A Roger Vivier Spring 2008 archival bag via Vogue.com
Roger Vivier is a company that never does quite what’s expected when it comes to handbag an shoe design, and for the launch of its online store, Vivier has chosen to go a bit left-of-center from your standard online shopping outpost. Instead of vending current-season pieces like every other brand on the planet, starting in September, RogerVivier.com will allow fans of the brand to shop must-haves from seasons past that are still available in the Vivier archive.
According to Vogue, all the pieces will be new and unworn limited-production items from seasons past, so if you’ve been kicking yourself for half a decade about a beautiful brocade evening bag that you should have bought in 2006, this might be your second chance for fashion redemption. But the better question is, why don’t more brands do this?
The fashion industry, being the lover of “the old way” that it is, has just started to scratch the surface of the ways that technology and the Internet can revolutionize business. In the past, opening the company archives would have only been possible for a very small group of high-dollar clients who had patronized a fashion house for years, if not decades. But not anymore; brands have the option of offering archival pieces to clients around the world without taking up valuable product space at brick-and-mortar retail stores.
Embrace of the new among fashion’s old guard moves at a snail’s pace, but perhaps one day we’ll all be able to buy vintage Balmain straight from the source. Or what of Chanel’s surely grand archives? Can you even imagine what’s in there? Think on that for a few minutes if you need a break from Monday morning monotony, and then let us know which brands and which pieces you’d want in the comments.
