Most of us don’t have a celebrity image consultant to help us decide what we should wear the next day, but now there’s a clothing store in Chicago where we can get a “free consultation” included in the price of any purchase. Celebrity fashion stylists Law Roach and Siobhan Strong have dressed stars like “America’s Next Top Model” Eva Pickford, “Prison Break”’s Rockmond Donbar and supermodel Veronica Webb and—at their new Pilsen store Deliciously Vintage—they will do the same thing for any customer who walks through the door.
As co-owners, Roach and Strong have tried to make their vintage store special. Roach explains, “Chicago is oversaturated with vintage stores but no one does vintage the way we do it.” According to Roach, each item in their store is “hand-picked,” “on-trend” and color-coordinated so that “you don’t have to dig” to find what you want. Roach emphasizes that their collection includes a “broad spectrum” of prices, sizes and brand names, so that a person can easily customize their outfit. Though their collection does include an abundance of clothing from famous names like Dior and Yves Saint Laurent, Roach says that they don’t focus on selling brand-names, but rather on selling beautiful clothing: “We don’t focus on designers; we focus on design. If it’s a great dress, I don’t care if Grandma Sue made it in the eighties; it’s a great dress.”
Roach explains that DV’s typical customer is a “trendy girl who loves vintage but doesn’t want to look like she’s wearing a costume” and that their collection is tailored to meet the needs of the modern woman. He emphasizes, “We don’t want you to look like you walked out of your grandmother’s closet.” Strong says that at Deliciously Vintage they try to keep the “sweet pleasant things of the past” alive by making them “current,” by taking in the waistlines and by choosing items for their collection that are “trendy” now. The idea of their vintage store, Roach says, is not to have a collection of old clothes, but a collection of the best and most fashionable clothes from the past. Strong stresses that their current collection is “very relevant” and that she hopes that this will be true of all their collections. “What I hope to remain the same is the feeling of amazement when people come in and can’t believe that every piece in the store is vintage!” (Ilana Kowarski)
Deliciously Vintage, 1747 South Halsted, (312)733-0407, dvchicago.com
