Vintage-obsessed millennial spends $122K on old clothes, cars and furniture

By Rosie Harris-Davison via SWNS

A vintage-obsessed millennial says he's spent $121,924 on clothes, cars and furniture from different eras.

Philip Westre, 28, developed his passion after attending a Great Gatsby-themed event at Berns - a historic Stockholm venue built in the 1860s.

He wears vintage suits from different periods and owns cars such as a 1930s Ford Model A.

Over the years, Philip says he's spent roughly $25,000 on clothes, $50,000 on cars, and £20,000 on furniture and antiques.

Philip, a co-founder of Landfall Games, from Stockholm, Sweden said: “I wore a vintage gray striped three-piece suit to the party, went to work the next day in the same clothes, and never looked back.

"Mostly I do it for the aesthetic - how things look visually, and I like the tactile feel of it.

“If you compare a modern suit and a vintage suit, you can really feel and see the difference. Vintage is often cheaper and looks nicer.”

Philip, who also owns a Stockholm-based tweed country sports shop, says he has “always liked the aesthetic” of vintage.

He said: “I’ve always been a collector and loved old stuff.

“It started when I was a kid and discovered history as a concept in school. Then I would go to museums and then discover flea markets.”

Following the themed party in 2018, he obsessively researched period fashion but found the stereotype of the 1920s to be quite exaggerated.

Phillip said: “People’s view of the Great Gatsby era is a bit skewed. What’s true vintage and what's just from the Great Gatsby movie?

“Most people think it's very glamorous - parties everywhere, and everyone is wearing feathers.

“The 1920s was more boring than we think it is."

Philip's favorite era is the 1920s and 1930s, for the style and quality, but says he likes mixing items from different periods.

He said: "Everything still fits together, because people didn't just throw everything out and it would be kept for generations."

Now Philip is confident dressing entirely in vintage, but says initially he “felt scared" and thought it would “feel like dressing up in a costume.”

He said: “I just rolled with it. Then after a period of time, that feeling went away. I now keep feeling more and more confident in the clothes I wear.”

Philip says people in Stockholm are very accepting and he’s never met with judgment, but this isn’t the case everywhere.

He said: “In Sweden, the reactions aren't like those when I’ve been in San Francisco in the US, where I can’t pass a corner without every person saying something."

Despite this, he says that comments are “always mostly positive."

In Sweden, he says there's a thriving vintage car culture, and he’s acquired three vehicles from auctions in the country.

Philip said: “I have three cars. A Ford Model A from 1930 which I’d say was the first modern car. A 1929 Packard and a car from 1963 - a British one, a Daimler.

“It’s a bit of a subculture here. People love to drive vintage cars around and listen to really loud music.”

His love for vintage extends beyond his wardrobe and car, and into his house décor, and he enjoys comparing vintage items to their modern equivalent.

Philip said: “Even if I want to find something really convenient and ordinary, I always try to find out how it looked back in the day.

“Usually the function is the same, but the aesthetics of the older thing are always more intriguing.”

His flat is decorated in the Swedish equivalent of the early 20th-century Art Nouveau style, known as Jugend.

He says Jugend is "the German word for style."

He says he also likes that he isn’t adding to the climate crisis by buying secondhand.

Philip said: “I realized I’m not adding to that. I don’t feel like I have blood on my hands.

"If a piece fits you most likely have to buy it because you will probably never see it again.

"If someone sees you're wearing vintage and they are too, it's more likely they'll want to get to know you."

On his TikTok account @philgondor, he likes to share videos combining vintage style with modern activities - such as driving a vintage car to a McDonald's drive-through in vintage attire.

He says he does this because he enjoys the irony of this and "likes to twist things".

He said: "You do this modern thing that people can relate to, but in a different way and I like to get a bit of a clown stamp for it.

"The best moments I have are just hanging out with my friends, in an aesthetically coherent setting, listening to music.

"It's funny when we do things together. People online tend to think 'what the hell is going on?'

"People think this means there's a huge scene in Stockholm, but it's only about eight of us doing it all together."