Page 52 Daily Mail, Monday, November 12, 2007

NOT so long agothe fastest wayto update yourwardrobe was, iron-ically, by throwingin something old

and a bit tatty — a 1940s teadress from your gran’swardrobe, a 1950s cashmerecardigan from a charity shopor a retro brooch you boughtfor 50p at a car boot sale.

But now vintage is everywhereit’s a different story.

As ever in fashion, the cache isin exclusivity. Which is why truefashionistas are becomingobsessed with the ‘new vintage’— clothes with provenance.Think: Chanel circa 1925, lim-ited-edition Birkins or Diordesigned by Gianfranco Ferre.

The market for luxury vintagepieces with proven heritage orconnection to an iconic designhouse has exploded. Neverhas there been so much cachetfor a celebrity to sportarchive Valentino or Chanel onthe red carpet.

Auction houses such asChristie’s now regularly hostsales of vintage clothing. As aresult of this demand, the price ofdesigner vintage has more thanquadrupled in the past five years.(or up to ten times if the piecehas connections to a classic film,famed actress or rare period.)

There’s also a growing clutch ofwebsites devoted to selling authenticated vintage pieces atpremium prices. This weekYoox.com is hosting an exclusive100-item sale of Chanel vintageclothing (in May this year itlaunched a similar sale from theGucci archive).

The sale will include everythingfrom jewellery to cocktaildresses and winter coats, somefrom as early as the 1950s and

others from the mid-1980s when KarlLagerfeld took thehelm.

Meanwhile, luxuryauction sites such asPortero.com are nowselling qualified vintageand second hand ownedaccessories includingPiaget watches, Tiffany & Co,Hermès bags andRolex watches.

Upmarket London boutiquesare catching on, too. Brownsboutique now stocks E2, a labelwhich combines vintage piecesby Pucci and YSL alongside con-temporary clothing. The ultra-hip Dover Street Market nowincludes a concession forDecades — LA’s coolest vintagestore where Hollywood starletsincluding Chloe Sevigny andJulia Roberts buy their redcarpet gowns.

‘It’s a consistently good part ofthe store,’ says store managerDickon Bowden. ‘We have hadsome incredible pieces that soldthe same day we received them.’

He reveals that recently aturquoise Chanel haute coutureprincess dress (designed byCoco Chanel herself) soldwithin minutes of arriv-ing, although he won’tbe drawn on the price.

At the same time,small or on-their-way out fashionhouses with a pres-tigious heritagehave never been soattractive toinvestors and lux-ury conglomerates.

Halston, the 1970sAmerican label synonymous

with Studio 54 glamour, is tobe relaunched this Febru-

ary by film mogul HarveyWeinstein and shoeexpert Tamara Mellon.The plan? A globalluxury brand.

Cult British labelOssie Clark is alsoscheduled for arevival this Februarywith investmentfrom WGSN (a fash-ion news service)founder Marc Worth.

It’s a sound invest-ment considering the

booming designer vintage market.Halston has always been popularwith fashion-lovers, but with itsrelaunch imminent, the price ofvintage pieces is set to rocket.Here the consumer base hasexpanded from a small niche toeveryone from celebrities tofashion lovers and investors.

Reese Witherspoon hand-picked her own 2006 Oscar dress— a 1950s Dior number — in aParis store, Mellon is said to

A VERY PEACHESGELDOFAS A stylefrontrunnerfor hergeneration,Peaches isbang on trendwith this edgynew cut andcolour of theseason (left).

The choppy cut gives her a sassygrown-up confidence and theperoxide blonde shade is hugelyreminiscent of her mother PaulaYates’s signature look. The chunky, tapered fringe suitsher face shape and brings out herbig blue eyes, plus, the blondeshade suits her pale skin. The onlyproblem with bleaching your hairthis blonde is it can cause seriousdamage. But by keeping the styleshort and the hair well-conditioned, you can avoid this. Avast improvement on the tangled,hippy chick bird’s nest look shesported in the summer.

RENEEZELLWEGERRENEE’S newhairdo (left) is aclassic exampleof the bob gonewrong. It’s a‘boy bob’ — thetype ourbrothers allsported aschildren — and

it does her no favours. The look can work when Reneeslicks it back and styles it for redcarpet glamour, but for everydaywear it generally looks messy andunkempt. With her fine hair andher oval face shape, she needs alonger style that will settle aroundher jaw bone or a shoulder-lengthcut. The light fringe softens herface and this, combined with alonger style and more high andlow lights to brighten the look,would be a low-maintenance butmuch better look.■ HAC, 2 South Place, The Quay,Kingsbridge, Devon, 01548 853073.

HAIRDRESSER to the stars SARA ANTONIADES gives her expertopinion on the mane events in the celebrity world. This week,Peaches Geldof wows with a new bleached look but ReneeZellweger gets the classic bob wrong.

STAVE off those winterblues with lingerie fromAustralian labelPleasure State. Itproduces luxury pieceswith Swarovski crystalsas well as moreeveryday items. Weparticularly love thePink Jacquard contourbalconette bra, £68,and shorts, £50, (right).■ Phone 020 7851 6629.

Waiting in the wings: Choice itemsfrom Chanel (above) andHermes’s red Birkin (right)

Whyfashionistas are spending thousands to get their hands on clothes with a heritage

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LIFEstyleDaily Mail, Monday, November 12, 2007 Page 53

have a host of vintage Halstonpieces and auction houses are nowattracting as many fashion junkiesas they are antique enthusiasts.

