When Lauren Lepire was 15, she—like many schoolgirls earlier than her—was eager to check the bounds of her college uniform. “I went to an all-girl, uniform-wearing highschool, so early on I regarded to vogue as a strategy to specific myself every time I might,” Lepire, proprietor of the commemorated Los Angeles classic retailer Timeless Vixen, tells Vogue.
However not like different excessive schoolers, Lepire’s classic curiosity got here from one other supply. “After I was 15, I joined an all-girl, eight-piece ska band, which was very closely influenced by ’60s subculture,” she says. (The band, known as the Cowl-Ups, even opened for Inexperienced Day at Warped Tour in 2000.) “Early on, I understood classic was cool and will say a lot about you with out even saying something. You belonged to a sure tribe by what you have been sporting.”
Whereas Lepire’s lifelong classic obsession started in early highschool, it wasn’t till faculty that she would begin her enterprise. The unique iteration of Timeless Vixen started out of necessity: “I had too many garments in my bed room,” Lepire says. “My mom was like, ‘You’re trying like an episode of Hoarders.’” Whereas peddling clothes out of her College of Southern California dorm room, she reached a wider viewers on eBay, promoting clothes that she liked however knew she couldn’t hold. On the weekends, the Los Angeles native would go residence and enlist her mom to {photograph} her modeling numerous classic finds. “It was then that I began realizing, Wow, it’s not simply me,” she says. “There are folks everywhere in the US—and the world—who need this stuff.”
At present, Lepire homes her strong archive in Timeless Vixen’s prime Beverly Hills storefront. A tour of the racks will reveal all the pieces from Twenties Lanvin to Tom Ford’s iconic purple velvet swimsuit for Gucci’s fall 1996 assortment. It ought to come as no shock that it’s turn into a scorching spot for celebrities and fashion-industry of us alike, with Lepire counting Kate Moss, Tory Burch, and Kylie Jenner amongst her shoppers.
In relation to celeb styling and period-piece costuming, Lepire calls for a sure purity of coronary heart in that she doesn’t lend out her clothes. “As a result of I’m such a passionate collector myself, I really feel that clothes ought to inform the story of your life,” she explains. “If you look again on these items in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, it ought to be one thing that you simply need to maintain on to love artwork.” For her, clothes is not only one thing to put on. “It’s essential to show shoppers that it’s not simply the one evening you’re investing in,” she says. “You’re turning into your personal mini museum.” Plus, she provides, “it’s the magic of the primary put on—the primary actress that walks down the purple carpet sporting one in all these items. I don’t know who desires to be the second.”
