A Saturday Morning At Sous Vintage

It’s the weekend at Sous, and it’s hard to find a moment to chat alone with owners Luca and Andrea - the store is buzzing with customers sifting through clothing racks and chipping in with questions for the two vintage experts. ‘Yes, that’s silk dear’ and ‘yes, we do have suede pants,’ they chirp back. This is a u-turn from the lazy isolated weekends we’ve had the past 9 months of pandemia. Milan woke up hungry for vintage and we have to feed her quick.

An Interview with Sous Vintage Store owners Luca and Andrea - By Giulia Giudici *TRANSLATED FROM ITALIAN

GIULIA: How did you guys come to be managers of a vintage store?

SOUS: After graduating from Fashion Styling at IED, we both started working as freelance stylists for brands and photography – but it was soon clear that our taste didn’t align with that of contemporary designers. When we looked at the new collections we were supposed to work with, what really interested us was retracing the references back to the original pieces that inspired them. In short, we couldn’t sell what didn’t belong to us in the first place. Then, in 2019, we heard that this friend of ours who owned a vintage store had to leave Milan, and we thought: ‘This is it. We’ll be in our environment. Let’s give it a try’. We signed the papers and got the keys to the place, then it dawned on us that we were going to struggle a lot in the first period, learning and making mistakes. But it was so worth it – we’re going strong and have our share of loyal clientele. Most importantly, it’s our vision from floor to ceiling.

GIULIA: What does SOUS stand for?

SOUS: The store was already called SOUS when we took over, and we kept the name without investigating. It could refer to the fact we’re located south of the center of Milan, so ‘sous’ as ‘under’ in French. But recently someone suggested it sounds like a play on the word ‘sous vide’ – as if this space existed in a zip-Locked vacuum of preserved time and taste. We liked that a lot.

GIULIA: What do you define as vintage? What time coordinates do you give it?

SOUS: Clothes must have at least 20 years of distance from the present to be considered vintage; this is the generally accepted definition. The ‘purist’ one sees vintage as at least 50 years old, and at most 100, so we could pair a 1920’s frock. We think that’s a bit too much, we’re going into museum territory there. Mothballs ahoy!

GIULIA: How and where do you find clothes and accessories that reflect your vision? And how do you know when an item will be a hit?

SOUS: By now we have our go-to private dealers and secret locations, but we comb through yard sales and flea markets in the area too. We’re always hungry for new things, for the next incredible piece laying unassumingly among old sweaters. And after all this time, all it takes is a look: you just feel it, you’re like ‘I know you’re going to drive them crazy’. A mind-blowing piece we had some time ago was this gorgeous S/S 1982 Thierry Mugler leather jacket. Other times it’s a leap of faith – there just might be someone out there looking for that black Berghain-esque vinyl gas station attendant jumpsuit hanging over here you know. The same goes for secondhand – and we recently had the pleasure of expanding to the upper floor, creating a space for vintage finds with the help of our friend Elisa of handmade jewelry brand Confetty. Besides her brooches, pendants and earrings, we have all sorts of unique pieces there, from printed tablecloths to wooden ink stamps, glass vases and statues, antique poker sets. And things like this ‘pissing baby’ doll here, which squirts water out if you squeeze it.

GIULIA: What do you think modern fashion is doing wrong or lacking? And where do you think it has improved?

SOUS: Quality and durability are the main thing that’s been lost. We have 40 year old wool sweaters here that are still intact – if you buy a new one today, it takes it a year to be covered in lint or to fray. High fashion brands used to employ great craftsmanship and materials, while now the same offshore textile factory produces both 600€ and 60€ trousers. Their greed translates into wastefulness and sloppiness – they chase the fad while they can live off their fame, but don’t live up to the standards that once made them famous in the first place: it’s clothing as a product devoid of any intention and research beyond ending up on a big influencer’s feed.

Another criticism we move is that designers keep homaging The past without actually adding anything of their own. We know it is impossible to be completely original and groundbreaking, to leave an utterly unprecedented mark on fashion, but this homage –this appropriation even, in certain instances– is so copy-pasted and uninspired, we wonder if we’ve already seen all that there ever was to see. Or rather, if we’ve already seen all that was worth seeing. Undoubtedly, though, modern fashion has the great quality of being much more inclusive now, brands generally put more efforts in catering to and representing a wider range of body types and people. Despite our best efforts to accommodate anyone who might come in, we know how rare it is to find clothes and shoes of a certain brand or period of you wear a higher size or look for a comfier fit.

GIULIA: The success of vintage implies a cyclical nature of fashion and taste. What drives and sustains it, and how can you make the most of it?

SOUS: There are no prejudices in vintage, no temporary fads, no restrictions. Instead, there is always a certain degree of relatability and timelessness and familiarity, and the freedom of mixing styles and eras to create something unique for yourself. You can even wink at a current trend, if you want – think of the 90’s revival we see right now, basket hats everywhere. One thing we learnt over time that helped us tremendously was to anticipate what our customers are going to look for. We study new collections and identify their inspirations, keep our radar on for clues, and most importantly listen to our friends and regulars.

Another thing we developed and perfected is our communication: You have to tread on the fruitful line between sounding too ‘young’ and too lofty or dusty. We treat our social media like a sort of Sous moodboard. You still have to appeal to people, you know – it’s not enough to have good taste and a wide offer, you have to speak their language and make them feel like you really can get them.

Anyone who is curious, who likes to research a bit before deciding what to buy, who’s not satisfied with wearing what everyone wears, is inevitably going to end up looking at fashion from the 80s, 90s, even earlier than that, even just to assess the degree of originality of what’s en vogue right now. Then, if I can afford to pick between a S/S 1982 Thierry Mugler-inspired leather jacket, and the thing itself, what am I going to pick?

Images By Dave Masotti