This Is Where All of the Coolest French Girls Get Their Vintage Fashion
This Is Where All of the Coolest French Girls Get Their Vintage Fashion
You have to have a special talent to walk into a consignment shop and walk out with a handful of clothes. It’s tricky to dig and discover something with just the right fit, or something that qualifies as a very old and rare designer piece. Though the rush of shopping at a secondhand or vintage store can be thrilling, it can also be time consuming and tedious, which is why so many online and Instagram-only secondhand businesses have been popping up. One such company is called Imparfaite, which is based in Paris and launched a year ago. What makes this platform special and sets it apart from the rest is its selection—all of the items for sale on the website are carefully sourced from local vintage and secondhand stores around France. Also, the majority of the inventory is priced below 100 euros, save for a couple of high-end designer pieces from labels like Sonia Rykiel and Céline. Imparfaite was founded by best friends Ariane de Béchade and Camille Gabbi, the former of whom previously worked as a product manager for Lanvin and the latter as a sales and marketing manager for L’Oreal.
Imparfaite’s model is a bit like Etsy in that they act as a third-party seller for small consignment shops. De Béchade and Gabbi have a team that scouts the best vintage sellers throughout France, and every month they launch a newly sourced collection of pieces from those independent stores, modeled on the site and on Instagram by a quintessentially cool French girl. Imparfaite muses have included Eleonore Toulin, Anne-Laure Mais (aka Adenorah), Camille Charrière, and Jeanne Damas. The clothes are the sort that these women consider to be their uniforms. There are pretty floral-print dresses from the 1960s, gingham off-the-shoulder tops, delicate corsets, Levi’s jeans, and Birkin-esque basket bags. “Our best-selling items are the Austrian cotton blouses, the flower dresses, and the 501 jeans,” says De Béchade. “I really think we as shoppers are getting sick of finding the same clothes over and over again, and dressing the same. We are sick of bad-quality clothes that never last too.”
De Béchade also notes that their team spends a lot of time and care making sure that every item they put on the site is in great condition. “We add new pieces every day,” she says. “All of them are carefully reviewed and selected. On top of that, we photograph nearly 200 pieces on a French muse, a girl with style who can give women inspiration and help them realize that you can wear vintage every day and still look and feel incredibly modern.” Bridging the gap between then and now is really the essence of Imparfaite. “We truly believe that women are looking to feel something when they buy clothes,” De Béchade notes. “Vintage pieces often remind them of something their mothers or grandmothers wore during their childhood, and they resonate with them and serve as a reminder of their history. We hope to recreate this emotion with Imparfaite. The link between the past and the present is of great importance to us.”
