The archival games: How vintage pulls took over the red carpet

This is Connecting the Dots, a series in which writer José Criales-Unzueta looks at how fashion, pop culture, the internet and society are all interconnected.

As it often goes with Zendaya, the recent press tour for Dune: Part Two, in which she stars alongside Timothée Chalamet, Austin Butler and Florence Pugh, became just as much about the fashion as it was the film. Those who may have no idea who Princess Irulan is instantly clocked the grey suit Zendaya wore to the Seoul premiere of the film; designed by Lee McQueen for his AW99 Givenchy collection, it was what the fashion commentariat have come to recognise as an insane pull.

The look was styled by Law Roach and sourced by Brynn Jones of the Los Angeles-based Aralda Vintage. It wasn’t Zendaya’s only major archive moment: she had just worn an autumn 1995 Thierry Mugler robot suit (which I’m dubbing “Robo-Z”) as part of the same press tour.

Vintage has become a major red carpet trend. This past weekend at the Vanity Fair Oscars After Party, Jennifer Lawrence donned a vintage Givenchy look, this time by John Galliano, while Cardi B wore an Atelier Versace SS03 couture frock from Tab Vintage. Olivia Rodrigo wore vintage Versace to the Grammys, where Miley Cyrus performed in archival Bob Mackie, and Kylie Jenner donned the late Hanae Mori as Chalamet’s plus one to the Golden Globes. A few years back, vintage moments on the red carpet were far and few between—among the few examples was Bella Hadid in Gucci by Tom Ford at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022.

What’s with all the throwbacks?

I recently wrote about the new wave of vintage hunters like Pechuga Vintage’s Johnny Valencia and Cherie Balch of Shrimpton Couture for the March issue of Vogue, outlining the way the vintage business has evolved from an insular market geared towards collectors and fanatics to an industry in its own right. What used to be fun, “if you know, you know” fashion moments have transformed vintage into a fully fledged industry.

But when one of these looks is worn, the ROI is less clear than when a celebrity slips into a gown from a current runway. Who is the real winner here? Is it the celebrity, who gets a viral look; the stylist, who gets some well-deserved clout; the brand that is still attached to it, even if not directly responsible; or the—rarely credited—vintage dealer?

The business of archiving

“Vintage is the last unit of measurement of a flex for a stylist,” says Marco D’Angelo, founder and chief strategist at Platform PR, which counts Roberto Cavalli and Oscar de la Renta as clients, explaining that stylists now have to work their way up into pulling rare vintage from a brand’s archive. “First you get a sample, then custom, and then, if you’re lucky enough, the brand opens the archive.”

It used to be that celebrities would buy vintage looks when they could not get brands to dress them, but the business has changed, thanks largely to Roach. “We’ve been [pulling vintage] since Zendaya and I began working together, for 13 years now,” the image architect told my Vogue colleague Christian Allaire last month. “At first, it came out of necessity because back when we started, nobody would lend her clothes. And I come from vintage—I had a vintage store in Chicago—so a lot of the things that she wore were things from my store or vintage pieces.”

One could say that the celebrity is the number one winner here, but it’s often the brand that takes the bigger piece of the cake. What do brands stand to gain? There’s a detachment between an amazing archival pull and what’s currently being created by the house.

At Mugler, Casey Cadwallader will often riff off founder Thierry Mugler’s past pieces—think Beyoncé’s bee bodysuit for her Renaissance World Tour — but his own work stands apart in the sense that it’s more contemporary. These archival looks speak to the house in general but not necessarily to the current designer’s point of view. Givenchy doesn’t have a creative director at the moment, so the house can stand to get some positive archival clout, yet there is a disconnect when you think of Zendaya’s look and other Givenchy outfits worn during the Oscars weekend. Still, judging by earned media value, the looks draw attention. The Robo-Z look generated $13.3 million in media exposure for Mugler, according to Launchmetrics.

But the strategy, says D’Angelo, should be to look beyond brand awareness. Most brands with archives that go back to the ’80s are not necessarily in need of more name recognition, so the goal should be to translate the “moment” into a commercial opportunity. “In order for us to give you an archive piece, it needs to work seamlessly with what the current designer is doing,” says D’Angelo, “You want to mine the sense of nostalgia, but you want to make sure it doesn’t overhaul the current direction of the brand.”