Fashion Never Fades featuring Eeva Musacchia of Eveliina Vintage

Shopping secondhand is one of the best ways to incorporate sustainability into your closet. In the past five years, we’ve seen it reach mainstream consciousness and become accessible with platforms like The RealReal, Depop, and Vestiaire Collective. But vintage collectors have always existed; caring for and valuing old garments is a timeless practice. That’s why we spoke with a professional pre-loved curator EEVA MUSACCHIA, who founded Eveliina Vintage in 1970s Finland, on the changing landscape of fashion. 

When you envision the future what do you see?

As far as the world of vintage and fashion, I feel as though people are going to be consuming more responsibly because of the negative effects fashion has on the environment. I think the more people know and are educated on topics like foreign policy, environmental impacts, climate change, and even the current pandemic, we become more aware of our individual responsibility as a whole.

How is your work playing a role in that? 

I sell vintage and in that you see the circle of life in clothing and trends, and how customers now are more aware about their responsibility to purchase vintage and reuse clothing versus feeding into ever-changing trend cycles.

What got you started into the world of vintage?

Vintage offered, in the late 70’s in Finland, a wider range of styles, fabrics, silhouettes when all of these elements were very limited. The pieces were also always unique and more interesting than anything you could find in stores at the time, which is still true.

How has Eveliina Vintage changed over the years?

It has a much wider audience. When I first started the only people buying vintage clothing were the young creatives in Finland, the bohemian crowd. Now Eveliina’s customers range in age and type of person. In the late 70’s there were also a lot more restrictions in place for how people were expected to dress for certain occasions. Those ideas have now opened up much more. The best example of how Eveliina has changed is the use of our signature product, our slip dresses. Women used to use these dresses as underwear and now our customers purchase these pieces to use as everyday dresses, formal evening dresses or even pajamas. Now that we have also explored dying them, we’ve helped modernize the functionality of the slips.