Lynn Yaeger Shares Her Vintage Shopping Tips

0:05This is The Run Through. I'm Nicole Phelps. I'm lucky to be joined here in the studio once again by Vogue's fashion news director Mark Holgate. Thank you, Nicole. Always very happy to be here. Thank you. We're recording this episode ahead of Vogue's upcoming vintage market, which is coming to New York on March 29th. Mark your calendars, buy your tickets. The market will be filled with vintage treasures curated by some of the industry's best-dressed people, models Inok Yai and Paloma Elsesser and our Vogue colleague Hamish Bowles, to name just a few. Plus, we hit the Vogue Rolodex and asked cover girls, style stars, and top design houses to donate pieces from their very own wardrobes and collections.

0:49All of the proceeds from the sale will go to the Entertainment Community Fund, supporting people impacted by the L.A. fires. We are so excited to have one of the biggest style stars of them all, Lynn Yeager, here with us today. Lynn donated to the vintage market as well. So we'll be talking to her about which pieces to look out for while you're shopping. Mark, on the off chance that our listeners might not know about Lynn, how would you describe her? Well, I always like to say in two words, Lynn Jaeger, in one word, legend. Lynn is a street style star and has been photographed so many times over the years.

1:28And she is someone who fuses a kind of an incredibly individualistic look. They're kind of the tutus, they're slightly kind of 20s, 30s kind of air and attitude of the clothing, but then also mixed up with Conde Garcon and Junior and Simone Rocha and Molly Goddard. And someone who's also fiercely intellectual and smart and thoughtful about fashion and the kind of politics and culture of fashion. And she's a great writer. I read Lynn before I knew her. Do you remember the shopping column she did in The New Yorker? Fantastic. I mean, I read that religiously, line for line, word for word. Well, I think it's because she is both deeply inside and then also deeply outside the industry.

2:15And the fact that she can kind of maintain those two positions and those two points of view is what makes her so, to me, kind of fascinating. as a commentator on all things style. Okay, here's our conversation with the one and only Lynn Yeager. After a quick break.

2:43Hi, I'm Rebecca Ford, senior awards correspondent at Vanity Fair and co-host of Little Gold Men. Oscar season is upon us. Little Gold Men takes you behind the scenes of the race for the biggest prize in Hollywood. There's a hundred wrestlers in the room, but only one can be Oscar nominated. Whether you're a movie lover or an industry buff, Little Gold Men from Vanity Fair has everything you need to know about this year's Oscar race. Follow and listen to Little Gold Men wherever you get your podcasts.

3:24Welcome, Lynn, today. Hi, Nicole. Hi. We are excited to talk all things vintage with you today. And Lynn, I need to ask you, because we've obviously got a whole focus on vintage in our April issue. And also, we're going to be throwing a vintage market. And you and I, in our friendship, professional and personal, have been to many, many, many vintage markets over the years. So I'd love to know, what are you donating to this one? Because we have a sale happening in New York on March 29th. you know I donated four things and I can't remember what one of them is but one of them I donated a very nice velvet little velvet sort of evening bag from the 1920s just because I'm that sort of person that donates things that are nice and then I donated like a tutu because it was because I thought I liked it I had it in my sale and then I took it back and then there was always something about it that wasn't quite right and then I donated some Uggs because people gave them to me but they were the wrong color so i never wore them and i actually cannot remember what the fourth thing is but i know i donated four things so but the bag is really a great thing was it a hat was there some hat that you might yes yes you're a genius how did you know that it was a it was a hat that i took from laura will store it was like a aviator hat and i said you know any i love any gift or anything anyone gives me for free and anything i can't get that hat and she goes it's costume.

4:55It's not meant to be... So I took it, but in fact, it's a sort of paper-thin kind of cardboardy fabric. So yes, that was the fourth thing. It's not the Tweedy Amelia Earhart Aviator. No, no, no. It's not any of my super good things. Should we go around the circle? Mark, are you donating anything? I am. I've got to go through... The problem is, I'm not a big shopper for clothes, and it's true and then I tend to just keep things forever and then and then I'll they might have there might be a tag on something but then in five years I'll be like oh yeah I think I'm ready to wear that now um but I don't shop very much but I will go through I need to see if there's a few but also to be honest all the best vintagey stuff I had in my wardrobe and I actually feel quite sick when I say this I had a terrible breakup years and years and years ago and I gave away so much Helmut Lang, 90s Yoji, things that actually I should have just kept, but I didn't.

