How vintage fashion is going from thrift stores to the red carpet as rare, one-of-a-kind luxury items with history become must-haves

With stars like Zooey Deschanel and Christina Hendricks showing off their latest vintage fashion finds on Instagram, you know the trend is getting big

Vintage marketplaces like LA-based A Current Affair are taking advantage of the interest fuelled by celebrities and a global push for sustainability

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Vintage souvenir jackets at A Current Affair, a vintage clothing fair in Los Angeles.

Published: 6:00am, 29 Nov 2019Updated: 9:49pm, 30 Nov 2019

This holiday season, the hottest place to shop in Los Angeles won’t be on shoppers’ paradise Rodeo Drive, but in a warehouse in the city’s grubby garment district. That’s where A Current Affair, one of the world’s hottest vintage marketplaces, will be on December 7.

High-end vintage fashion is having an unprecedented moment, and A Current Affair’s founder Richard Wainwright – resolutely shy in his thick-rimmed glasses, patterned button-down shirt and jeans – is right in the middle of it.

Wainwright has the perfect pedigree for vintage – he has degrees in fashion marketing and merchandising from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, and in history of art from the University of California, Berkeley.

“Vintage has always played a role in my life,” says Wainwright. “I started collecting at an early age. Back then, we didn’t really have ‘fast fashion’ so combining items found at thrift stores and yard sales was both a creative outlet and a practical way to afford clothing [that] my parents wouldn’t otherwise buy me.”

Shoppers trying on items at A Current Affair.

When Wainwright started A Current Affair nine years ago, the event had only 17 exhibitors.

“Today, we are now a community of over 200 sellers popping up in Los Angeles, Brooklyn and the San Francisco Bay Area seven times a year, in addition to trunk shows … and we did an event at [department store] Isetan in Tokyo this autumn. There is nowhere else to shop that compares to A Current Affair,” Wainwright says proudly, describing the marketplace’s clothes as “the best vintage on the planet”.