Where exactly is the boundary between Fashion and Art?

This conversation between Lise Silva of Cellar Door Sequins and Y. Caron of TRIBUTE. is a peek into the minds of vintage collectors who see their garments as a different kind of truth and an expression of their own brew of family, history, and style.

Terms like ‘art to wear’, folk art, artisan, couture, and craftsman are often used to describe one of a kind, carefully designed garments made with labor intensive techniques. Traditional clothing from every region of the world exemplifies the overlap between art and vintage: handcrafted pieces, care and attention to detail, elements of both function and beauty permeate the garment. Each piece of vintage clothing tells a story: the faint 30 year old red wine stain from a smashing cocktail party, the mended snag from a late night stroll through the woods, the piling right shoulder area over which a purse was often slung, the peppermint candies and grocery list still in the pocket after 15 years.

Vintage lovers know how special their pieces are— the simple fact that they have survived whispers the fact that someone cared enough to save them for so long. We vintage lovers also know age-old wisdoms for keeping our treasured wardrobes intact, like the art of mending hems, hand washing delicate fabrics, and properly storing seasonal items. It’s a story that unfolds with each newly acquired piece — how you found it, where it came from, its place in history and how you will eventually display it. This conversation between Lise Silva of Cellar Door Sequins and Y. Caron of TRIBUTE. is a peek into the minds of vintage collectors who see their garments as a different kind of truth and an expression of their own brew of family, history, and style.

Y. Caron: So what’s your story? How did you fall in love with vintage?

Lise: I grew up in a time capsule of sorts…. The women on my mom’s side of the family are kind of packrats and we even boast an actual hoarder (my great aunt lives in a log cabin filled from floor to ceiling in every room with knick knacks and thrift store finds— no one has even entered her house for the past 15 years.) So I grew up with antiques and old things around me since the time I was tiny. When I was in middle school /high school in the 90s, vintage had just started to take off and I started scouring my mom’s closet to wear all her old bell bottoms and ski sweaters she had stored away.

Y. Caron: That’s interesting. I think a lot people’s love for vintage starts with family as the nexus. It’s a tradition of sorts. I come from a frock obsessed family of women as well. My grandmothers, mother and aunts taught me everything I know about how to find and wear clothes. I think my grandmother thrifted every day. My major memories of her as a little girl are catching the bus (if we had extra money she would let me put my little hand out to hail a cab) and we went to the thrift store. She would take time to show me the difference between an antique and a vintage piece — what kinds of seams to look for and how fabric should feel. I hated it when I was younger but as I got older I realized that shopping was a part of my grandmother’s language, it was how she stayed in touch with herself and our family history as dressmakers and quilters.

Lise: Quilting has such a rich history! I’d love to learn more about it. Unfortunately no one carried on the tradition in my family from my great grandmother. She made a gorgeous quilt of my great grandfather’s old clothing after he died…. all made of his old ties and suits. Its one of my mom’s treasures that she drapes at the foot of her bed. Where are you from originally?

Y. Caron: I’m from Washington, DC but I’ve lived in Atlanta for over a decade.

Lise: I lived in DC for several short stints over the last 5 years and found the city to have a total lack of thrift options! The major one these days is the Salvation Army on H st. People in the District are so hungry for more thrift options that Goodwill started doing occasional pop-up shops in Chinatown and they are literally cleaned out by the end of the three days!

What was the thrift scene in DC like during your childhood?

Y. Caron: Oh there were a lot of small hole in the wall places. Junk shops really that had great stuff. I’m sure its gone now but my grandmother’s favorite haunt was a thrift store on Minnesota Ave. next door to Woolworth’s. Of course I can’t recall the name, but I remember that it always seemed filled with beautiful things. I don’t really remember going to places like Goodwill or Salvation Army because they had less of a presence in the District. The best stuff was in those little places that had no name, Eastern Market or the outdoor markets in Maryland that we hit religiously every Saturday. We had a thing — Shop on Saturday, Church on Sunday.

Lise: How is Atlanta, in terms of a vintage scene? Do you see vintage in the south being different from other regions?

