For John Cossgrove,
life is just one big shopping spree. As owner of the 3-year-old
Decades Vintage Company, his days are spent buying and selling
Nehru jackets, pork-pie hats and alligator shoes. His inspiration?
A job at the mall.
Willamette Week: How did you get interested in
vintage clothing?
Back in the '80s, I was working in a mall and had to wear
a tie every day. Skinny ties were in, and I discovered that
1950s and '60s ties were skinny too but cheaper, so I bought
vintage instead. I was already collecting antiques at that
point, and I've always been interested in history and archaeology,
so I got interested in it from that standpoint, too. Soon
I had an Eisenhower jacket to go with one of my really cool
ties, and it just escalated from there.
How did you wind up starting the store?
I was collecting and wholesaling to dealers around town
for quite some time, and then I worked in a vintage store
for three years [Fashion Passion]. When they started getting
out of vintage, I decided to open a store of my own. The
idea was to fix everything with vintage stores and emulate
everything that I liked--to offer great clothes in a wide
range of sizes, but get rid of the musty smell and the tattered,
stained items.
How relevant is vintage clothing to today's fashion?
Most of what you're seeing coming out today is a reflection
of the past 100 years. For example, a lot of what's coming
out for men right now is 1950s and '60s-styled reproductions,
and a lot of what's coming out for women is 1940s and '50s
reproduction.
What are your favorite eras of clothing?
For men, I like the early 1960s--the look of 007 or even
Dick Van Dyke. I like the clean lines, the simplicity of
design. For women, I like the 1940s for pretty much the
same reasons.
Do you get interested in the cultures that go with eras
of clothing?
Oh yes. For myself and a lot of my customers, certain eras
become a lifestyle all their own--the clothes, the music,
the cars.
What are the best and worst aspects of what you do?
The best part is the thrill of the score, the discovery
of an incredible piece of clothing. As for the worst, let
me say first that most of my customers are really incredible
people: They're very nice, personable, and they know a value
when they see it. But in any store, you get all kinds, and
I get a fair amount of people who don't appreciate the items
I have or don't realize their value.
You mean they're cheapskates?
Your word, not mine.
Without giving up your secrets, where do you make your
best scores?
Unfortunately there isn't a motherlode anymore. It's become
so competitive that it's just really hard to find the stuff
anymore. I tend to get my best stuff from people who walk
in the store with stuff to sell.
What was your best find?
A 1950s pink-and-black matching Ricky jacket and pants--incredibly
Elvis-styled. The pants were a luscious black rayon gabardine
with a pink stripe down both sides. The jacket was black
with a pink stripe down the front and a pink pocket flap.
It was amazing!
Who bought it?
A musician named Rick Vito, who was opening for Bonnie
Raitt. True story: He had just come out with a CD called
Pink and Black. The tag on the jacket said "Styled
by Vito," which was his last name, and the jacket of course
was a Ricky.
What's the most valuable vintage item right now?
Because of the whole swing phenomenon, everybody wants
zoot suits, but nobody knows how rare they are. I've actually
never even seen an authentic one in the state of Oregon,
but you can get reproductions as close as Seattle or San
Francisco.
What's the most overvalued?
Furs. People assume they're incredibly valuable when in
reality they're not.
Why not?
The market is saturated.... I get several calls a week
from people wanting to sell their furs, and I just don't
know what to tell them.
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Willamette Week | originally
published December 8,
1999
|
