How Vogue Editors Shop and Style Their Favorite Vintage Pieces
A Current Affair (the Mecca!), Front General in Dumbo, Stella Dallas, Beacon’s Closet, and Etsy. In high school, good shopping was scarce in my hometown of Minneapolis, so my favorite place to shop was a local consignment store called Fashion Avenue, which pools designer items from all over the country. My mom, sister, and I loved to imagine where all the Chanel tweed jackets and impressively large shipments of size 40 Stubbs & Wootton loafers came from. I would later learn that Vogue editors had been consigning there for years. Since then, I have become a voracious vintage shopper.
What is your approach to styling vintage?
My trademark move is to punctuate an outfit with accessories and garments in unobvious ways (A necklace can double as a chain belt, a sock will transform a loafer into a boot, a pair of pajama pants might tie around the waist to cinch a dress, a bandana may serve as a turtleneck, and so on and so forth).
What is your most prized find and where did you find it?
A Comme des Garçons navy blue coat of my mom’s, circa 1990, that I found in the attic. When I was young, I would spend hours combing through the mountainous jumble of boxes in the attic to dig up old gems of my mom’s.
Shortly after I started working at Vogue, during a routine attic rummage session while home for Christmas break, I unearthed this magnificent navy wool Comme des Garçons coat bought at the legendary Oval Room at Dayton’s department store, which has long since closed. The coat quickly became very special to me, and it is certainly the most prized item in my wardrobe—both for its design and for what it represents. When I wear it, I am reminded of my mom, working in fashion when she was hardly older than I am now, living in it as a young mother until the lining frayed and the hem came loose. I love its timelessness. She picked it out two decades ago and that it still feels just as chic and relevant today.
All-time favorite brick-and-mortar to shop?
Front General Store in Dumbo. I love their carefully curated collection of white frocks, indigo-dyed linens, and great vintage jeans.
Alex Harrington, Stylist
Which periods of fashion history appeal to you and why?
I would say the ’20s because I think all the things from that time look modern now. Also the ’40s because I’m feeling wartime-farm girl right now. And today because I’m excited about what we are doing now.
What is your approach to styling vintage?
For me, I don’t like anything to be small. I like everything to be too big, with exploded proportions. I like to feel comfortable.
What is your most prized find and explain how and where you found it?
I have a crazy Schiaparelli blouse from the ‘40s that was my grandmother’s because she was a cabine model for Schiaparelli in Paris. The blouse has horses embroidered in burgundy on the cream silk. It is so tiny. And it has a connection to my family.