Why Buying “Nouveau Vintage” Is The Smartest Thing You Can Do For Your Closet

What do you call something that's not quite old enough to be considered vintage (the strict definition puts that at 20 years) but not quite new enough to be in stores? How do you find those 3-year-old boots you always meant to buy, but now can finally afford? In these days of peer-to-peer marketplaces, a new category of clothes exist online. We're dubbing it "nouveau vintage."

They're the clothes that you'd find at consignment shops like Buffalo Exchange and Crossroads, but without the shoving and with the confidence that the $800 Chanel bag you're fondling isn't actually a Channel bag that should only cost you $18. Online, there's a huge array of places that sell nouveau vintage, and we've hooked up with re-sale site Tradesy, one that lets shopping addicts poke into the depths of each other's closets. We sent three of our editors on a mission to recover those items that they missed out on the first time around, and had them weave said items into outfits that are a true mix of high and low, new and vintage, and nouveau vintage.