I always tell people: “Be stylish, not fashionable.” By that I mean: Wear what makes you happy, no matter what everyone else is wearing. The moment I saw Charlie Lichtenfels of Charlie’s Vintage at the Labor Day Vintage Design Market, I knew they had style.
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What they wore: Ralph Lauren shirt, vintage J. Crew tie, Todd Snyder jeans, Glen check jacket, Weejuns, standing. Where they were: a booth of classic, 90s separates backdropped by vintage awning fabric with a brown and orange stripe and a Hermes vibe sourced at the last minute from Fleishmann’s Fabrics on Fourth Street. Also there: an impressive record collection: jazz, 90s hip hop, albums that were experimental and avant-garde in their day, and came to define their genres. Tasteful. Stylish.
When Charlie told me about growing up in Connecticut, I assumed: WASP. I was almost right. They did go to prep school — Fairfield — where they got to know “swamp Yankees” — “incredibly wealthy people who live in New England, but they have at the same time no money,” because “it’s tied up in a beautiful old house.” These unassuming style icons wore old denim or Gant chambray shirts and “absolutely thrashed” loafers. And, although Charlie had two effortlessly elegant, jazz-loving grandfathers — one who dressed like a Southern gentleman, the other who was very Ivy League, their family didn’t come from money.
Then, there was Charlie’s older sister Sheilagh, a model in New York, who Charlie followed by looking in magazines: Teen Vogue, Women’s Wear Daily and absorbing the culture of clothing “by osmosis.” After high school, Charlie studied archaeology at St. Joe’s, found a tech job that did not at all suit, and ended up a personal stylist for “friends, family, a lot of attorneys in New York and Philadelphia, and queer people,” who want in on his “collection of clothing that really felt like what growing up in Connecticut in the 90s was like to me.”
When I run into Charlie again in Bella Vista, they’re less popped pink polo collar, more retro cool, wearing Dries Van Noten rocker boots, vintage Marithé + François Girbaud jeans, John Lennon’s iconic New York City ringer t-shirt (a score from the West Philly Bazaar for $2), an Issey Miyake watch, a Givenchy ring, a flea market ring, a scarf from Penhaligon’s (a thank you gift for his fragrance purchases there), and a Gant shirt.
The look? There isn’t quite a name for it. But if you ask me, it’s true style.
West Philly born and raised with a slosh of Brooklyn, Big Rube partnered with Mitchell & Ness in 2000 to help make it a global brand marketing and selling high-end throwback jerseys. He has been photographing Philly since 2009, including in a Daily News Column from 2011 to 2017. He’s also a chef, preparing to open his own space in 2026.
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