In fashion, the most elusive garments that people want are true vintage pieces. Justine Benetti shares how it’s possible for everyone to find their perfect vintage style.
Have you ever seen someone in an eye-catching vintage piece and wondered where it came from? Or have you been frustrated because can never find anything you liked? Justine Benetti, founder, and CEO of Felicita Vintage, is a trained fashion professional with an innate passion for ancient pieces. She spent years of research and working with a vintage New York City collector, whose pieces were coveted by fashion brands for research and archival purpose. Then Benetti decided to pursue her dream and open a vintage shop to give her customers the vintage pieces she had access to and they have always wanted.
Growing up in the South of France, Benetti has been a vintage lover since she was a small girl. Her love started when she went through her grandmother’s closet and found pieces she could not find anywhere else. For decades, her grandmother never disposed of anything and she kept it all in case she needed it in the future. Thus began Benetti’s obsession with fashion. When she was old enough to start dressing herself, she went to thrift shops and Goodwill stores to scour for the perfect garments to fit her style.
She knew that vintage was different from all the other trends that everyone else was wearing, and she loved having pieces that nobody else had – but everyone wanted. In fashion school, her teachers told her to go to the luxury designer shops and examine the details of the garments, and this is how she fully grasped the importance of quality in clothing.
The 1930s was a very good period for vintage garments, but the pieces are often fragile. In the 1970s a lot of brands were inspired by the ’30s and can be found in better shape. Benetti considers “the quality of clothing that is made today does not compare to that of vintage clothing. They have so many details and are made with quality fabrics.”
Benetti recommends going around to every possible place that may sell vintage clothing – thrift shops, flea markets, second-hand stores, and Goodwill – because no one place is going to have everything you’re looking for. The biggest tip she stressed is that you need to have time and patience when you are searching for what you want; you rarely find something that you love in the first store you walk into.
Luckily, with today’s technology, it is possible to find carefully selected vintage pieces on websites that are dedicated to vintage clothing, just like the ones featured by Felicita Vintage.
www.felicita-vintage.fr
