Vintage is coming

AT VINTER Vintage, you don’t have to do any treasure hunting because that has been done for you. Unlike bundle stores and thrift shops, this “higher-end” vintage showroom in Solaris Dutamas is meticulously curated with the crème de la crème of vintage apparels sourced from across Scandinavia. No need to scour through messy – and sometimes, musty – piles of second-hand clothes to find your gem!
“We want Vinter Vintage to carry just the top-notch items. We hand-pick each of these pieces, repair, rinse and sterilise them – whatever that needs to be done to bring them as close to mint condition as possible. It’s a higher level of knowledge, service and quality,” explained co-founder Lone Friis Larsen.
But that’s not all. Larsen and her partner-cum-childhood friend Anna Olsen also deliberately attempt to educate and foster appreciation for these history-rich clothings by tagging every piece with its own backstory. Unsurprising, since Larsen is a self-proclaimed historian “by hobby” while Denmark-based Olsen has always been passionate about culture and social behaviour.
“Fashion is one way to look at the political, economical and social situations at that point in history.
Larsen exemplified, “Wide shoulders in the 80s were something that really started in the 30s, which came as a result of women’s rights to vote and their entry into the workforce. That was what the shoulder pads represented back then.”
Apart from their existing sources which include Danish fashion historians and as well as castles, auctions and flea markets, the duo goes to great lengths to acquire these fashion items, very much from scratch. Larsen recounted that back home, they would drive across the country and end up in fashion collectors’ homes, conversing for up to eight hours over coffee.
“To buy is one thing, but it’s another to get them to have faith in our appreciation for vintage clothing. And when they understand that you have knowledge about it, they start warming up and pulling things out for us to buy,” said Larsen.
While enthusiasts would typically want to ponder upon the mysterious background of a vintage apparel - what kind of woman would have worn it, or how liberal and wealthy she was, for instance – Larsen noted that Vinter Vintage also prioritises the timelessness of each piece in order for it to be contemporary and wearable.
“If you look in the modern wardrobe, it’s all vintage. The things we wear and see on the runway are recreations of past trends. There is very little of which we’re able to say is definitely of this era. All the big designers constantly look to the past!
Attributing today’s trend of chokers and bomber jackets to the 90s, she elaborated that it has always been the case for fashion to run in cycles. “There have been far more drastic, revolutionary fashion movements before which we can’t seem to come up with now because nothing shocks us anymore.”
Even so, Larsen – who has been living in Malaysia on and off for 17 years now – noted that the locals can be very brand-conscious, and many remain repulsed at the idea of wearing second-hand or preloved. As opposed to vintage which refers to items that are at least 20 years old, she distinguished preloved as items that could be bought last year or even last week!
Having said that, she highlighted that fashion from the past are made to last, and that vintage from before the 50s – when mass production kicked in – are on par with couture, considering the attention to detail and the methods of stitching that were poured into the clothes, as well as the durability of fabrics they were crafted out of.
“Fashion here has been very flashy; it’s a lot about showing the money that you have for certain brands so you can wear certain things. But it’s now slowly transitioning into style. We’re now hitting a phase where it’s not how much you can afford, but how much style you have.
The tourism development major added, “It’s brilliant that people are wearing used clothes. That way, we try to counter this wasteful society where we shop to throw out or wear something new everyday – it’s not sustainable or realistic.”