So what is Vintage?

20 years. The answer is 20 years.

   Just the other day I heard a kid in Target excitedly claim across the store "Mom, vintage band tees!" I looked over and saw the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial shirt they were referring to, and did my best not to cringe in fear of instantly becoming one of those vintage purists I obviously already am, and instead bit my tongue and continued on to the greeting cards.

   You hear the word vintage used this way a lot these days. Over the past few years, there has been a resurgence and evolution of the word vintage. It is now a term that Gen Alpha and Gen Z are using to refer to style and not necessarily age. The concept of E.T. on a 60/40 Poly/Cotton ringer tee mimics vintage and hence is called vintage by some. From a linguist's perspective, this type of thing is destined to happen, so in reality we can't be all that surprised.

   Needless to say, we all know that E.T. is not a band, literally lol. I can't start on that one, because by now it is Crystal Pepsi clear that my Gen X is showing.  In the eyes of a vintage enthusiast, said t-shirt is barely brushing by as "retro." The truest of the true vintage fashion experts knows that a t-shirt from E.T.'s era circa 1982 would be paper thin today, almost see-through with one single line of stitches at the hem and arms, and the tag most likely would be paper if it survived these 40 odd years. Also, the size and brand most definitely wouldn't be stamped on the inner neckline of the shirt itself above the words Made in China.  Alas, my purist is showing.

   All of that aside, we love Gen Z and Gen Alpha for embracing things of old, but to be clear, for an item to be 100% pure and true vintage it must have survived 20 years (a few say 25), and that is it. It's not an easy feat if you think about it. 

The Mall Vintage categorizes something as vintage if it is 20 years old or older. 

 Items 100 years old (or older) are considered Antiques.