What Counts as Vintage Clothing?

Vintage clothing is secondhand clothing made in an earlier era, and most people draw the line at about 20 years old. There is no law or official standard behind that number, though, so shops and marketplaces use slightly different rules.

How old does vintage have to be?

20 years is the most common answer. Etsy's house rules say an item has to be at least 20 years old before it can be listed as vintage there, and 1stDibs gives the same 20-year answer. On eBay's seller forums most people say 20 as well, though a few hold out for 40.

Not everyone agrees. Wikipedia's article on vintage clothing describes a stricter industry rule of 30 to 100 years, and adds that a piece should clearly show the styles of its time. So a tee from the early 2000s might count as vintage on Etsy and still be too young for some collectors.

The line also moves. It's counted in years, not decades, so every January another year of clothing gets old enough. Apparel Search makes the same point about the whole vintage window shifting forward with the calendar.

Vintage, antique and true vintage

At the far end is antique. The usual rule is 100 years or more, which both Wikipedia and Apparel Search give. 1stDibs uses a different word for clothing, though. It keeps "antique" for furniture, jewelry and objects, and calls garments from a century ago or earlier "historic."

"True vintage" has no fixed meaning at all. Sellers mostly use it to separate pieces that are actually old from new things with the word vintage stuck on them, a complaint that comes up on eBay's seller forums. On our site, True Vintage Americana is the older, rarer shelf: chain-stitch mechanic jackets, durene jerseys and work clothes from the old American makers.

Vintage vs. retro vs. reproduction

Vintage is about when something was made. Retro is about how it looks.

Retro means new clothes made to look like an older era, the stuff you'll see tagged "vintage style." Repro, short for reproduction, goes further and copies one particular old garment. Neither one is vintage, however old it looks, and a good seller says so.

How to tell if a piece is really vintage

A seller saying "1950s" proves nothing on its own. Etsy, for one, won't take an estate-sale find or a hand-me-down from a relative as proof of age. What it asks clothing sellers about instead is a good checklist: the fabric, the brand label, the care instructions, and what the zipper and buttons are made of. For old workwear, a few details help most:

• Care tags. Clothing sold in the US had to carry care instructions from July 1972, when the FTC's Care Labeling Rule took effect. No care tag can point to an older piece, but tags get cut out, so treat it as a clue.
• Sanforized. The word means the cloth was pre-shrunk by a process patented in 1930, so the piece is from 1930 or later. More in what Sanforized means.
• Union labels. A Union Made tag tells you more about where a piece was made than exactly when. More in Union Made labels on vintage workwear.
• Buttons. Some old work jackets and overalls have removable buttons held on from the inside. More in change buttons.

Check more than one. Each of these narrows the date, and none of them settles it alone.

Archive Workwear sells vintage workwear, outdoor, ivy, military and true vintage from Denver, Colorado. See vintage clothing, or follow new finds on Instagram at @archiveworkwear.