How vintage fashion keeps on giving

It is the gift that keeps on giving. Vintage clothing is so much more than just a secondhand bit of clobber.

It is like a time capsule, and as trends evolve and multiple curtains call arm fashionistas with a style reprise, vintage never goes out of fashion.

When you walk into Melville’s vintage store Kevdon and Co, the pink Doctor Martins inevitably draw you in.

Incidentally, it is one of the few places you can still buy a pair of Docs, and the collection here is good enough to make memories of nightlife at The Doors, Alcatraz and eighties mornings at the Market Theatre Flea Market come flooding back.

There are also some really sexy boots on sale.

Kevdon and Co

Kevin Dondashe, a partner in the business, said that the more customers browse, the happier he is.

He said: “Most people come into the store and spend at least an hour looking through the store”. He loves it and said that he cannot imagine doing anything else.

There are two long rails of leather in every colour imaginable and jackets in every cut and style. And there is nothing as sexy as a black leather dress, which you can also buy here. There is a distinct hippie and Woodstock flavour to some of the women’s wear that dribbles into the indie and alternative wardrobe, and there is a lot of it.

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Dondashe does the buying, and he said that it is the best part of his day.

But what is challenging, he said, is trying to predict the next big thing, and what trends will be doing for the next season.

Dondashe said: “It is one of the hardest businesses because no one tells you what’s cooking. No one tells you what people like. And the really hard thing about it, is you need to go back to the sixties.

“You need to go back to the eighties and kind of see people’s mindsets because it all depends on that. It all depends on the youth. This winter, it was retro jackets and sports jackets. That’s what’s selling this winter. But last winter it was the ski jackets.”

In fact, the entire store feels like a time capsule and a work of art, an installation of sorts. A poster of Wendy James, the goddess singer of Transvision Vamp looks over the store where street art and old newspaper clippings stuck up behind the cash desk feel very heyday Yeoville.

Neo-modern drawings of faces and bodies on television sets reminds us of the creativity and conceptual thinking that creativity and fashion can afford.

Corduroy baggies and super low-rise, V-line revealing pants make retro sexy and rebel against fashion’s awful mom-jeans mistake.

Vintage summer trends

Summer 2022 is all about going sleeveless in vintage, said Kevin. It is a trend he noticed in the European summer and that is where he imports most of his stock. He finds treasure in markets like Camden market in London and similar setups in Italy, France and Germany.

He said: “This is where I source good quality, and stuff that my customers can wear forever.”

In addition, a mashup of eighties, nineties and Y2K silhouettes are the vintage inspiration points for the season.

This can be paired with trends emerging from the fashionable global north where cutouts, minis and bras as tops will dominate selfies along with the gaudy look of the early parts of the century.

This means low rise pants, cargo pants, neon prints and retro platforms. And the more skin, the more fashionable.

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For guys, grunge, indie rock and the nineties are back. Large shirts in colourful tropical patterns paired with more formal shorts. It is a mishmash for everyone. Imagine The Cure of the Sisters of Mercy in a supermarket, then to the beach, and later at the office. Now look for this in vintage. There is plenty of it at Kevdon and Co.

The stigma of wearing secondhand clothes, by the way, is long gone and is no longer simply the purview of charity shops and bulk donations.

Vintage is cool, and there is nothing as incredible as donning a well lived in leather jacket. Every garment has a story, an era, a feeling to it. And the greatest benefit of all is that your look will never be cookie-cutter shopping mall bubblegum. It will be you, in good measure.