5:59I gave them all to Goodwill. Well, I told Mark that if he gives away or he donates any of his Margiela zip neck, zip front cardigans, I would be buying them. Because I love Mark's zip front Margiela cardigans. Well, he does have 150 of them. So maybe I can donate. So I will donate one. I will donate one, I promise. We could make do with 149 of them. The request came in while we were in Europe, so I have not yet donated. But it just dawned on me that I have an incredible pair of hot pink satin embroidered Maharishi pajama pants from late 90s, early 2000s that sadly no longer fit me. And maybe I'll donate those.

6:47I think those could be a high-value item. How much is the admission to the market? Do you know? $25. Okay. Cheaper twice the price for access to all of these treasures. Yes, the paper-thin aviator hat, the brown Uggs. Yeah, there's like things, treasures. The Uggs is a bit of a surprise, Lynn. I mean, I know that you are. People wouldn't necessarily think of you as being a kind of simple life type with the Uggs. I wear Uggs. all winter. I think they just have such a cuteness and they're so comfy. And, you know, I have my Molly Goddard embroidered one, which is like my favorite. And then I have really old ones that was a Liberty of London collab that they did.

7:31And, you know, I'm full of unexpected style salvos over here in Linland. Speaking of unexpected style salvos, eBay is our partner for the vintage market, as you know, probably. And you are a crazy eBay shopper. Am I right? I'm an eBay shopper. There is an article circa 2010 where you say, here's what I do every single morning. In between teeth brushing and waiting for the coffee to boil, I turn on my laptop and type baby locket into eBay. Is that what you're... I did it this morning. I did it this morning. I put antique baby locket. I thought maybe something came in i did it this morning yes i do that i i mean i did it this morning i put in i'll tell you what i looked for i looked for um antique baby locket nothing antique baby brooch nothing much carved anti-carved moonstone because i like a moonstone with a baby face nothing um then i tried etsy as well even though they're not our partner and we love you babe but um yes i did that this morning so obviously things don't change what's 15 years you know and lynn i mean you and i are both kind of avid ebayer addicts uh you know and we all have our own oh i have such a cute story about mark can i just tell this please i was visiting him in the in the office on times square and he had this salt and pepper shakers he's like kind of i don't know and then two seconds later he looked at it and he said it's sold it was so because i bought it for him he goes god damn it it's sold i was like yeah that was fun i still have those there's a little arabia finland yes from the late 60s early 70s i know i mean life is just i feel with ebay life is full of regrets about what you didn't bid on or you didn't get to buy it now quickly enough um but what is it lynn because knowing you so well, so much of your vintage collecting is tenacious.

9:29So what is it about the thrill of the chase? What is it about the looking? And I know it can be eBay, it can be Port de Vauvres, the flea market in Paris. It can be a flea market that you and I used to frequent every Saturday and Sunday in Chelsea and New York. What is it about the thrill of the chase that is so alerting? Well, it's all one of a kind, you know, so there's that. It's all one of a kind. And it's way cheaper than new stuff. Everything's cheaper. It just is, especially now with the prices so high for everything. And I don't know. It's fun. It's just like, because the things, because it's very unexpected.

10:08Like, remember the white velvet smock story? So one time I said to Mark, we're sitting in my living room, and I said, you know what I want for fall? A white velvet smock. And Mark goes, well, we've been at every show in four cities. There was no white velvet smock. There is no white velvet smock. Okay, at the flea market, there is a chance that there's a white velvet smock. You don't know what's going to turn up. You don't know what old come to go song is going to turn up on somebody's rack. Just don't know. So it's the thrill of the chase, I guess. Let's raise a virtual glass to the flea market on 26th Street and 6th Avenue.

10:47It's some stupid high-rise apartment building now. And that was my favorite thing to do, go to that flea market. The garage? Which one? The garage? The outdoor part. And then if I still had energy, I would go to the indoor one, not on the avenue, down the street, right? Yeah, that was the best. I would have spent$1 ,000 there in five minutes. On what? Patchwork quilt, diamond charm, and something else, maybe like a fur scarf. first. I don't know. All I know is it was just like a cavalcade of treasures. Lynn, were you vintage obsessed, you know, from the beginning? Or how did this this habit or this passion of yours take shape?

11:30Well, I guess at some point in my 20s, I decided that I really looked good in 1920s clothes and I was only going to wear 1920s clothes. So I had to build an entire wardrobe. I once went to London with six beaded dresses in my suitcase. I mean, I was very committed to this vision of 1920. And of course, it was a long time ago, so the things weren't as old as they are now. And I didn't have the money. So it was basically, I sort of thought looking like this 1920s flapper was sort of this idea I had about myself. But also, I didn't really have the money for new clothes, for that same quality, for the quality that I could get in vintage.

