enchantee-vie: OLD is HIP

"Appreciating the past to learn for the future"

It's a wisdom we should all carry out in our lives and which can be applied to almost everything and everyone. The longing to going back to how it used to be, looking back to the past to help us find solutions for contemporary problems, smiling while remembering those good old days, listening to nostalgic tunes trying to imagine how it once was, watching childhood pictures and wishing we could turn back time, collecting items that were once desired, but somehow lost their glamour along the way,...

The past is always somehow linked to today and today to what could happen tomorrow and more than one person has noticed this. Also in fashion, designers have always found inspiration in past times. The great Yves Saint Laurent saw the beauty and magic of designs from the past and found inspiration to create his "Vintage Collection", celebrities left their new designer dresses in the closet and chose to walk the red carpet in Fifties designer's pieces and now fashion victims all over the world are pimping up their outfits with Vintage accessories.

Thanks to this broadened interest in Vintage it has become accessible and affordable for everyone, the general thought that Vintage is unaffordable has proven to be an urban legend and let's thank God for that!

"Vintage" is generally labeled all of the pieces made between 1920 and 1970. Although, nowadays, lots of experts also consider items from the Eighties as being worth the name "Vintage".

But Vintage doesn't necessarily rhyme with "designer" and therefore "expensive". Your grandmother's Thirties silk scarf is as much "Vintage" as the 500 euro Chanel clutch your fashionista neighbor owns. Nor does it have to be "used". Vintage items can be used, renewed or just new or never worn before.

Nowadays anyone can find Vintage almost everywhere. From Portobello market in London, to Les Puces in Paris to the second hand store on the corner of your street. A keen eye can find a nice vintage piece anywhere!

The definition of how Vintage looks like seems to depend on the place where you find it. I've noticed, for example, that Italian Vintage tends to be more focused on designer items while the Vintage I found in the little streets of Antwerp are more second hand and renewed items.

Big fashion chains don't seem to have missed out on the current Vintage trend either. Stores like "Urban Outfitters" and "American Apparel" are busy looking for fashionable items of past times all the time and make an effort to give them back the beauty and glamour they once had while also suggesting contemporary items to mix and match.

"Mixing and matching" are the verbs one must never forget when thinking about Vintage. To be a real fashionista, to create your own style, to bring something new to the streets and to inspire others, "mixing and matching" old items with new ones and adding your own personal flair is the way to go.

Which brings me to the next question: "Is Vintage accessible to and understandable for everyone?". Vintage isn't (and hopefully won't become) a general streetstyle. It's still quite reserved to who's really intersted in fashion or better, to those who like to express themselves differently than most others and who are looking for their own, unique style every day. It demands interest, research, a good (and trained) eye and a feeling for "mixing and matching".

All in all, whatever one is looking for: recycling to help make our world a better place, soothing nostalgic longings or just seizing the opportunity to express yourself as a creative and unique person; whatever the hidden reason, Vintage seems to be an upcoming - and not ready to disappear anytime soon - trend and streetstyle is being colored by styles of all times and decades, "Old is Hip", we can't deny and how do you feel about that?!