Y. Caron: I see the south as the mecca of vintage. I get so much inspiration from seeing parts of the south or even just parts of Atlanta that feel untouched by modernity in a way. When I add on to that the special magic I feel from being in the south it just creates this bubble of synchronicity where you are always finding things in unlikely places. The notion of charity is very southern as well so, unlike DC, we have a ton of non- profit affiliated thrift stores like Goodwill, Salvation Army and Value Village. Making that distinction is funny because DC is not too far removed from the south, but there are some different values and aesthetics at play there that are specific to the city.

Lise: Sounds amazing! I bet the small towns in the country are also loaded with treasures.

Y.Caron: For sure! I’m obsessed with the script from Steel Magnolias. That line: “Because I’m an old Southern woman and we’re supposed to wear funny looking hats and ugly clothes and grow vegetables in the dirt” is so key to understanding the magic of finding vintage in the south. Southern women, regardless of race, exemplify agrarian cultural roots as well as a connection to aristocracy that you absolutely see in clothes. Its so cool to go through a store or an estate sale and see that reflected in the pieces.

Lise: Did you wear vintage as a teenager?

Y. Caron: My very first vintage piece was a 70’s silk dashiki my aunt up in NY gave me. I called it my “power shirt” and it became an important talisman for me as I navigated my way through boarding school. Most of the time I was the only black girl in my class so wearing a shirt like that was a major statement for me about my politics and where I came from. Unfortunately, I was too young to realize that I needed to preserve it and it fell apart. I truly wore that thing TO DEATH. This is why I’m so fascinated with how museums preserve vintage fashion in permanent collections.

Lise: Sounds like an amazing piece. Sunlight and moths can just wreck the best vintage so easily.

Y. Caron: Do you preserve your vintage in any particular way?

Lise: My favorite in my collection is an early 70s Biba…. I bought it as a total dream wishlist piece on my 30th birthday. I had to get it, it was my favorite colors (plum and gold) and in my exact measurements and at a great price, directly from England and a reputable seller (there are a lot of Biba ripoffs and Biba relaunch pieces labeled as original Biba online). It’s definitely my most expensive investment. Part of how I keep my fav items from getting worn is that I only wear the best stuff on special occasions. If I get a stain on it, I’m meticulous about getting the stain out immediately (the longer stains set the more likely they become permanent). As far as moths, I haven’t quite figured it out, but I don’t keep my vintage in any attic areas where they are sitting for months or years unattended. I definitely try to keep my clothes and accessories away from windows. I’ve displayed beautiful pieces near a window before and then months later, noticed fading.

Y. Caron: That’s wise! Its easy to get careless with garments when you have a bonafide collection and you’re always shopping. Do you have a particular designer whose vintage work you collect?

Lise: Hmm… the only trend I see in my vintage brands is probably my Avon jewelry collection. I LOVE vintage Avon… the designs are magical and they are generally very cheap to collect. Whiting & Davis is another great accessory brand I have a few of, but they are more expensive pieces than Avon so I haven’t got too many.

What era do you collect most?

Y. Caron: That’s so funny! I have a small cache of vintage Avon building as well. particularly necklaces and brooches. My fav is this little bowtie herringbone…so cute. As far as eras, I think I’m a 70’s devotee. My adoration of my mom’s and auntie’s wardrobes produced that for me. I also live for the 60’s. I have a Dior turban from the 60’s that I was recently gifted from my friend Melina Daley of Staara Baba’s Vintage. It’s so serious I have it living on its own wig stand in my room where it can be properly displayed. Do you think that vintage fashion deserves a place in art museums? I did a lot of research on Diana Vreeland’s first exhibitions at the Met for a paper I was writing and found the debate interesting. Is it or is it not art? Because its old and/or designer does that make it art?

Lise: For me, absolutely. It definitely deserves a place in a museum because fashion history is such a reflection of culture. It reflects the technology (how materials could be manipulated and manufactured), the aesthetic, the views (silhouettes and changing hemlines tell so much about norms and values), and lifestyles of the people who wore them.

Some of my favorite museums are textile museums, which show the overlap between fashion, textiles, and art. The V&A in London is a testament to the importance of fashion and style in history.

