So Retro - Vintage By Fein Und Ripp

THE VINTAGE CLOTHING TREND GOES TO EXTREMES - FEIN UND RIPP

 Vintage Clothing By Fein Und Ripp - Les Bons Viveurs

It's no surprise that Berlin, one of Europe's most fashionable destinations, has plugged into the vintage clothing craze.

 Vintage Clothing By Fein Und Ripp - Les Bons Viveurs

 But the trend has reached new heights at Fein und Ripp, a retailer on trendy Kastanienallee, which tends to stock items from the 1870s rather than the 1970s, and where the look is more Prussia than Prada!

 Vintage Clothing By Fein Und Ripp - Les Bons Viveurs

One mannequin is attired in a three-piece suit handmade from a roll of linen more than a century old. Top sellers include a surprisingly fetching gray 1930s prisoner suit - one of thousands owner Joachim Pianka discovered in a Swedish government depot and a collection of 1920s Henley T-shirts liberated from a vault in the Swabian Alps.

 Vintage Clothing By Fein Und Ripp - Les Bons Viveurs

Pianka cannot say how many of the T-shirts he has in stock. They were among a 45-ton consignment of clothing he agreed to buy three years ago. As his eye-rolling son Marlon pours coffee, Pianka explains that at the time of the purchase he wasn't even in retail.

 Vintage Clothing By Fein Und Ripp - Les Bons Viveurs

Back then he was a travel agent, irritated that the clothes he favored were getting harder to come by. His midlife crisis fueled research led him to the old Merz b. Schwanen factory in southern Germany, where he found the late owner's sons keen to offload stock dating back almost a century. "I had turned 48 and was thinking of doing something new with my life" he says. "So on impulse I bought the lot".

 Vintage Clothing By Fein Und Ripp - Les Bons Viveurs

Today, Fein und Ripp has a clutter of stock from all over Europe, mainly from tiny labels that have endured for generations. These firms, recently in danger of extinction, are now sought out by legions of hip workwear enthusiasts who come to Pianka's shop to buy  denim as tough as chainmail. flannel shirts as thick as blankets and near indestructible boots.

 Vintage Clothing By Fein Und Ripp - Les Bons Viveurs

This summer the store began altering items to sell under its own label - a new brochure features the owner and his two strapping sons modeling the clothes. "This is a family business" Pianka says.

 Vintage Clothing By Fein Und Ripp - Les Bons Viveurs

Pianka admits that he cannot resist to taking in consignments this week he received 700 mail bags from the 1950s even though there is enough stock in his Kreuzberg warehouse to last his lifetime.
"Enough to last my lifetime", murmurs Marlon.