Rihanna's New Vintage Era Is Really Taking Off
Fashion

Rihanna's New Vintage Era Is Really Taking Off

If there's one thing to glean from Rihanna's recent off-duty looks, it's that an exclusive vintage moment can be even more powerful than a current look pulled straight from the runway.

In the past few weeks, the fashion mogul has been spotted wearing rare vintage finds from the likes of Tom Ford for Gucci and '90s Chanel while out and about in Los Angeles. Among the standouts are a plaid bouclé pastel coat from Karl Lagerfeld's Fall 1996 collection for Chanel, which Rihanna purchased years ago from Cherie Balch, founder of vintage platform Shrimpton Couture.

"She mixes new with vintage effortlessly," wrote Balch on Instagram, who shared that Dallas-based stylist Nini Nguyen originally pulled the look for RiRi. "I love that she can pull something out of her closet she's had for ages and make it look fresher then what's on some of the current runways."

She also wore the look with a blue pearl choker necklace from Dior by John Galliano, which Rihanna also bought a while ago from another vintage dealer: Marie Laboucarié, the owner of Paris-based online vintage shop Nina Gabbana. She calls it the best thing that has happened to her this year. "I couldn't be more happy honestly to count her as one of my clients as she's been killing it for years and is one of my role models," she wrote.

The mix of in-season items and archive runway looks is not new territory for Rihanna, but lately she's been on a hot streak of incorporating young emerging designers alongside the rare vintage finds from historic fashion houses. Take the aforementioned Chanel ensemble, which she paired with a powder blue cotton-blend set from LA-based designer (and Kanye protégé) Maisie Wilen. Or the Mowalola top she wore last month at Giorgio Baldi with a leopard Dries van Noten coat and Spring 1994 Todd Oldham flame-print dress that she wore as a skirt (which she bought from Kerry Bonnell's Archive Vintage).

Another recent vintage look that's had everyone buzzing is a pair of beaded and feathered jeans from Gucci's Spring 1999 collection, which then-creative director Tom Ford described as very "Las Vegas Hippie" (think Summer of Love and Woodstock vibes). She paired the jeans with a custom faux fox fur hat by Benny Andallo that was pulled from another of Rihanna's style collaborators, Jahleel Weaver.

The list goes on, including a vintage Fall 1997 Yves Saint Laurent fur coat (also sourced from Shrimpton Couture) she wore for a dinner date with A$AP Rocky in January. Her vintage Raf Simons pieces secured from dealer David Casavant are also well-known. Is there a deeper meaning behind her recent wave of archival wardrobe choices? Maybe not, but there's nothing like flexing a rare vintage find to feast our starved-for-beauty eyes.

Photos via Getty