Why Celebrities Turn to Chandler Guttersen for One-of-a-Kind Vintage

For Chandler Guttersen , everything has a story behind it. The reason she moved into her apartment-slash-showroom? A bad breakup. The apartment itself? Oh, it used to belong to Cindy Crawford. How this very story came to be? None other than Law Roach put her in touch with the ELLE team. Guttersen even wanted to know the story behind my own name, flipping the interview dynamic to satisfy the curiosity that is so integral to her business, Vintage Grace . This theme carries through to her very core: Fashion is storytelling-and storytelling is everything. Through her work at Vintage Grace, Guttersen has provided pieces for celebrities like Dakota Johnson , Chloe Fineman, Justine Skye, Evan Mock, and Roach, who works with stars like Zendaya and Ariana Grande . When Roach saw a dress from Guttersen’s stash-a beaded Isaac Mizrahi number originally made for Kate Hudson in 2003-she says he told her, “I know a major fashion moment when I see one.” To understand how the vintage curator got where she is today, we have to go back. After studying fashion merchandising at Texas Christian University, Guttersen worked in the fashion industry in various capacities, but never hit her stride. Feeling like she was floundering at the beginning of the pandemic, she reached out to her work mom and “fairy godmother,” Lisa Pomerantz, who formerly served as Bottega Veneta’s chief marketing officer. Pomerantz told her, “You need to tap into vintage.” It was a lightbulb moment: Of course she needed to get into vintage. From childhood, her parents had taught her that clothes are meant to be cared for and kept-cherished, even. She still has Ralph Lauren sweaters that her mom passed down to her over the years. In the spring of 2021, Pomerantz connected her with a woman whose own Palm Beach vintage store was closing. It was a match made in heaven. The woman’s kids weren’t interested in “finishing what their mother started,” but Guttersen certainly was, and she began building an inventory. “The world brought us together,” Guttersen says. Now her dusty-pink downtown Man­hattan showroom is filled with racks of original Bob Mackies, Vivienne Westwoods, and Alaïas. It’s a fashion lover’s wonderland. When we meet at Vintage Grace, Guttersen is wearing the timeless pairing of vintage light-wash denim and a vintage YSL white button-down shirt, tailored to perfection. A gold Louis Vuitton trunk serves as her coffee table, and Chanel throw pillows adorn the couches. She keeps a circa-1939 Fortuny dress delicately wound, snakelike, into a box to preserve the pleating. To get a true sense of her discerning eye, you really have to visit the showroom. “I’d say 90 percent of my stuff is not listed online, because the magic is in person,” she says. “That’s what I think is so lost in today’s world, with overconsumption and the ability to buy so much for so little. It’s what’s special about vintage pieces. I could tell a story of how I sourced it, who it came from,...

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