Vintage clothing has come to a rise over the past few years as many of you know. living in the 21st century looking into the mainstream styles, you would find your typical outfit to consist of your casual flat canvas sneakers from such brands as Adidas and your old school vans (of course the world-famous black and white pair) most commonly worn by every other person. The next essential to your typical mainstream outfit would be a fitted pair of skinny jeans worn by your general bloke who shops in Topman, River Island or Zara, and a muscular fit t-shirt to complete the look. These outfits would be complemented by simplistic and plain shades of black and white with the odd uses of navy colours (black and white are shades not colours).
Well over the past few years an emergence of vintage clothing has made its way into the mainstream market with most common style influences coming from the 90′s. An example of this vintage look would be the occurrence of a baggier crew neck and jumper created by the likes of Tommy Hilfiger, Levis and Reebok. Tommy Hilfiger whom is well-known for his creative mastermind in appealing to the masses has been a big part of bringing vintage back into the market, with the ups rise of stores such as urban-outfitters what is seen as the Tommy Hilfiger haven when it comes to their stock inventory. The extensive use in colours and increase in more expressive designs has put a stamp on individuality as its allowed people to explore more expressive designs and materials for instance the use of denim. Denim has most certainly of all vintage attire risen the most over the years with more and more designers introducing it into their collections. The biggest influencer of denim these days would be Levis as that has always been their image and vision from their denim jackets to their world-famous denim jeans which has immaculate recognition across the globe. With the re-emergence of such brands it has shaped the style influences of the mainstream audience in the UK. This trend has given Levis the opportunity to collaborate with the biggest names in fashion to date, with their most recent collaboration with vetements being a hit as they infused denim with zip work to form such obscure jeans.
Since the demand for vintage clothing has lifted and grown, various ranges of brands has taken these 90′s silhouettes and designs and modified it to suit the 21st century aesthetic. This can be translated with the iconic Fred Perry crew tops, which is designed with a plain stock colour for the body and a white taper design on the collar area as well as the bottom of the sleeves. This has been followed up by the likes of Adidas with its classic retro top which has a similar design but replaced the taper section with a three stripe white taper on the shoulder down. In essence it is bringing back that original Fred Perry tennis appearance. By maintaining and improving the quality on both designs and material it has allowed designers to keep the aesthetic of today and merge it in with the old retro/vintage pieces to create such high quality pieces to be worn to this present day.
Since these influences have been brought into the years 2014/15/16/17 there has been an undeniable butterfly effect with an increase on the ranges of colours and materials used. I guess you could say its given people the confidence to be more creative and mix and match the more ridiculous of outfits together. The up rise in vintage has allowed upcoming designers the opportunity to be brave with their creativity as you could say the mainstream is being more open to more eccentric designs as those main stream stores are slowing providing more runway type clothing into the wider audience of the mainstream.
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