Vintage Clothing

The fashion style is changing constantly which makes it quite difficult to invent new trends by the minute. Fashion trends come and go, mix and match in surprising ways for the delight of the fashion lovers. Without being too philosophically about the fast changing fashion world, fashion designers seek inspiration in past eras of fashion styles, based on rather practical reasons. The past styles are brought to present with a contemporary mark.

The vintage look in fashion style has been an already established source of inspiration for many designers. Taking a closer look into the etymology of the vintage word, “vint”-20 and “age”, we can easily understand what vintage means-the fashion style trend concordantly with the 1920’s era. Fashion style trending specialists go further and state that vintage style is referring to the period 1920-1960; anything after 1960’s period is considered more like retro. Let’s stop for a minute a clear the vintage vs retro dilemma. Retro stands for anything from past eras-actual items or upgraded styles. So we could conclude for the moment that retro includes vintage, in terms of the fashion trend inspirational era.

Vintage clothing and items are clothing and items for the actual 1920-1960 era, which leads to another clarification that needs to be well understood: commonly we refer to vintage clothing and fashion style with the implied meaning of vintage inspired style. There are not so many people that still wear clothing or other items dating from 1920’s. This principle would go for vintage jewelry and other accessories.

The modern understanding and promotion of vintage look is actually obtained through an assembly of key motifs. My personal number one choice of vintage motif is the lace. The lace material was widely used in the 1920-1960 era for tailoring all types of women's garments: dresses, blouse, skirt, hair and hand accessories, and bags, even insertions for coats, hats and shoes. The fashion designers of the era in-between, or after 1960 until contemporary years, considered lace a sign of opulence, which lead to almost discard it. The lace material owns a unique quality of exposing and covering at the same time. The sensuality of feminine forms is merely implied or suggested, just like in the 1920’s. The lace pieces that are considered vintage are those with baroque imprints, mainly roses, not so much the polka dots printed, as an example of an exception. The romantic and fragile lace seems to never get out of fashion. Some trends are tested repeatedly and re-invented each season to result in a more original, unique and embellished fashion style.

The hottest combination with lace is given by the velvet material. The velvet offers an aristocratic precious look for any type of outfit. The men inspired suits for women with long pants and blazers, if tailored of velvet and combined with transparent tops with lace are bound to remove the rough masculine impression and replace it with one of utterly feminine sensuality.

The vintage look stands not only in clothing with lace and/or velvet motifs, but goes further to the accessories, hair style, make up and even attitude. Vintage lace accessories, like brooches, clutches, small purses or hair bents or the summer gloves with lace and hats are coming back as a strong vintage motif to be matched even with office pieces or smart casual.

Coat trends for winter 2012/13

Winter coats for women have always been a challenge for the designers. The winter is a time when you need to keep warm, but, as a fashionable lady, you won’t make any sacrifice in looking stylish also. So designers seek to create fashionable models of winter coats, keeping in mind the practical use of this clothing item as well. Passing on the cold season brings up a total reorganization of outfits and the coat has an important place in the winter wardrobe, mainly because it will be likely to be worn almost every day.

The fashion winter season of 2012-2013 brings out some new inspiration sources expressions for the top designers. The lines are straighter, the lengths are longer and the volumes are larger. The key word to describe women's coats trends for winter 2012-2013 is volumes. The sleeves are wider, the emphasis on the waist is lower and the length goes maxi long. The inspiration source comes from men trench-coats’ line, the architectural elements for the stand-up collar and wide sleeves and the military motifs like double breasted fastening and the epaulets.

The masculine style

The trench-coats and coats with masculine inspired design is the most highlighted trends in winter 2012-2013 fashion style. The masculine influences are expressed through the lines cut and the nuances of colors used. For some models for winter women's coats there have been preferred prints, or bright colors and pastels (see the Hermes collection of winter women's coats). Still, the majority of masculine inspired coats for women come in neutral colors like black, brown, gray or dark blue. The masculine coat for women owns some important features like big buttons fastening, wide lapels, and flaps over slit pockets and lack of waist belt. This type of coat can be worn over matched outfits or contrasting, extremely feminine, as well.

Masculine-Style Coat

Rounded shoulders coat

The winter fashion season of 2012-2013 has brought up an unexpected taste for exaggerating volumes and motifs. For the women's coats, this trend translates in rounded shoulders, even with a accentuate aspect (see Jil Sanders and Lanvin collections of winter women's coats). The rounded shoulder trend is more versatile and can be implemented regardless of the design cut, the color palette or the details. For some models, the designers find it edgier to accentuate the rounded shoulders motif through geometric prints and overlaying color.

Round Neckline Cream Coat

The no-button coat

One of the edgiest trends for winter coats in fashion season of 2012-2013 is the no-button coat. While in cold season, one could need a buttoned coat. Still, the fashion designers offered the non-buttoned coats as an opportunity to show the outfit underneath, at least as long as the temperature permits it. At the time when the cold weather enforces to close the coat, a stylish belt came in handy (see the Lanvin collection of winter women's coats). The no-buttons models of this winter fashion season come in a wide variety of colors, from pink rose to black.

balenciaga

The oversized coats, along with the retro designs and the neon colored models, which last year were at high rank, are not much in the spotlight this year. But here is a hint on how to reinvent your last season coat: wear a fashionable belt.