a mecca of vintage shopping, will feature about 100 vendors devoted to decades in time-honored fashion trends this weekend.
The vintage expo will play host to a spectrum of fashion from as far back as 1835 in the Victorian era, to as recently as the 1990s.
The show has been in Santa Monica for the past 22 years and has seen as many as 3,000 people.
“The big question often pops up: “˜What is vintage?'” said John Maxwell, one of three founders of the Vintage Fashion Expo, and the only original founder still involved in the business.
“Vintage means so many different things to so many different people, and that’s part of the strength in the show. … Part of the reason for people being interested in vintage is the history, part of it is economics.”
According to Fashion and Student Trends blog editor and third-year English student McKenzie Dowler, finding vintage fashion pieces is a worthwhile hunt.
“It’s always kind of exciting once you find the perfect vintage thing, because they’re kind of hard to fit,” Dowler said.
“It’s kind of like a piece of art, you have to a have a vision as how you’re going to wear it.”
For Dowler, a lot of the fun in vintage style originates from not only its attractive price tag but the historical and one-of-a-kind quality it contains.
“Students … haven’t gone through all of these crazy trends like our parents or our grandparents have gone through, like the high-waisted jeans, or the acid wash jeans, or the scrunchies in your hair, or the vintage retro ’50s dresses,” she said.
“We haven’t experienced that, and vintage is extremely affordable, especially for students.”
Jeanne Little, owner of Little Treasures Vintage and expo participant since 1997, said she believes like any other style, vintage is fluid in popularity.
“Just like with anything, even in vintage, (things) come and go,” Little said. “Things were popular now and not so much next year, and it comes around full circle a few years later. I think the really classy … pieces just go on, there’s always a market for them.”
As the owner of an online vintage store that primarily specializes in purses and jewelry, Little has discovered her own way of navigating and recognizing the style of an era now long gone.
Clothing details, like zippers, can indicate an item’s authenticity.
“It’s just a matter of trying and learning to know if it’s really something from that era,” she said.
“There’s so many wonderful fabrics, but if you find the wrong zipper in it, for the most part you probably don’t have something from a certain era.”
Aside from the specialization in a particular era, the appeal of vintage derives from rarity.
“We say we have early Victorian, which is 1835,” Maxwell said. “You won’t find very much in the 1800s because it’s just gotten so hard to find, but we still have a couple of dealers, and when they can get it they prefer to specialize in that era.”
Maxwell said the majority of the pieces for sale will be authentic vintage, with just a couple of venders selling reproductions. According to Maxwell, a customer can expect to be fashionably schooled upon entering the expo.
“What can they expect to see? A walk through fashion history,” Maxwell said. “As you walk around the show, everybody is always very impressed with such great stuff that shows different faces of fashion history.”
In addition to the historical aspect sewn into the seams, Maxwell said vintage clothing enables one to freely utilize their own sense of fashion while incorporating different styles.
“A lot of the younger people, and I define that as teens and (people in their) 20s … like to mix and match. They’ll find a great … Victorian corset, and they’ll wear that with a pair of jeans, and a wild, colorful scarf,” Maxwell said.
“We have people buying things, and they put their own fashion spin together and wear it,” Maxwell said.