Some of the highest-value itemsare those related to film stars. Lastyear Christie’s grabbed headlineswith the sale of the iconic blackGivenchy dress worn by AudreyHepburn in Breakfast At Tiffany’s.The bidding reached a whopping£410,000. In this case, the dresswas more than just vintageGivenchy, it was cultural history.‘Having a great story behind a

piece always adds to value,’ saysMonica Turcich, vintage expert atChristie’s. ‘Without the story, thatGivenchy piece was just a littleblack dress; but with the prove-nance, it’s a £410,000 design icon.

‘People fall in love with thehistory behind a piece. We sellpieces with royal connections, likethe massive sale of Diana’s dressesin 1997 [auctioned a few weeksbefore her death]. Buyers fall forthe romance of owning a piece ofthat fantasy lifestyle.’

For collectors, vintage also has

the advantage of being wearable. A1950s Dior suit can be viewed eitheras a work of art to be looked at only,or thrown on for a fabulous dinner party.

‘We have three real groups ofbidders and registered buyers —collectors and museums, dealersand those buying to wear,’ saysTurcich. ‘The collectors rangefrom national museums to cou-ture houses looking to fill gapsin their archives, or youraverage girl on the street.

‘I’m seeing more of thewomen who buy-to-wear beingincreasingly knowledgeable andinterested in acquiring an iconicname, so the buy-to-wear girl isfast becoming a collector.’

It helps that luxury vintagepieces are now also a credibleinvestment, so people aregetting in early.

‘People see them astradeable assets — someonewill buy a 1993 Louis VuittonMurakami bag knowing it willbecome a collector’s item,’says Stephanie Phair ofPortero.com.

She adds that many savvyinsiders now buy pieces byyoung designers with smallruns, aware that theircollection will be muchcoveted in future. Pieces byChanel, Hermes, Chloe andother brands in goodcondition regularly retain or

increase in value over time —even if you wear themoccassionally.

Turcich adds: ‘Wearing anitem can affect the value —it’s difficult to wear any-thing without affecting it insome way. That said, mostof the best vintage hasbeen worn at some point,so just being worn isn’tenough to destroy value.The dress from BreakfastAt Tiffany’s, for example,was made to be worn byAudrey Hepburn and,therefore, is more valu-able than if it hadbeen just a nice blackGivenchy dress.

‘It depends on whyyou’re buying: if towear, then it won’tmatter; if you’re buy-ing to collect, you’dprobably want tostore it as is.’

Value is also con-nected to currenttrends or events.For example, therecent sweepof body-conscioustrends in designer

collections has seenfashion-lovers clamour-

ing for archive HervéLéger and Azzedine Alia.After all, when anyonecan walk into HarveyNichols and snap up adress from the currentcollection, but it takes

considerably moremoney and fashion know-how

to track down an original from the1980s heyday.

Why else have Victoria Beckham,Kate Beckinsale, Keira Knightleyand Lindsay Lohan all been sport-ing their ‘bandage’ dresses on thered carpet recently?

‘Fashion has become such adisposable industry. If you see threecelebrities wearing the same Chloedress the same day, the designersare totally over-exposed, the samedesigns are everywhere,’ concludesSteve Philip, co-owner of Rellikvintage and collector of VivienneWestwood. ‘But what isn’teverywhere is an old classic.’

FINE VINTAGEFUNMI ODULATE,author ofShopping ForVintage(Quadrille,£12.99), gives heradvice on buyingvintage withprovenance.

CONSIDERTHE PRICEIF IT wasexpensivethen, it’ll beexpensivenow, and, allthings beingequal, it will beexpensive inthe future. The rarer thepiece themoreexpensive itwill be as theeconomics ofsupply anddemand willalways prevail.Designers, forinstance, onlymake a handfulof couturepieces; these willalwaysappreciate invalue more thansomething from aready-to-wearcollection,regardless of how‘iconic’ thatcollection may be.

RESEARCHYOUR ERA BEFORE partingwith any cashfamiliarise yourselfwith authenticvintage clothingby consulting anexpert, and visitingmuseums, auctions andvintage fairs.

STUDY LABELSCAREFULLY YEARS ago, buyers fromdepartment stores couldpurchase the licence fromdesigners to reproduceexact copies of their work.These are obviously worthsignificantly less than thedesigner original, so lookout for labels which say‘Bergdorf for MadameGres’ rather than simply‘Madame Gres’. Diffusion lines are alsoworth less than theoriginal main line. Adesigner such as Halston

produced Halston II,Halston III and HalstonIV diffusion lines, thenfinally licensed hisname to U.S. chainstore JC Penney. Look out for the white

label with ‘Halston’written in black: this

is the main lineand,therefore,the mostcollectable,particularlythe silk jersey,sequinnedand UltraSuede pieces.

CHECK THECONDITIONIDEALLY, ifsomething is

bought as aninvestment, it

should not beworn. If it is, it

should be wornonly very

occasionally. The joys of wearing a

collectable piece —especially one that is

very fragile — could becut short when you findout how much thegarment has beendevalued as a

consequence.

BUY A DESIGNER’SSIGNATURE PIECES KERRY TAYLOR, of KerryTaylor Auctions forSotheby’s, stronglyadvises buying adesigner’ssignature piece. ‘If you are buying tocollect, the pieces

should always have awow factor. The only thingsthat hold their value astime goes by are thestatement pieces.’ Christian Dior’s 1947 NewLook collection is always asure bet. The ‘New Look’revolutionised the face offashion at the time and is,therefore, most likely tofetch more money thansomething from a run-of-the-mill 1953 collection bythe same designer.

Old-school at the Oscars: (from left)Renee Zellweger in a lemon JeanDesse gown and Julia Roberts invintage Valentino, both in 2001, andReese Witherspoon in Dior in 2006

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO INVESTMENTFASHION

Cultural history: Theiconic Breakfast AtTiffany’s dress wornby Audrey Hepburn(above) wasauctioned last yearfor £410,000