McQueen Or Dior, Lauren Lepire Will Help You Fall In Love With Vintage

When Kameron Lennox, the recent Emmy winner (with Betsy Glick and Tyler Kinney) of the Outstanding Contemporary Costumes for a Series for her work as costume designer for The Studio, was a nominee, she came to Lauren Lepire, owner of the exquisite Los Angeles vintage store, Timeless Vixen, to decide what to wear for the big night. When she told me about the experience, Lauren described it as her chance to have a ‘Fairy Godmother’ moment.

“She was in Timeless Vixen,” Lepire said to me with a smile in her voice that conveyed her well-earned pride. “She wanted a story, something with life to it. There is something very special about wearing a couture piece that’s one of a kind. A person that could find anything, who could have anything made; what they want is something special, with a life and a story. I think that’s what it is about vintage, this stuff is special.”

When you want something one of a kind, a garment with a story, high-end vintage is often the best way to go and going vintage is always a sustainable choice. But if you don’t believe us, look at Lennox’s backlist, tell me she couldn’t source pretty much anything a lady might dream about wearing. But for her special night, she chose vintage. (Excellent work on the show Kameron, btw.)

“We sold a dress to Law Roach, who will be styling Ariana Grande. They were looking for many, many looks for her and he wants to do a lot of vintage. So, I think we’re gonna see a lot of Ariana Grande in vintage, which is very exciting. She’s just perfect and it’s very cool that he’s wanting, true, authentic haute couture vintage. They bought a 1956 Christian Dior.”

Lepire, on her own and through Timeless Vixen, has built a life out of preserving the material culture that is fashion history. Her storefront opened in 2004, Lepire was already experienced in the specifics of vintage, which back then was a minuscule subset of the fashion market when compared to its status as a billion dollar industry today. Lepire wore vintage as a teenager and was one of the first E-Bay sellers to turn a passion into a thriving business. And every time Lepire levels up, she finds ways to encourage people to think about why extant examples of historic clothing matter and why they need to be protected.

Honestly, at the beginning of our conversation we were catching up. Lauren and I have been friends for years but we live on opposite coasts, and I think anyone reading this understands what life is life in 2025. But when I heard that she was lending four pieces, not from Timeless Vixen, but from Lauren Lepire’s own private collection, obviously it was imperative to see if she had time to talk about it. Very graciously, she agreed.

“This year has been a little crazy,” the entrepreneur told me, “but in such a good way. We started off the year by being asked by Vogue if we would lend out authentic 1920s pieces for an editorial for their April issue that was all about vintage. I was really very honored when I got the message because I was referred to by Hamish Bowles as having the best 1920s collection.”

[If you do not speak fashion fluently, please let me translate: this is an incredible compliment from an extraordinary scholar and gentleman who would not have said that if it was not true.]

“I was really excited because I do a lot of modern and a lot of mid-century,” Lepire explained, “ because I’m always in touch with trends and what people want, because you want to sell what people are looking for. But I have such love for the 1920s and such a great collection of antiques. It was really exciting to get this call and be able to show it.

“This was January,” Lepire continued, “we flew, that was my one condition, because these are true couture pieces that are over 100 years old. This isn’t something that I would send out on a shoot. I was like, Look, me and my assistant need to be flown out to the location in New York to dress Gigi Hadid. She doesn’t know how to move in this, it’s not like new clothing. It was a really cool experience to be on set. And to see how everything happens and, and their appreciation for the clothes too, because the things we brought were so magnificent. It was a great start to the year.”

It was also an indication of a sort of informal theme for the year. A couple of months later, Lepire told me, “UBS and Dior were doing a collaboration in New York, basically looking at couture as an investment. And I was asked if they could fly me out and to be one of the people who discuss why this is such an important avenue for investing.”

