This Is The Biggest Trend In Vintage Right Now

Every morning, my iPhone wakes me. I brush my teeth with an electric toothbrush, make a coffee using my Nespresso machine and unload the dishwasher. I book a class on an app, then an e-bike. Afterwards, headphones in, I let a scan of my face pay for an adaptogenic smoothie, dressed in high-tech Alo athleisure, before beginning another day tapping away on various metal devices. Tap, tap, tap.

It is little wonder that sometimes I feel something is missing. Charm? Romance? Whimsy? Perhaps. Splendour? Definitely. And so, every Friday morning, seeking refuge from the dulling frictionless-ness of modern life, I trawl London’s Portobello Market for something – anything – that elicits a sigh. A diaphanous 1930s siren dress. A micro-beaded purse on a brass chain. A velvet robe. The more impractical, unsearchable and inconvenient the better. Sometimes, when picking up an Edwardian lace camisole, I wonder what its original owner might make of me wearing it with worn-in Levi’s. Who knows? Maybe she would have too, if she’d had the chance.

We have spent years streamlining ourselves into submission. Capsule wardrobes. Small plates. Same-day delivery. The algorithm promising that, based on previous activity, we might also like the same thing everyone else likes. At some point – between the endlessly re-shared images of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and Kate Moss – I grew tired of everything resembling 1993 and began fantasising about 1903.

Right now, it is century-old antiquity – rather than designer vintage – that is speaking to the impulses of London’s most instinctive dressers seeking a sartorial detox from the algorithm. Perhaps this was inevitable. Fashion has spent the past decade strip-mining its recent history. We know the grails, the runway seasons and, thanks to resale sites, the sky-rocketing price tags. In a world in which everyone knows everything, there is something thrilling about an object that refuses easy identification. There might be no label. Its previous owner is usually unknowable. There may simply never be another.

And so, we take a step back, all the way to the belle époque and its louche afterlife, a period that has inspired designers from Jonathan Anderson, whose Dior collections have been filled with clouds of tiered organza, bustled silhouettes and odes to the sumptuous brocades of Paul Poiret, to Matthieu Blazy, who has reintroduced art deco dropped waists at Chanel.

It turns out the quickest way to tap into that era is to take an Uber to Crouch End’s Rockstar Boudoir, a candelabra-lit treasure trove in the spare room of dandyish dealer Thomas Moreton, whose museum-worthy collection includes pieces by Gabrielle Chanel, Madeleine Vionnet and Poiret. “Girls are falling for antique dresses right now because they feel more special,” Moreton tells me. “They’re one of one.” Particularly popular are the vast boudoir robes, technically intended for “hosting, lounging, smoking, seducing someone or having a breakdown”, as he puts it. All of which, in fairness, still occupy most of my time.

Canadian artist Chloe Wise follows a long line of creatives who opt for historical dress. “For some reason, my basic is a theatrical Victorian children’s jacket,” she says, riffling through a rail of milkmaid camisoles and 1920s gossamer dresses that feel like they have lived several lives. “I like adding a historical kick to an otherwise contemporary moment.”

For modern women, the pleasure is also in wearing history incorrectly. Antique underwear becomes outerwear. A corset exposes rather than disciplines the body. A beaded sheer dress loses the layers intended beneath it. Clothes once governed by elaborate rules of female propriety are stripped of their instructions. We’ve all read Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear – no one is advocating for a return to 19th-century values (except for some politicians, it seems).

Designer Viktor Gichev, who has spent years immersed in old clothes through the Vivienne Westwood archive and One Of A Kind boutique, calls antique shopping “a treasure hunt”. His own one-off siren dresses are made from found and deadstock textiles, which he then burns by hand to give the lace a relic-like quality. “It feels like you found something special yourself,” he says, “rather than you’ve been sold something.” His clients look like they have wandered out of an Erté illustration and acquired an Amex.

For Conner Ives, the opera robe, fashioned from hand-embroidered kimonos and 19th-century tapestries, has become an unlikely pillar of his growing label, seen on everyone from Sienna Miller to Rihanna. Initially, “We didn’t get a single retailer picking it up,” he told me over dinner at home in Notting Hill one evening. Six months later, Ives put the expensive piece on his own website. It sold out within a week. “I think it’s specific to a London customer because there are so many amazing markets here,” says Ives. “I love that the girls are feeling eccentric. It’s the perfect antidote to an Alo yoga set.”

I look down at my sports bra and feel a small pang of guilt. Antique clothes ask something of you: to search for them, repair them, learn about them, figure out how the hell to wear them. In return, they make an ordinary afternoon feel a little less ordinary.

Most Fridays I leave Portobello empty-handed, but occasionally, underneath a pile of old linen, there it is: something frivolous, impractical and exquisitely made, carrying a century of history and no explanation for why I should want it. I pick it up and tap to pay, obviously.