Acquisition
Popular places to buy vintage clothing include charity-run second hand clothing shops, garage sales, car boot sales, flea markets, antique markets, estate sales, auctions, vintage clothing shops and vintage fashion, textile or collectables fairs. One of the first regular fairs that was set up specifically to cater for the current demand for vintage clothing is Frock Me!. This event takes place regularly throughout the year in Chelsea, London as well as in Brighton. Vintage clothing can sometimes be obtained from older friends and relatives, because some people store their old clothing for long periods of time.
The advent of the internet has been a boon to the vintage clothing fancier, as it has been for all collectors. It has increased the availability of specific and hard-to-get items and opened up prospective markets for sellers around the world. Popular places to acquire garments include online auctions (e.g. eBay), multi-vendor sites (e.g. Etsy), online vintage clothing shops and specialist forums. While future inflationary trends should benefit the discriminating collector in vintage clothing, clearly factors other than inflation have given a boost to vintage clothing. The ubiquity of the internet has greatly widened the "constituency" of vintage clothing collectors.
Constituency is a term of art in the investment world, referring to actual and potential investors in an asset class, e.g., vintage clothing. A change in the size of the constituency implies a change in the structure of the market. This alters the supply/demand situation for that asset class, either pushing prices up or depressing them.
In the case of the internet and vintage clothing, a greatly enlarged pool of potential collectors, a widened constituency—women with aesthetic discrimination and the money to collect—are able to enter the market, thanks to the internet.
These collectors can now evaluate potential purchases, often more accurately than was possible in person at rare and hard-to-attend vintage clothing shows. Through electronic payment systems, collectors can purchase online more efficiently than ever before.
Vintage garments designed by the following designers are particularly sought after - especially when they are representative of the designer or the era: Marc Jacobs, Coco Chanel, Paul Poiret, Mariano Fortuny, Elsa Schiaparelli, Jeanne Paquin, Madeleine Vionnet, Jeanne Lanvin, Christian Dior, Hubert de Givenchy, Claire McCardell, Cristobal Balenciaga, Emilio Pucci, Yves Saint-Laurent, Ossie Clark, Biba, Mary Quant, Pierre Cardin, Halston, Giorgio Armani, Zandra Rhodes, Vivienne Westwood, Thierry Mugler, Gianni Versace, and Jean Paul Gaultier.
An important contributing factor in the value of an item of vintage clothing can also be its provenance. Vintage clothing collectors, like other collectors of history, value and record the background of an item: who wore it and to what occasion.
Due to increased demand, pre-1950s garments in good condition are becoming more difficult to find, and more expensive to procure. Clothing from more recent decades is easier to locate, identify, restore, conserve and (with the exception of popular designers) more affordable - subject to market forces and the cycle of fashion.
Read more about this topic: Vintage Clothing
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