12:16I could not, I didn't have the money. But Lynn, I'd love to ask you, because at that point you weren't working in fashion, right? I mean, you were doing something different with your life. Were you working at the Village Voice at that point and working in fashion? I was working at the Village Voice. I was working initially, before I started writing, in the advertising department. And I was the head of the union, so that was fun. But I was always obsessed with fashion. Obsessed. like from the beginning of my life. And was that idea of going towards this 1920s look of wearing these 20s dresses, I mean, it was both the kind of narrative, I guess, inside your head of that era.

12:55And as a period, I know that you really kind of love kind of culturally, you've got a lot of interest in for all sorts of different reasons. But it was also, was it a way to kind of differentiate yourself a little bit? And when you were starting out in the industry, you know, was it a way to kind of give yourself a bit of a look? No, no. So it came from a very deep place. It wasn't, you know, I always laugh at these people who sort of dress up to go to fashion shows because, you know, obviously I, you know me so well. I don't have any other clothes. I don't have any normal clothes. So I wouldn't know how to.

13:26So, no, it wasn't. I don't know. It was just what looked right to me. And then I just became very obsessed with it. And then, of course, you learn a lot about clothing construction. And, I mean, those early clothes are just really beautiful. I mean, they were, people did not have as much. So if you had a coat, I mean, my mom once told me, you had like, growing up, she had like two pairs of shoes, like the school shoes and like the, you know, the synagogue shoes or whatever. And that was it. I mean, they just didn't have the volume of stuff. People in Europe still don't have the volume of stuff that we have.

14:02So I don't know. I mean, obviously you get attention if you're dressed like a flapper on the Lower East Side in the 80s or whatever. But no, it came from a very deep idea of how I was going to present myself to the world. I don't know. And how easy was it to find those things back then? Well, Mark, you know I can find anything. So, you know, it was challenging, but I could find anything. And what was the kind of vibe of vintage in New York at that point? Because it was interesting. I was talking to this woman called Gil Linton, who has a company called Byronesque. Oh, I know her. Yeah, and she and I were talking last week.

14:43She just had this big Margiela sale, and we were talking about the whole idea of vintage and how now it's just become like anything old is kind of vintage, whereas for someone like her as a connoisseur, it's a very kind of different idea. But talk to me a little bit about what it was like then to be kind of shopping for vintage and how it's maybe different. Well, for one thing, if you go to a vintage show now, there'll be like Norma Kamali or like stuff you already had, you know? Because there's a lot of people who are much younger and didn't experience that stuff. So it was kind of transgressive.

15:16It was kind of revolutionary. It was not something that lots of people were wearing. There was still this kind of stigma of like, you know, that you were poor and you went to the Goodwill, you went to the Salvation Army because you couldn't afford like new clothes. So there was still a sort of stigma around it initially. I don't know. I don't think I ever expected it to sort of catch fire the way that it did. I mean, now it's just like a, I mean, I never expected to see like vintage dresses on the Oscar red carpet. I mean, that is really a phenomenal thing. Well, it was interesting because you wrote a very good essay.

15:50Maybe one of the favorite things that you've written for Vogue, for me anyway, was about your early years in the East Village in New York, which I think we did in a special issue that was dedicated to the. I think it was the punk exhibit. The punk exhibit at the Met, right? That's right. and you wrote about living in the East Village. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that? And because it was a vintage store I think you used to go to where it was like dumpster diving, right? There was nothing. No, I couldn't handle it. Bogeys on 10th Street. No, people would come. My friends would come around and they'd say, look at this velvet dress I just got for a dollar at Bogeys.

16:23Bogeys was like, it was just like piled up like garbage or like an archaeological dig. It was piled up and you had to sort of dive in and pull the things that I couldn't. I just, you know. Not for a dollar. Not for a velvet dress for a dollar. Too little class in the end. I couldn't handle it. But it was, you know, people would find things, you know. I'd love for you to talk more about the way women, and I guess men now too, are wearing vintage to the Oscars. Do you have any deep thoughts about why that might be happening? I think to look original, you know, and to look sort of one of a kind. And it sort of, it makes you seem kind of cool that you didn't just get like some new thing or, I don't know.