“I’m so used to the fashion world, designers and stylists and film,” Lepire said, “and this was truly going into the business world. Looking at all of this through a different lens; why this is so rare, and why ‘old is the new gold,’ and truly, with sustainable fashion, how a dress from the 1940s or 1950s, is so well made that if made correctly, it will last, unlike something made today. That was really cool, to be able to use that platform for the store and be ‘like, look, you can buy something that once you walk out the door, your investment, it may even go up. It will go up in value if you keep it in good condition,’ I always say that. I mean, condition is the thing. Finding something and buying it is only half the battle, the other half is preserving it.”

Probably no one will be surprised to learn that Lauren Lepire is an avid collector of vintage, with her own private collection of historic couture that is definitely not for sale. But her expertise and acumen, combined with an eye very few possess for pièces d’archive, mean that Lepire is constantly being asked to help with truly fabulous projects, like the Alexander McQueen exhibition she helped to open this week.

A play about the life and career of Alex McQueen opened Off-Broadway this week, under the creative direction of Gary James McQueen, nephew of the British designer we lost far too soon.

House of McQueen stars Luke Newton, with Emily Skinner and Catherine LeFrere, was directed by Sam Helfrich and written by Darrah Cloud from an idea by Rick Lazes and Seth Koch. All of the costumes in the show are originals designed by the very talented Kaye Voyce, inspired by Alex McQueen’s life and his incredibly imaginative, collections which were jam packed with narrative and allegory.

As proof that sometimes the really wonderful ideas do get funding, it was decided that the opening of the play would be accompanied by the opening of an exhibition of McQueen’s designs, which meant that enough exhibition worthy extant Alex McQueen had to be sourced. So, obviously they reached out to Lauren Lepire and asked her to help celebrate the designer’s enduring legacy.

“One of the first exhibitions I did was of Ossie Clark,” Lepire told me, “which was amazing. Then recently, FIDM’s Museum had an exhibition called Fashion Statements, where they called iconic people in Los Angeles and they picked out a few pieces from their archives to display and explain why. I picked out two pieces; one of them was this 1938 Madeline Vionnet gown that I actually sold to the museum 15 years before. It wasn’t random that the McQueen people found out about me.”

“I was approached by producer Rick Lazes,” Lepire continued, “he explained the idea, a play about Alexander McQueen. Gary James McQueen is the creative director and Luke Newton, who was in Bridgerton, plays McQueen. He said, it looks great and all, but we truly want an exhibition to go alongside the play. So, after you experience the life of McQueen, you get to come out and you see these incredible lifetime works of art that he created. So you’re literally immersed and this blend of theater and fashion.”

For Lepire, who studied Theater at USC, this sounded wonderful. So when they came back to ask if she might lend a few pieces for that same exhibition, it was easy for her to agree.

“I’m like, Yay!” Lepire said to me with a laugh, “this is absolutely incredible. I’m able to loan out my own pieces,” she explained, “from my own collection, these are not pieces that are for sale. I explained, because anything loaned is from my own collection, and I alone make my own decisions. I would never put something that’s for sale on loan.”

Three of the pieces Lauren Lepire loaned are from McQueen’s final collection, Angels and Demons Autumn/Winter 2010.

“I love this collection so much,” she said, “what’s very exciting to me is that one of the pieces is actually my favorite piece in the collection. It’s a fully embroidered cape and it also comes with the matching shoes. I don’t think it’s ever been exhibited anywhere. I know I haven’t seen it at the Met, I haven’t seen it anywhere. So, it’s very exciting to finally see it, a piece where I do not know anyone else who has one, or who has actually seen it.”

Another piece comes from A/W 2006, a collection McQueen, a commensurate storyteller, named The Widows of Culloden.

“It’s fully plaid,” Lauren Lepire told me, “and it is incredible. There are about 20 full ensembles. It’s on high rises and it’s beautifully displayed. I think they’re telling the story with each piece. It’s at The Mansion At Hudson Yards. I mean, they literally built a stage from scratch.”

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