There’s no arguing that we have reached peak vintage. In the last few years, a slew of secondhand trends have come and gone, from the Y2K renaissance, to an Indie sleaze’s revival (which never quite took off), to the recent burst of 1990s minimalism à la Calvin Klein and Prada. Sometimes the trends are even more hyper-specific, like last year’s Pucci summer, in which influencers elicited envy while on Euro trips trapezing around in their retro prints.
So, is Y2K ready for another round? (According to The RealReal, searches for the style are up 122% year over year.) Are capris, the cutesy golfer style pants that are all over our social media feeds, the new bottoms to beat? Vogue asked five New York City vintage stores for their on-the-ground opinions of the summer’s top trends.
What are the three most popular brands that people search for in your store?
Emma Rogue, Rogue: As of late, people are loving 2000s era Hollister, Miss Me jeans, and our Rogue Originals line.
Rachel Despeaux, Awoke Vintage: Right now, people seem to focus less on brands and more on fits. We have the evergreen requests for Cavalli, Tom Ford era Gucci, Cop.Copine, and Miss Sixty but people seem more interested in an item’s cut or composition than its brand name.
Kathleen Sorbara, Sorbara’s: Levi’s, Giorgio Armani, and Ralph Lauren.
Reagan Vlass, 313 New York: Ann Demeulemeester, Plein Sud, and Saint Laurent. That said, we carry a lot of brands that are very uncommon to find in New York. It seems that unless they are true brand loyalists, our clients find the more niche the label, the more they want to buy.
Melissa Blumberg, Seven Wonders Collective: Issey Miyake and Jean Paul Gaultier are consistently at the top of the list. The third depends on the store. At our Lower East Side location it’s Roberto Cavalli, while in Williamsburg it’s Marithé + François Girbaud.
Do you receive any specific sourcing requests?
Rogue: Every day, whether it’s customers requesting a specific Abercrombie silhouette they’ve seen on their FYP or a stylist requesting a floor-length blue fur coat for an album cover shoot, the variety of requests is endless. We’ve recently had a lot of requests for newsboy hats and rhinestone encrusted jeans.
Awoke Vintage: People are asking for Issey Miyake and red label Prada these days—simple cuts that feel timeless.