Vintage Style Clothes—considerations When Buying

By Author: Vikram Kuamr
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Vintage style clothes can be so much fun to find and wear. And more and more people are turning to vintage these days. You can save money if you scour the secondhand stores and markets, or you can look in the higher class vintage stores if you have the money to spare. Either way, wearing pre-loved clothes is both trendy and eco-friendly. As long, of course, as you don’t find you’re sending everything to the dry cleaners or specialist cleaners, spending loads of money and wasting the planet’s resources.

However, if you love vintage style clothes, but don’t like the worn-out look, it’s relatively easy to restore clothes at low cost to both your purse and the environment.

First of all, pick your vintage clothes carefully. When you find what you think is a great piece, check it carefully for holes, pulls, and tears. Check collars and cuffs especially diligently, as if these are worn, it may be difficult to repair them invisibly. Of course, if you love the piece so much you think it’s worth saving by sending it to a professional repairer, this may not put you off. But do factor in the extra expense when ...
... you’re haggling with the seller!

Secondly, think carefully about repairs before embarking on them to avoid any mistakes. With delicate items, such as vintage lace or knitted cardigans for women, it’s often inevitable that there will be worn patches, holes, or even places where the item has been damaged and badly mended or darned in an unsightly fashion. This may not be a problem, though, as bad darning can always be unpicked and redone neatly, and patches replaced. Just remember to think carefully before you buy.

If an item has stretched or worn seams, you may be able to take it in. If the cuffs are worn, you might consider converting full length sleeves to three quarter length, as long as that’s appropriate for the period. You just need to ensure that you can make the repair neatly yourself, and will be able to find the right materials to do it. Vintage lace, for example, can be replaced, but it will almost certainly be discolored, so you probably won’t be able to replace just a part of it. This means that you either lose the whole lot of the vintage lace you so adored in the first place, or have to live with it and repair what you can. But don’t forget you could always replace, say, a worn pair of lace cuffs on an all-white blouse with a new pair of cuffs in a different color, and leave the original lace collar. Or, if it’s all white cotton lace, you could replace what needs replacing and then dye the whole lot in another shade. Do make sure that none of the stitching is man-made, though, as it won’t take the dye properly and you’ll end up having ruined the whole thing. Cardigans for women, of course, are a subject in themselves, but usually able to be rescued; see my other article for care of these.

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Don’t forget, of course, that you can find vintage style clothes, including Cardigans for women, at Siren London. They are all available at good prices, and won’t require any special care or repairs at all!