MEET THE COLLECTOR #4
Today the 4th episode of the new topic. This new topic is about passionate people with a focus on collecting. With this topic I will give you an insight in their special collection. Collectors will tell their story behind their treasures, show their most rare and unique items and tell you all about the collecting thrill. I’m very proud to show you the 4th collector: Ronald Vijsma in the topic: Meet the Collector! Thanks Ronald for sharing your great story and showing some of your awesome treasures from your collection. Enjoy.
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Ronald Vijsma
- Name: Ronald Vijsma
- Living in village & country: Dordrecht in The Netherlands
- Age: 42 years
- Instagram ID: ronaldvijsma
- Number of Instagram followers: 471
- Daily work: Houspainter/restorations from old buildings
What’s your favorite brand: Levi’s Vintage Clothing, Lee Jeans , RRL, Edwin ,Kapital, Rising Sun, John Lofgren, The Real McCoys, real vintage denim and a lot of Japanese denim.
What’s your favorite denim brand: Levi’s Vintage Clothing.
Ronald’s favorite picture
What’s your favorite footwear brand: Converse ’70 , Stevenson & Co, Alden, Red Wing, and White’s boots.
Boots from Ronald’s collection
How long are you collecting: I started my collection for about 6 years ago.
How many items are there in your collection: A lot of LVC, but also other brands like Edwins Overworks Japan, a serious piece of RRL and some custom pieces.
Levi’s Vintage Clothing pieces
How or why did you became a collector: I collected for a long time real vintage bicycles from the US, from the 1910 untill the 1950. Clothing became later after that. I really loved Diesel Jeans in the ’80’s and ’90’s, especially the special Diesel Old Glory collection from the mid ’90’s. My girlfriend worked in several denim stores that time, so that’s how I came across those special denim pieces.
Vintage bicycles
Old Diesel Jeans store display & Levi’s Vintage Clothing lookbooks
My denim collection started with Levi’s LVC, their pieces are great and only gets better and better. My hunting game started when I saw some things which weren’t available here in The Netherlands. My first real denim piece was the LVC 1878 Triple Pleated Blouse Gingham. It was love at first side! It looks like it was really found in an old gold mine and landed right into my closed. After this piece I was really hunting for the rare and special pieces of LVC. During my hunting addiction I also found a really cool piece from RRL, only 10 pieces made from the original clothing fabric.
I’m also a collector of Indian thunderbird brouches from 1920 – 1930 and vintage Mexican biker rings. I like the complete picture of clothing and also the newer ones like the Levi’s Made and Crafted line, but I prefer the traditional workwear clothing from 1900 untill the 1940.
Indian thunderbird brouches from 1920 – 1930 and vintage Mexican biker rings
What’s the best thrill about collecting? The hunt on rare pieces in the right size. Every day I’m looking on the net, Ebay and local stores to find nice rare pieces.
What is your favorite item en why: My favorite at this moment is this rare Sack Coat from Levis RED 2014. It’s a sample jacket, it’s based on traditional sack coats, but it insn’t. Very nice fabric and it’s a filled jacket, I just love this one! But also the LVC Triple Pleated Blouse from the miner collection which is a killer and my favorite too.
Sack Coat from Levis RED 2014
LVC Triple Pleated Blouse
And my own made French worker jacket, which I customized with the Japanese Sashiko stitching by myself. The badge is from a custom made artist from Instagram, his name is Masasculp, http://masa-sculp.blogspot.nl.
French worker jacket with Sashiko stitching
What’s your best bargain in your collection: This Triple Pleated Blouse I got fom the Levi’s LVC sample sale, got it for only $25,- and it’s still a million dollar piece for me!
LVC Triple Pleated Blouse
Which item was the hardest to get and/or the most valuable one: Well this LVC Sheepskin Leather Coat 1930 from the Boomtown collection. Never owned a leather coat before, but this one was and is the right one. I scored it on Ventee Prive for $225,- what is a really good price if you imagine that a few months before it was around $1700,-. This is really a keeper, the right coat for Fall/Winter.
LVC Sheepskin Leather Coat 1930
And this RRL Railway jacket is really a collectors item, there where ony 10 made of them. Original dotted denim cloth, I got this from a RRL sales guy from his own collection, the price…that’s private ; )
RRL Railway jacket
Which item would you add to your collection (wishlist): The LVC 1933 501 distressed from the Metropolis collection. I had it almost but it slipped through my fingers at that moment…I can’t wait for the new collection of LVC, as this is loaded with a lot of distressed stuff!
Where do you get your daily inspiration from? Books and old pictures. My daily inspriation is coming from old pictures, Matt Strickland does have a lot of input from the ’20’s till the ’50’s, all workwear. The Clutch and Men’s File magazine’s are also good inspirations and there’s also a lot of inspiration of Instagram.
Old inspiration pictures
Men’s File & Clutch magazine
What’s your favorite inspiration quote: Favorite inspiration is Cory Piehowicz, a very talented photograper. Check his site: http://corypiehowicz.com
Cory Piehowicz
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Are you also a collector and want to share your story and treasures? Send me an email: wouter@long-john.nl
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