Pioneering Contemporary Vintage with Byronesque’s Gill Linton

Gill Linton is the cofounder and curatorial persona behind Byronesque, a digital boutique department store that uniquely merges editorial content with a focus on contemporary vintage fashion. As editor-in-chief, Linton is a thought leader in the realm of editorial-based e-commerce and has long been a go-to brand strategist well-versed in the subculture of vintage fashion. Hailing from London, Linton divides her time between Paris and New York, collaborating with designers, consultants, editors, stylists, and other in-the-know individuals to reissue vintage finds and preserve creative brand histories. For her, it is essential to encourage people to be more thoughtful and slower when buying clothes—institute a cultural shift in shopping behavior.

Episode Highlights:

• “The odd one out:” Born in London into a Scottish family, Linton got her start at M+C Saatchi, where she was able to pursue her passion for advertising, branding, and creating content.
• Serendipitous start: From her first job, she moved to BBC Radio 1, which was a state-run representation of youth culture. She was able to move into the fashion industry through a move to New York to work with the agency of entrepreneur Russell Simmons. 
• Brand evolution: Linton began in the fashion industry at a time when concepts like “brand heritage” weren’t considered in traditional marketing. 
• Bridging gaps: She cofounded Byronesque, set apart from traditional resale sites, to focus on “contemporary vintage” with a global network of vintage sellers and private collectors.
• Resale is the new fast fashion: increased volume and perpetuated ideas of buying and selling in the resale sector have led Linton, through Byronesque, to “encourage people to be a little bit more considered, slower, and to keep things for a long time.”
• Fighting flip culture: Byronesque believes the clothes it sells and stories it tells have more meaning than the mainstream gives them.
• Careful curation: Making Byronesque “a specialist environment” for vintage and “future vintage” of luxury brands, Linton has been authenticating, partnering with archive teams, and organizing concessions for luxury brands in an attempt to provide more agency and control over resale markets and brand image. 
• Reissuing vintage: Byronesque has reissued vintage finds from Helmut Lang, Vex Generation, Claude Montana, THREEASFOUR, and other brands that have been producing iconic items in decades past.
• Collector’s items in fashion: Her concern with keeping clothing as investment pieces drives a blockchain-based authentication process, and brings up the power of narrative and the importance of story.
• What’s contemporary now: Real talent, Linton says, and she hopes to see a resurgence of talent among a generation and in an evolved industry where that’s not always necessary.

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