17:09I mean, it's just, it's totally accepted now. It's like men's jewelry. Like, you know, we did so many essays about, oh, men are wearing jewelry. Now it's just like when men are on the red carpet and they're being interviewed, a question is, what jewelry are you wearing? I mean, that, I would say 10 years ago, nobody asked a man what jewelry. He wasn't wearing any jewelry. So that is like, there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of changes in how people present themselves and how people think about, you know, different things that are considered cool and acceptable that were not, you know, until fairly recently.

17:41Mark, do you have a take on that? The vintage phenomenon at the Oscars? Well, it's interesting. I was living in the UK, working for British Vogue in the 90s. And I remember Renée Zellweger, didn't she wear a Jean de Cesse? Like yellow dress. Yellow dress. And I remember that was kind of seen as like such a kind of radical thing to do. And because of that, I ended up interviewing this woman called Rita Watnick, who had a store called Lily. Oh, my God. Rita Watnick. Hello. It's Rita Watnick. Called Lily A.C. in Los Angeles. I thought that Cameron Silver at Decades got her that dress. I don't know.

18:20No, it was Lily A.C. I could be wrong. But certainly at that time, there was just a huge embrace of vintage happening right in the 90s. I mean, you had designers like Nucha Prada riffing and referencing on vintage and recontextualizing it for that era. You had stars wearing it on red carpets and at the Oscars. To your point, Lynn, there's a kind of point of differentiation and looking different and looking special. I think it also came with the rise of the stylist, because most actresses were just dressing themselves at that point and turning up in whatever. Maybe they went to, I don't know, they went to Barney's that afternoon and bought something, or Saks Fifth Avenue and bought a dress, and that was it.

19:02Whereas the rise of the stylist and this point of making yourself look different, look stylish, look connected to the fashion world became very important. And then I think just also there was a shift in the mindset of vintage in the 90s as well, that suddenly living in London, I can tell you, it became a real thing. Like people were just, they were going to Portobello Market. They were just really kind of looking for things that would feel special and unique. And you started to see the interest in people like Ozzy Clark and his dresses from the late 60s, early 70s. So really just this idea of something unique and something that you could say say really kind of spoke to your own personal style to me was what really kind of made it feel in a way more current.

19:50And I think since then, obviously the layers around sustainability and the idea of not buying new has become perhaps more of a kind of cultural, for want of a better word, even political kind of statement, right? About the idea that, you know, old things are good. We shouldn't just be constantly buying you. Right. And I think that the 24 hour a day, seven day a week coverage of celebrities now has created this sense of like one upsmanship and gamesmanship. And all of the Kardashians and Jenners, you know, in particular, they are looking for the deepest, highest level designer cuts. And, you know, why are they doing that?

20:34Because Vogue, for one, is going to be writing about it because it turns us on, too, to see these incredible vintage vintage finds. And it's become a real phenomenon lately, it seems. I mean, Kim Kardashian wearing the Marilyn Monroe happy birthday JFK dress on at the red carpet at the Met, which, you know, she took it off and wore a doppelganger at the actual party, I believe. But I mean, it doesn't get bigger than that. No, indeed. But also, Lynn, you just did a story for me with Kerry Taylor, who to me is the kind of leading kind of figure in vintage auctions, right? And she's getting, I mean, she's, you know, she deals in everything from kind of very early, early, like 18th century stuff to the more contemporary designer.

21:27And she's getting incredible prices. I was astonished by the prices that the clothes were realizing. So, yeah, it's particularly astonishing when it's things from a time when we can actually all remember it. It's not like some rare piece of 1950s couture that was from Dior that was, you know, shot by Richard Avedon for Vogue or whatever. But this is clothing that, you know, was kind of readily available. It's not even couture. I mean, she told me that a newspaper print John Galeano for Dior, ready to wear dress, went for some insane, insane, I can't remember. It was like five, maybe even six figures.

22:03But the prices are, you know, quite remarkable for vintage. I'm curious, Lynn, about because I think I know you are quite as obsessed as you are. You're also price conscious. You are, you know, you think about, you dwell. And so talk a little bit about your, you know, how you decide something is worth the money and how you are finding, you know, well-priced vintage in a world, as Mark says, where everything is getting more and more expensive. Well, I have to say, I mean, current affair in Brooklyn, the prices are pretty high on a lot of stuff. I'm always sort of taken aback by the prices, but it's still much, much more reasonable than new things.

