Closet Confidential: Your Guide to Designer Vintage in Paris (Part 1)
Let's keep the circle small... pls don't forward this email 🤫
If designer vintage shopping is a game of checkers elsewhere, it’s a grand chess tournament in Paris — not just a step but a whole serpentine runway; it’s simply in a league of its own.
You might be thinking —But what about TRR and Vestiaire?? They definitely opened the doors to the designer vintage theater (at wallet-friendly prices — hats off!) but think about who wore those stunning pieces from decades prior. Answer: The elegant (and now elderly) ladies residing right here in Paris who had front-row VIP seats (and backstage passes for good measure) in the fashion capital of the world and the cradle of haute couture. And they are not selling their clothes on our fav apps (!), which brings us to our next point.
Here, many of these vintage vaults are still owned, operated, and guarded by solo shop owners who’ve cultivated life-long relationships with the chicest Parisiennes in the neighborhood or in some cases, directly with the couture houses themselves. So not only are there volume and variety to be found in Paris, but the vintage scene also stands out in its one-off museum quality. For your Selleb Sisters, learning from these secondhand savants has become a priceless Parisian pastime as they spill the tea on the provenance and the backstories of the items they are selling – reminiscent of intimate viewings at art galleries or fine violin dealers. And some of these pieces are SO UNIQUE. (We will get to that below.)
So without further ado, we showcase our boots-on-the-ground, most up-to-date investigative sleuthing on Paris vintage stores ranging from hip to old chic — often tucked away in quaint alleys in small (sometimes unmarked) stores but also hiding in plain sight (on a grand boulevard) without much fanfare— cherry-picked based on Selleb Sisters’ golden litmus test: the price-to-quality ratio.
We are revealing our top 10 favorites (in no particular order) + 3 well-deserved Honorable Mentions. We also decided to split these up into 2 segments because we kind of got over the top with the descriptions and stories.
*In this edition, we’re also sharing the RECEIPTS of the items we bought at vintage stores in Paris and the deals we scored.*
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Selleb to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.