When Lauren Lepire was 15, she—like many schoolgirls before her—was keen to test the limits of her school uniform. “I went to an all-girl, uniform-wearing high school, so early on I looked to fashion as a way to express myself whenever I could,” Lepire, owner of the venerated Los Angeles vintage store Timeless Vixen, tells Vogue.
But unlike other high schoolers, Lepire’s vintage interest came from another source. “When I was 15, I joined an all-girl, eight-piece ska band, which was very heavily influenced by ’60s subculture,” she says. (The band, called the Cover-Ups, even opened for Green Day at Warped Tour in 2000.) “Early on, I understood vintage was cool and could say so much about you without even saying anything. You belonged to a certain tribe by what you were wearing.”
While Lepire’s lifelong vintage obsession began in early high school, it wasn’t until college that she would start her business. The original iteration of Timeless Vixen began out of necessity: “I had too many clothes in my bedroom,” Lepire says. “My mother was like, ‘You’re looking like an episode of Hoarders.’” While peddling clothing out of her University of Southern California dorm room, she reached a wider audience on eBay, selling clothing that she loved but knew she couldn’t keep. On the weekends, the Los Angeles native would go home and enlist her mother to photograph her modeling various vintage finds. “It was then that I started realizing, Wow, it’s not just me,” she says. “There are people all over the US—and the world—who want these things.”
Today, Lepire houses her robust archive in Timeless Vixen’s prime Beverly Hills storefront. A tour of the racks will reveal everything from unlabeled pieces from the 1920s to Tom Ford’s iconic red velvet suit for Gucci’s fall 1996 collection. It should come as no surprise that it’s become a hot spot for celebrities and fashion-industry folks alike, with Lepire counting Kate Moss, Tory Burch, and Kylie Jenner among her clients.
When it comes to celebrity styling and period-piece costuming, Lepire demands a certain purity of heart in that she does not lend out her clothing. “Because I am such a passionate collector myself, I feel that clothing should tell the story of your life,” she explains. “When you look back on these pieces in five years, 10 years, 20 years, it should be something that you want to hold on to like art.” For her, clothing is not just something to wear. “It’s important to teach clients that it’s not just the one night you’re investing in,” she says. “You’re becoming your own mini museum.” Plus, she adds, “it’s the magic of the first wear—the first actress that walks down the red carpet wearing one of these pieces. I don’t know who wants to be the second.”