22:44I think that, you know, it's basically the way you are about new clothes as well. It's just, you know, if it makes your heart sing, if you have to have it, then, I mean, I once bought at this vintage, I was a big collector of reindeer cardigans. Cardigans from like the 40s and 50s and 60s that some people think are sort of like a cousin to like an ugly Christmas sweater. But to me, there's nothing more divine in it. And of course, always like with collectors, I always get carried away. It's like Mark's, you know, Margiela zip-ups. It's like, did I need like, I probably had every vintage cardigan on the market at one time.

23:23So anyway, I bought this one and it was full of holes. It was really decrepit. And the guy wanted like, I don't know, 200 bucks or something that was not like the right price. And my friends at the show with me were like, are you kidding? It's a disgusting piece of crap with holes in it. But somehow it spoke to me. So basically, I mean, you talk a lot about like condition and price and all that. But then, you know, it's just like a love affair. You know, it just goes out the window when something is speaking to you. But I mean, as I say, it is more it is in general, even the most expensive thing at a vintage show is going to be much less than wandering around.

24:04Just just is. We're going to take a quick break. More with Lynn in just a moment.

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24:50Lynn, talk to me. I mean, is there one piece of vintage clothing that you have that has a really kind of resonant story? Is there one thing that just... They all do. Tell us about your last love affair, maybe. What did you fall in love with most recently? Well, I'm buying antique jewelry now. I'm not really buying the clothes. I'll buy an occasional piece of clothing, but if it's like a Romerjili coat or something, that's just irresistible, even though I probably have one in my storage space. But I've been buying a lot of jewelry. Does that count as vintage? For sure. Why have you changed over to jewelry?

25:28Just because you have so many clothes? No. It's a better investment. No, no, no. I'll tell you the truth, Nicole. The truth is when you're older, the vintage stuff doesn't look as cute. So like a little stain or a little hole, which is very charming when you're in your 20s. You know, a little stocking with a hole in it. An older person needs better things. An older person needs new things. She can mix in a vintage handbag or scarf or something. And also because the cuteness of doing this one in your 20s, like at the head to toe 1920s, you look insane as an older person. I mean, you don't look insane in the same cute way that you did.

26:11Now you just look like disturbed in a way. It's hard to explain. And there's women my age who can get away with it. But I feel I have to be very judicious in the addition of the vintage clothes. I'm having a similar feeling about the Mew Mew bullet bra. You're not getting that. I know. I'm too old. You're too old. I'm too old and it's breaking my heart. I think it looks so cute. No, no, you're not getting that. Yes, it's cute. And it's, you know, it's only cute because I remember I had this very important chat to me, although I'm sure that she never remembered it one second later. I was sitting in Massapequa with my mom in the playroom.

26:56That's what we used to call like the basement, the playroom. And she was wearing like, I don't know, probably sweatpants and a sweatshirt or something. And I said, Mommy, don't you miss those days when you wore like a beautiful shirt waist and stockings? And, you know, you had some beautiful things. And now look at what you're wearing. And she said, Linny, I hated wearing that stuff. It was really uncomfortable. It was really, she said, I love the way we dress now. I just, it was, it was really, you know, because you weren't, you couldn't really, you couldn't really move away from that. I mean, if you, if everyone was wearing a bullet bra, you think a bullet bra is a campy thing that you're going to wear to a party.

27:33But if you are stuck in that stupid bullet bra and the horrible girdle with those things, what do you call those things that hung off the girdle that held the stockings up? Garters. Garters, like rubbery, disgusting. Like, no. So you only want the bullet bra because of a sort of campy, almost like a movie costume kind of thing. You don't really want a bullet bra in any way, Nicole. Well, I'm sorry. Well, Lynn's got the last word on that. But you know who can wear a bullet bra? Who? Mr. Holgate. Because that's a whole other transcendent level. It's a whole other critique of bourgeois society. Think about it.

28:13Hopefully it will go with the Margiela. Is that front cardigan? Maybe I could just tease it a little and just pull the zip down on the cardigan. I'm also interested, Nolan, the internet must have, surely, I know it has, expanded your shopping. It's the best. It's the absolute best thing ever. And you'll buy everything. You'll buy clothing. You'll buy jewelry. You'll buy everything. You know, I'll buy some things. I mean, I have my searches. Yeah, the internet is incredible. it opens up like there used to be like the first edition mickey mouse watch in 1931 mickey mouse which sold for like a dollar and saved the waterberry watch company in the depression everybody wanted that mickey man i wanted the mickey one it's called in mickey collector speak yes and and so i finally found it in this field in pennsylvania at this show it was 175 dollars back when i didn't really have it but i bought it anyway the mickey one was a lifelong search that now takes two seconds.