For a certain species of vintage collector, the thrill is in the hunt. For those of us less inclined to dig through the occasionally mildewed piles that make up the secondhand shops, grandmother’s attics, and Goodwills of this great nation, the thrill is the find. Those in the latter category have good reason to celebrate tomorrow. Two separate vintage troves go on sale online—no muss, less fuss.
On Thursday, Ralph Lauren launches the new RLVintage.com. The e-commerce site will offer one-of-a-kind vintage RL pieces selected by Lauren and a team of label obsessives sourced from around the globe: Brooklyn-based consultant and curator Ali of A Noble Savage, the blogueuses Hollister and Porter Hovey, and more stylish, Western-kitted Japanese guys than it seems possible to imagine. (One, Tez Saito, was so touched by an encounter with the Ralph Lauren Home collection 30 years ago that he opened his own shop in Tokyo, Reflex, that specializes in vintage RL.) Fifty pieces per season will be offered, from rodeo jackets to Navajo sweaters.
Meanwhile, Margherita Missoni is debuting her own collection of personal vintage as well. Seventy of her own pieces—including, naturally, plenty of Missoni—debut on Yoox.com tomorrow, benefitting OrphanAid Africa. (She serves as the president of the charity’s Italian chapter.) “Sometimes life has been too generous with me,” she says. “This is definitely the case with clothes.” (So much so that to keep them all, she’d “need life to be just as generous in terms of closet space, homes, and patience from my husband.”) She’s paying it forward, with eveningwear, day dresses, coats, and accessories.
The pile-divers may sniff at such pre-sifted vintage as fish in the proverbial barrel. Their loss.
—Matthew Schneier
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