By Liana Satenstein

Name: David Rada

Year: Sophomore

“Well, I don’t really have any influences,” David smiles, leaning against a vintage Plymouth, “but I like shopping with girls because they help.” At a quick glance, David resembles an old generation of 70s playboys who wore their pants a little too tight and stroked their facial hair a little too often. Yet his Playboy sweater with holes strewn across the front, his grandma-knitted scarf and his new jeans are the very pieces, whether thrifted or passed along, that compose his timeless style.

“I just buy what I like,” David tells me as he tugs the sleeves of his wool sweater. “I like wearing pieces that no one else has.”

“So do you basically buy vintage?”

“Yeah, I don’t really buy new things. I’m nervous buying them. I’d rather buy used clothes. New clothes seem to repeat older styles anyway. I like clothing from the 80s or my grandfather’s era. The trenchcoat was pretty popular in his time. He also told me about different types of clothing, like the ‘seersucker.'”

“A seersucker?”

“It’s a suit that a Southern Gentlemen wears when it’s hot out,” David explains to me.

“Have you always bought vintage?”

“No. I definitely went through many phases of clothing. I was into skateboarding, and so I wore the baggy T-shirts and baggy pants. After that I got into the American Apparel scene. But then I got tired of that; it just became the same people wearing the same thing.” David briefly pauses and rolls his sleeves. “But the thing is, I hold onto what I have. Or had. I still keep all the clothes from different times in my life; I still like to incorporate them.”

“So what are you wearing now?”

“Well, my pants are Urban Outfitters. My shoes are a hand-me-down from a friend. My belt was thrifted for 49 cents, and my grandmother knitted my scarf.”

“But what about your sweater? It is probably one of the coolest pieces I’ve ever seen. It’s so 70s. It would look kind of lame on someone else, but it fits you well,” I tell David.

“Well, I got this from Josie’s. There are some holes in it from a dryer accident. But yeah, Josie’s was a great thrift store down the street. You could always find the weirdest things for absolutely nothing.”

“Is it still there?”

“Nope. Josie’s unfortunately closed down a while ago,” David sighs.

Like a rack at the defunct Josie’s or at the end of a generation, certain styles can either be timeless or a simple miss. Some who sport vintage can look like a mess of ironic second hand kitsch wrinkled and hung on countless hangers, yet David has a knack for holding onto each age’s classics, even if it they are defined by a geometric Playboy sweater.