Y.Caron: My favorite Diana Vreeland quote is “Fashion is part of the daily air and it changes all the time, with all the events. You can even see the approaching of a revolution in clothes. You can see and feel everything in clothes.”

Lise: Diana Vreeland has some of the best quotes. She really had a vision about what makes fashion interesting and she always had global perspective. Do you sell vintage online or locally?

Y.Caron: We are local right now. My business partner and I are into the idea of creating a culture/community around what we do. The stories are really the important part of the clothes for both of us. We even name each item and make up a little back-story or character to go with them. We tend to do a lot of pop-ups, parties, and our own concept events. We recently did an event where we featured a live fashion editorial, art show and retail pop-up.

Lise: Brilliant idea…I love the idea of mixing that vintage pop-up feel with an art show environment and photoshoot at the same time. I’ve tried to get people involved in things that mix those elements, and people just couldn’t quite wrap their head around it so it fell through. Its so great to have people you can work with that have the imagination to try new things like that.

Y. Caron: I’m curious about your styling and photography work. What’s your process for interpreting what’s in your head into an image?

Lise: I think interpreting what’s in my head has just come through practice. A lot of times what’s in my head is not a fully formed visual. Its just a patchy feeling — really more of a mood and maybe colors. And then through trial and error, playing with mixing pieces together and lighting and photography, I see what works. Having inspiration files of past references makes it so much easier. I often will make a Pinterest board of things that have elements of what I’m trying to go for and that gets that hazy vision in my head into more concrete terms.

Y. Caron: Is it easier to feel color etc. when you are the photographer? I always feel this tension between how my vision comes to life when I’m behind the lens vs. another photographer.

Lise: I definitely love the control of also being the photographer because I know exactly how I would edit the final photo but it’s definitely double the work. I think working with a photographer who shares your references and aesthetic would be the best. But I haven’t found that person yet so I just keep doing double the work until I cross paths with that kindred spirit. When you are trying to style and you have someone else as the photographer it’s also better because you can catch little things that are out of place and fix them, whereas when you’re playing both roles, it often isn’t until the final photo that you notice that a hair was sticking up on the model or the bottom of the dress needed more steaming. Those are things you can hone in on when you are just focused on styling.

Y. Caron: I like your kindred spirit idea…I’m still looking for mine. It really is a conversation that you have to be able to have verbally and visually with a photographer to get that right shot. It’s kind of layering art forms — narrative, textile, photography. Do you think using vintage in a shoot needs to be obvious or do you like to just mix it in?

Lise: Hmm… interesting… what would be an example of it being obvious?

Y. Caron: Like for instance, let’s say you had a flapper style dress. Obvious would be to make the whole theme of the shoot inspired by that era (a whole H-to-T Gatsby look) vs. throwing a denim jacket on with the same dress and setting the scene on a highway.

Lise: Oh I see. When I shoot garments for my shop, I always find a way to make the item look like MY style instead of an era. My personal style is definitely a mix of eras that looks a little 40’s, a little 60’s and a little 70’s. Likewise, when I do creative shoots for a small business or for my portfolio work, the theme is never dictated by an era. It may evoke an era, but for me when it’s so stuck to a certain era it becomes more of a historical reenactment, so it’s not ultimately creative. I just use my love of vintage to fuel my creativity, not let it put boundaries on what I want to shoot because it’s not historically correct.

Y.Caron: Yeah I think that’s a key distinction to make. That’s how you stay in conversation with it and use it as inspiration for new ideas.

More and more vintage lovers are now displaying their favorite pieces on the wall as one would a painting or sculpture — Mid-century hats hung on a nail above a chair or luxe woven flapper-era scarfs displayed at the foot of the bed. With fashion history at our fingertips, vintage opens up a world of beauty, pop culture, art and history that unfolds deeper with each decade. Just as a work of art can mirror the zeitgeist of the time in which it was created, so does a garment. The silhouette, the material, the construction… Each element speaks volumes about the historical period in which it was produced and the aesthetic view of the people that produced and bought the item. What would cause one to value a piece of art made to hang on a wall as better than one which was made to drape across the body? Only perception, and a little bit of visual magic, separates the two.

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