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"  Ten minutes after the nominations were announced for this year&amp;#039;s Oscars, Cameron Silver, owner of the Los Angeles vintage store Decades, got an e-mail from the wife of a nominee with a special request. &amp;quot;She wanted me to find her the greatest vintage dress ever!&amp;quot; says Silver, who worked overtime to fulfill the woman&amp;#039;s wish. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s really about finding something that&amp;#039;s not accessible to everybody else in a world where you can have everything.&amp;quot; The thrill of tracking down a one-of-a-kind gown that no one else will claim can send any self-respecting fashion lover overboard. As Silver points out, the price tag for looking unique isn&amp;#039;t cheap, ranging anywhere from $100 to $100,000. &amp;quot;Vintage is the last personal-style option that really has a sense of mystery,&amp;quot; he says. And that&amp;#039;s not about to change. As trends become ubiquitous and runway looks are reproduced at every price point, buying clothes today that will become the vintage finds of tomorrow adds value and cachet to your wardrobe. The trick is, how do you tell a lifetime purchase from one that will later be remembered as a one-season hit?   &amp;quot;There are clothes you look at that are fun, but you aren&amp;#039;t sure if you&amp;#039;ll wear them two months from now. Those aren&amp;#039;t the ones you want to collect,&amp;quot; says L.A.-based celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe, who has been building a collection of vintage Pucci and Missoni for years. &amp;quot;You don&amp;#039;t want to look at something and say, &amp;#039;That&amp;#039;s so last season.&amp;#039;&amp;quot;  In other words, it&amp;#039;s got to be both timely and timeless. Harold Koda, curator in charge of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, says that the basic criteria for a collectible design are that it &amp;quot;has wide influence, represents its time, and is idiosyncratic enough that it has individual presence.&amp;quot; His recent exhibition, &amp;quot;Nan Kempner: American Chic&amp;quot; highlighted one woman&amp;#039;s remarkable flair for buying pieces that were iconic of the designers she loved and the eras in which they worked. Naturally, Kempner&amp;#039;s elegance was also expressed in the cool confidence of those choices. Upon being asked one night where she had purchased her chic white blouse, she replied simply, &amp;quot;Saint Laurent, of course.&amp;quot; In hindsight, it&amp;#039;s easy to pinpoint some of the vintage designs you&amp;#039;d want to see hanging in your closet right now. A Courr\u00E8ges dress with its mod cut blends in seamlessly with spring&amp;#039;s new minis, Versace&amp;#039;s metal-mesh dresses from the &amp;#039;80s feel breathtakingly current, and the goddess gowns by Madame Gr\u00E8s have already been resurrected on many of today&amp;#039;s runways. Witness the ethereal St. John gown worn by Angelina Jolie at this year&amp;#039;s Golden Globes.   &amp;quot;Generally, designers who don&amp;#039;t constantly change with the trends are going to withstand the test of time. They&amp;#039;re the ones you want to invest in,&amp;quot; says Robert Burke of Robert Burke Associates, a luxury-retail consulting firm based in New York. To that end, Burke predicts that Prada&amp;#039;s ombr\u00E9 prints (Spring 2004), Oscar de la Renta&amp;#039;s full-skirted short evening dresses (Spring 2004), and Chlo\u00E9&amp;#039;s black-trimmed white A-line dresses (Spring 2005) are destined for the collector&amp;#039;s archives. &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re keepers in the sense that you could give them a rest and pull them out again in a few seasons.&amp;quot; Picking clothes that will look suitable at different stages in your life is also key. Seriously, who wants to celebrate her 60th in a leopard jumpsuit? &amp;quot;I always ask myself, Will I wear this when I&amp;#039;m 30, 40, and 60?&amp;quot; says author and jewelry designer Liz Goldwyn, who has been buying vintage clothes and accessories for the past 18 years. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m into stockpiling,&amp;quot; notes Goldwyn, whose vast inventory also includes contemporary designers such as Sophia Kokosalaki, Balenciaga by Nicolas Ghesqui\u00E8re, Sonia Rykiel, and Martin Margiela. &amp;quot;People who are collectors are consumed by it; it&amp;#039;s about being obsessive.