New Year's resolution: Wear vintage, stage 5

How to wear vintage

For the past month and a half I've been writing about wearing vintage for the novice, including details of fit, quality and value. These are big subjects, and I think it's time to have a little fun with the subject of how to wear vintage. Do you wear head-to-toe 1960s Mod? Or do you wear just a 50s sweater with otherwise modern clothes?

This is really up to you, and both can look great. I often see dos and don'ts columns where the head-to-toe approach is treated as a big mistake. All I can say is, if you want to dress like Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina from top to bottom, you have my respect and admiration. Do what makes you look and feel good.

The other basic approach does appear to be favored, from a survey of 50 vintage wearers that I recently conducted. 80% responded that they mainly wear a piece or two of vintage mixed in with more modern clothing, 14% wear head-to-toe vintage of mixed eras, and 6% said they wear head-to-toe vintage, as much as possible all from a single era at one time.

62% of the respondents like dresses the best, with strong showings for jewelry, coats, bags and sweaters. I love dresses most of all too, but if you like vintage jeans, kimonos or 50s novelty print skirts best (as did three respondents), great! Vintage really frees people to create looks all their own, with their favorite components. My first blog in this series suggested wearing a vintage brooch as a vintage starter piece. If all you ever wear over 25 years old are brooches, fine!

Personally? I usually wear 1-2 vintage items every day

Next time: Some vintage-wearing inspiration