The Vintage represents the rediscovery of the fashion industry proposed in a more sustainable and trendy fashion.
“Vintage Addicted: to be or not to be?” is, therefore, the dilemma of the moment, especially among a very young audience. Since the advent of apps and sites dedicated to Vintage, the appreciation for second-hand clothes has increased. Accomplice the communication that has experienced the Vintage in the network, uniting audiences and entertaining them during this long pandemic. This has made known the Vintage and told the story through many influencers, strategies, reports, and posts, demonstrating fashion’s creative and fascinating power once again.
We talk about Vintage and sustainability with Cecilia Cottafavi, fashion influencer, and industry expert. Author of the website and blog, “Maertens” and the book “A Qualcuno Piace il Vintage.”
Cecilia’s Story
Cecilia is only 25 years old and has many projects. She was born into a family where art is research, passion, and love for what characterizes us as people. She tells me about her family’s travels in the Paris of yesteryear, among craft markets and antiques. Cecilia gets to be passionate about Vintage passing through archaeology. A path that fascinates and intrigues characterizes her.
In middle school, she notices the clothes in the stores near her friends’ homes. Milan, the cradle of fashion, opens to a suburb that begins to be covered with second-hand and antique stores, just as Cecilia attends the high school. With the university, love breaks out!
The Vintage becomes a territory to search, to touch, to know. It is no longer enough to buy a garment; she wants to see the story. The Vintage acquires more and more important in his life, first and then in his profession. Cecilia smiles when she tells me the stories behind the stylistic choices of the stores. She describes with precision the profile of the merchants and her customers. Much beauty shines through in the story of her project: Maertens Milano. A site that collects reflections, editorials, columns, and collaborations on vintage life.
“Life” because vintage style is a lifestyle, a choice of consumption and value.
Cecilia Cottafavi tells her story on social networks, clearing some commonplaces and proposing a refined aesthetic, cultural, and sometimes post-modern.
“Someone Likes Vintage”
“Someone likes Vintage” is the title of Cecilia Cottafavi’s book, published by Bookabook.
A romantic volume that describes the vintage style through the windows of the stores known in recent years. Between the lines, it tells about stores and suburbs, where you can read a Milan of other times; famous not only for fashion but also, and above all, for Vintage.
This volume aims to be a guide for enthusiasts but also for the most curious.
The truth? After reading it, it is impossible not to retrace Cecilia’s steps, perhaps by bike like her, and visit the same places. Touch the garments with your own hands. Observe the graphics, labels, and patterns of the sixties and seventies. Among the pages, you can breathe, not surprisingly, the scent of the great names of fashion combined with the charm of history. I asked Cecilia to tell me a curiosity about her book that she hasn’t told anyone yet.
She revealed to me her favorite story: the Bottega Rossa.
A story within a story outlines the importance of human value in vintage style. It traces the foundations of slow fashion while symbolically shouting the value of Vintage towards a sustainable path.
Cecilia’s bike didn’t stop but continued; despite the difficulties of the pandemic, it ran to relate to new places and cities, online and in its social.
About Style
In the language of fashion, Vintage refers to clothing, jewelry, furniture, or objects of taste belonging to past eras and periods.
Although the vintage style refers to a period no longer current, it is more than ever sought after as a symbol of contemporaneity. Mixed with pop elements, Vintage manages to tell every outfit something more about the person who chooses and wears it. It personalizes, identifies, communicates.
Vintage, born thanks to the subcultures of the 70s, has always enjoyed a certain charm, especially among young people. It revels in playing with the traditional paradigms of the fashion system to create a new foundation for the actual value of garments. The growing concern for weather and environmental conditions, added to the arrival of Vintage in the network, has made this style more inclusive. A choice that is no longer elite but broader in scope.
Cecilia explains that buying Vintage is now a sustainable choice because we recover second-hand or surplus garments and avoid them in landfills.
In addition, the Vintage provides a path of circular economy, especially considering it combined with the growing “CtoC” today.
Small Guide to Vintage
Here are a few simple tips to get in the mood!
To appreciate a vintage garment and understand its actual value, you need to know its history. Understand the material with which it was made. Take care of it in turn. It is knowing the history of fashion, especially when we have a unique garment or an archival piece in front of us. Impossible to find a garment that fits perfectly; we have to consider the help of the friend, the mother, or the seamstress acquaintance. Possible to find a piece that is not perfect.
Imperfection is what produces beauty.
Just as there needs to be an attentive consumer, there needs to be an ethical seller because it is not only the price that defines the actual value. Vintage distances us from the value of what is new and brings us closer to the many meanings that a garment can tell. Should the story also be valued? Can we price emotions?
Understanding these concepts is more easily processed thanks to information and education responsible.
No Comments