&amp;quot; Her list of Spring 2007 collectibles includes Chanel&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;pharmaceutical&amp;quot; accessories, the Bottega Veneta Intrecciato handbag, and Rodarte&amp;#039;s A-line &amp;quot;wedding&amp;quot; gown.  If you own an item from a designer&amp;#039;s collection that has made headlines or has been a hit with A-list celebrities, you&amp;#039;re onto a good thing. There was much buzz about Tom Ford&amp;#039;s first collection for Gucci, Olivier Theyskens&amp;#039;s final collection for Rochas, Chanel&amp;#039;s tweed trenches, and Alber Elbaz&amp;#039;s pleated and sheer-front evening dresses for Lanvin, as they shaped fashion&amp;#039;s trajectory as well as our repertory of cultural references. And the same goes for accessories: Who can forget the innumerable paparazzi shots of Nicole Richie, Nicky Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan dangling Balenciaga&amp;#039;s motorcycle bag off their skinny arms? But, as Zoe cautions, just because something looks good on a celebrity doesn&amp;#039;t mean it&amp;#039;s right for everyone. &amp;quot;You shouldn&amp;#039;t try to fit into something just because it was a hit on the red carpet,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Rather, let it inspire you.&amp;quot; Zoe recalls a time when she was snapping up 1920s dresses at New York flea markets that didn&amp;#039;t end up fitting. &amp;quot;I wouldn&amp;#039;t buy anything just to look at,&amp;quot; says Zoe. &amp;quot;My closet is overwhelming, with things I actually get excited about wearing!&amp;quot;  Julie Macklowe, a New York retail portfolio manager who is well attired for her job in a Chanel tweed skirt suit, likes to choose the pieces that are changing fashion. So she recently picked up Proenza Schouler&amp;#039;s multicolored bandage minis (&amp;quot;futuristic but retro, which is unique&amp;quot;), Chanel&amp;#039;s black sequined shorts and scuba jacket (&amp;quot;in lieu of a cocktail dress&amp;quot;), and several evening gowns by Oscar de la Renta (&amp;quot;they&amp;#039;re timeless&amp;quot;). Last fall, she bought the ultimate boss boot, Chanel&amp;#039;s black python thigh-high with a heel. &amp;quot;It speaks to the modern woman who wants to be powerful, sexy, and feminine,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s a revolutionary shoe.&amp;quot;  When you think about which clothes will be worth owning 30 years from now, limited-edition items, or designs that claim some degree of exclusivity, are likely to be increasingly valuable. Tiffany Dubin, a brand consultant and vintage collector who founded Sotheby&amp;#039;s fashion department, recently selected a limited-edition silver Orchid necklace with diamonds, created and signed by architect Frank Gehry for Tiffany &amp;amp;amp; Co. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t think anyone else would have it,&amp;quot; says Dubin. But her interest isn&amp;#039;t solely in high-end acquisitions. She believes that the onetime collections produced by coveted designers Viktor &amp;amp;amp; Rolf, Karl Lagerfeld, and Stella McCartney for H &amp;amp;amp; M will also turn into classics. &amp;quot;The brand name is there, and there&amp;#039;s a finite supply.&amp;quot; A savvy way to ensure a similar degree of exclusivity is to buy the work of talented young designers such as Thakoon, Doo.Ri, Phillip Lim, and Marchesa. &amp;quot;Luxury today is so much about individuality,&amp;quot; says Decades&amp;#039; Silver. &amp;quot;If you support an emerging designer, you have a good chance of buying something unique. Think of the early Rodarte pieces: They have the potential to be quite collectible.&amp;quot; Trunk-show shoppers can assess the long-term value of their purchases by finding out how many of a particular piece have been produced - the fewer, the better. If you&amp;#039;re slightly competitive (rest assured, collectors generally are) and you want to fend off people from buying what you&amp;#039;ve got your eye on, then listen up: &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s all about secrecy,&amp;quot; says Goldwyn, who is reticent to reveal what vintage she&amp;#039;s collecting these days. &amp;quot;You want the inside scoop on things that are coming up. You certainly don&amp;#039;t want to give out that information, or it will put someone else at an advantage.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/trends/a120/vintage-of-tomorrow-0507/>