Big Rube’s Philly: Style Iconoclast Charlie Lichtenfels

I all the time inform folks: “Be stylish, not fashionable.” By that I imply: Wear what makes you cheerful, it doesn’t matter what everybody else is sporting. The second I noticed Charlie Lichtenfels of Charlie’s Vintage on the Labor Day Vintage Design Market, I knew they’d type.

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       Listen to the interview version right here:

What they wore: Ralph Lauren shirt, classic J. Crew tie, Todd Snyder denims, Glen verify jacket, Weejuns, standing. Where they had been: a sales space of basic, 90s separates backdropped by classic awning material with a brown and orange stripe and a Hermes vibe sourced on the final minute from Fleishmann’s Fabrics on Fourth Street. Also there: a formidable file assortment: jazz, 90s hip hop, albums that had been experimental and avant-garde of their day, and got here to outline their genres. Tasteful. Stylish.

When Charlie informed me about rising up in Connecticut, I assumed: WASP. I used to be nearly proper. They did go to prep college — Fairfield — the place they bought to know “swamp Yankees” — “incredibly wealthy people who live in New England, but they have at the same time no money,” as a result of “it’s tied up in a beautiful old house.” These unassuming type icons wore outdated denim or Gant chambray shirts and “absolutely thrashed” loafers. And, though Charlie had two effortlessly elegant, jazz-loving grandfathers — one who dressed like a Southern gentleman, the opposite who was very Ivy League, their household didn’t come from cash.

 

Then, there was Charlie’s older sister Sheilagh, a mannequin in New York, who Charlie adopted by wanting in magazines: Teen Vogue, Women’s Wear Daily and absorbing the tradition of clothes “by osmosis.” After highschool, Charlie studied archaeology at St. Joe’s, discovered a tech job that did in no way go well with, and ended up a private stylist for “friends, family, a lot of attorneys in New York and Philadelphia, and queer people,” who need 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 once more in Bella Vista, they’re much less popped pink polo collar, extra retro cool, sporting Dries Van Noten rocker boots, classic Marithé + François Girbaud denims, John Lennon’s iconic New York City ringer t-shirt (a rating from the West Philly Bazaar for $2), an Issey Miyake watch, a Givenchy ring, a flea market ring, a shawl from Penhaligon’s (a thanks present for his perfume purchases there), and a Gant shirt.

The look? There isn’t fairly a reputation for it. But for those who ask me, it’s true type.

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West Philly born and raised with a slosh of Brooklyn, Big Rube partnered with Mitchell & Ness in 2000 to assist make it a worldwide model advertising and promoting high-end throwback jerseys. He has been photographing Philly since 2009, together with in a Daily News Column from 2011 to 2017. He’s additionally a chef, making ready to open his personal area in 2026.

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