Make Your Own Vintage
Instead of paying a premium for what’s vintage now, focus on what will be vintage tomorrow.
A few years ago, a good friend was waiting in line for coffee. A guy behind him asked if his watch—a Rolex that had been passed down from his dad—was vintage, to which my friend responded, “No, it’s just old.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about this exchange as the market for vintage goods has exploded. The kinds of ironic and/or novelty tees that used to be the exclusive purview of Salvation Army thrifting are now being “curated” and resold for three figures. Nike SB Dunks from the first wave of sneakerheaddom sell for thousands, and prices for vintage Patagonia pieces can be just as crazy.
I don’t want this to come off as “old guy laments change,” but I do want to extol the virtues of a strategy long beloved by financial advisers: buy and hold. Rather than taking the shortcut (and paying a premium for it) of buying premium vintage today, why not hold on to what you have until it becomes premium vintage tomorrow. Think of it as make-your-own vintage.
Today, vintage Grateful Dead tees easily fetch $500 or more. That is objectively a lot of money. I’m lucky enough to have seen the Dead play while Jerry Garcia was alive. While I didn’t buy any merch from those shows (I was more focused on other things, which is probably a good thing), I have purchased something from every tour that Dead & Company has done since they were formed in 2015. Those first tees are now six years old and already well on their way to being categorized as “vintage.” Plus, I have the added bonus of having seen a lot of incredible live music.
This is an approach that I’ve been pursuing somewhat inadvertently for decades. Remember that friend with the “old” Rolie? I still regularly wear the souvenir tee that was given out at his Bar Mitzvah in 1989. We were really into hardcore at the time, and the tee has the logo of the legendary Gorilla Biscuits on the front and a scroll of other bands on the back, including the one my friend was in in seventh grade, Power of Choice (which was actually a pretty good name for a hardcore band formed by middle schoolers).
That is just one of many pieces I own that are 20+ years old and still feature in my regular rotation. It wasn’t part of some “buy less but buy better” philosophy that people trot out to justify purchasing expensive things and then conveniently forget to mention when they replace that expensive thing with another expensive thing a short time later. I just happen to still be into a lot of the things that I was into in middle school and high school, such as skateboarding, hip-hop, and the Grateful Dead.
My taste and style has definitely changed since then, but certain elements have remained. And by holding on to certain pieces for such a long time, when trends inevitably come back around, I usually can find them in what I already own.
Rockers: The Making of Reggae’s Most Iconic Film
First off, if you haven’t seen the movie Rockers, do so now (it’s on Prime Video). Then check out this book that offers a behind-the-scenes look into the movie’s creation. I happened to spot it at the Brooklyn Museum gift shop when I went to see the KAWS exhibit (the hypebeasts had cleaned the shelves of almost all the KAWS merch) and am glad I did. It’s a great document of an incredible scene.
—Justin
86 Love – Night Cap
I spent a lot of time in Austin this past year, which means I spent a lot of time with my friend Alex. It also means I got to hear his band’s new single before it had a title or album artwork. Cool, right? Not as cool as the actual track! To quote lead-singer, Ryan King, it’s the “bomb dot gov” (he was talking about these cookies). Give it a listen, give it a share.
-Andrew
Some Kind of Heaven
Another fantastic creation from someone I went to HS with (Alex^ went to Pine Crest for 1 year). I plan to write about this soon, but I’ve been thinking a lot about comparing myself to my peers (spoiler: do not recommend). It’s natural and mostly unhealthy, but can often be inspiring / motivating. This documentary, directed by Lance Oppenheim (b. 1996), is fantastic. As I wrote on my Letterboxd, “This isn’t the Florida I grew up in, but it’s certainly a Florida that exists, and I love Florida.”
–Andrew
