What makes something "Vintage"?

I've been doing some shopping lately...who are we kidding I'm ALWAYS shopping and I have come across the word vintage a lot. Everyone seems to be following a vintage trend lately going to flea markets, pawn shops and thrift stores, looking for vintage items. In my case, I was looking for a vintage clutch (purse), when it hit me.

What does vintage mean? and why am I willing to pay more for it?

When retailers slap vintage in front of the description, doesn't it make you feel like its automatically a little more valuable? Well I did some research. If you want to know what vintage is, check out my descriptions below and shop smarter.

First and foremost, here's the dictionary definition of Vintage:
vin·tage (vntj)
noun
1. The yield of wine or grapes from a vineyard or district during one season.
2. Wine, usually of high quality, identified as to year and vineyard or district of origin.
3. The year or place in which a wine is bottled.

Informal
a. A group or collection of people or things sharing certain characteristics.
b. A year or period of origin: a car of 1942 vintage.
c. Length of existence; age.

Adjective
1. Of or relating to a vintage.
2. Characterized by excellence, maturity, and enduring appeal; classic.
3. Old or outmoded.

Here are some generalized and more common descriptions that I have run by for various categories, beginning with fashion, since that's the one I'm most interested in.

Fashion & Jewelry

Some say vintage is anything made between the 1920's to 1980's. Other sources say that vintage can be anything from a previous era or 7 years or older and difficult to acquire. With this definition I would definitely land in the vintage category.

I think I will stick with the more widely accepted between 1920's to 1980's, anything made before that is considered antique.

Furniture

Vintage furniture applies to many types of furniture, the most important qualities being those that show age and high attention to detail.

Antique furniture is another story. Antique furniture is made at least one hundred years before it is purchased. This definition is often stretched by retail stores and many times when you arrive at antique store, you will see items that are only 50 to 60 years old, which mostly refers to the quality than the age. Then they upcharge you.

Vehicles

Cars are a different story however. For Cars, Motorcycles or Aircrafts something vintage needs to be at least 25 years or older, antique is anything 100 years or older.

You generally see vintage/antique car enthusiasts huddled in front of Denny's on Sunday or in Long Beach, in front of Frisco's.

Perfume

Perfume from the 1900 to 1980s is considered vintage unless it is discontinued, renamed, re-released or reformulated.

Wine

Any wine with a date on the bottle, with wine, Vintage only refers to the year it was made.

So, my advice to you is, before you go buy something "Vintage" make sure what you are getting and why it is considered "Vintage" to the seller, unless of course it's totally obvious.

Happy Shopping!

The weekend from hell! Pretty Much...

So I don't complain THAT much, but I need an outlet and this blog is about to become that. This is one of the worst weekends I have had in a REALLY long time. Fortunately, I'm an optimist and during the whole thing I wasn't so upset and handled it really well. However, now looking back, I realize that there are very many weekends that would be worse than this. The only comfort I really had was that I have a dear loving boyfriend; who additionally had a hand in making this a sucky weekend, more on accident than anything else.

It all started when I woke up late on Friday. Late for me is 7 o'clock, that means that I missed the gym. Which is not conducive to my mission. However, I was up until approximately 1 am the night before because of tennis practice.

I woke up, and alas....stiff neck. That was just the beginning. I went to work my usual cheery self yet as the day progressed my neck became stiffer and stiffer, until eventually I looked like a robot and could only move my neck if I moved my entire upper body with it. My boss told me to leave early if I wasn't feeling well; that was nice except that meant that I would have to drive, which was a bit difficult for me at the time.

I eventually had to get in the car anyway and drive home to a very sore neck and back, where my precious boyfriend applied lots of pressure to help dissipate the pain. I eventually passed out from being tired of holding my neck up all day.

Saturday - I wake up still in pain, making it hard for me to sit myself up. We wake up super early to drop my bf to work (they were headed to SD for the day). Apparently it was my fault that the alarm didn't go off. So we were like 20 minutes late getting there. That same day I was supposed to attend a bachlorette party and help set up decorations. I decided early that day that I probably should go out clubbing feeling like this, so I figured I would meet up, help out, enjoy some fun and head home for a good night's rest; because Disneyland was the next day and I wanted my neck to feel better.

So I leave the bachlorette party and head to get my bf from work. On the way there, my car starts showing some strange warning lights. Lights go dim, which really scares me. Enough to where I pull over the side of the freeway to stop and re-start the car. I get to his work to get him and he attempts to try to figure what's up; but it was super dark.

We get the car home and go to sleep.

Sunday -BF wakes up, ready to go to Disneyland, YAY! He washes the car and tried to look under the hood to figure some things out. Saabi is behaving well so we figure it was a glitch and we'll get it looked at later. We have an amusement park to go to! We get out to Anaheim to get our tickets, done. From the ticket place to the park...dim lights and some strange car stuff. Immediately after paying our $14 for parking....dun dun dunnnnnnn....car shuts off completely. NO POWER, NO NOTHING!

I decided that I'm going to Disneyland to enjoy myself all day and worry about it later. While at Disneyland, I joined AAA, so that I can get towed from the Magic Kingdom 20 miles and not have to pay a crazy amount. The people at Disneyland are lame but find a way to get my car off to the side in a space for the day.

I haven't been to D-land for about 7 years and have never ventured to California Adventure, so that was really fun for me. On top of that, I went with a bridal party of people I haven't seen in ages, it was a nice reunion. We tried to stay as long as we could but it started getting pretty cold around 10 pm. Nontheless, we went on most of the good rides (Tower of Terror is now a favorite), saw Captain EO (although all this new shaking made me a little nautious) and watched the 2 hours of fireworks (exaggerating). I was pretty happy with the day and had to go back to the doom of getting towed, which wasn't so bad. The tow guy was really cool but my car wanted to cause drama. First we got the car jumped, thinking that would be enough. We get started and as we are driving out of the parking lot, she shuts off in the middle of the lane that goes to the freeway, fun! The same tow guy comes back to get us home.

We get the car home and go to sleep. I spent most of Monday, finding a car place that won't totally rape my bank account and worked from home, which was actually nice for a change. McMillen's Garage is going to fix Saabi up for me; we'll see how our drive out to Palm Desert for wedding goes this Saturday.

I just realized this story is getting long. To make a longer story, less long. The car's in the shop, my back is sore but almost fully recuperated and instead of being the start of a fresh new week; its the beginning of a crazy HECTIC week at work. Go figure!