Virtual Vintage Style.(Product/Service Evaluation)

Vintage couture has never been hotter. Actresses like Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger and Julia Roberts regularly sport vintage evening dresses on the red carpet, and modern designers are reaching back in time for inspiration. For the rest of the us, secondhand shops all over the world have been enjoying a renaissance as fashionistas pour through racks of high-end castoffs in search of the perfect Ossie Clark blouse or Pucci jumper. More and more Web sites are hawking vintage over the Internet, too. Megasites like eBay, which has long done a brisk business in apparel, have launched special sections for vintage couture. Companies like Yoox (yoox.com) have special sections devoted to themed vintage sales. At Enokiworld (enokiworld.com), browsers can find everything from 1970s tapestry coats to retro Mexican jewelry to black lace corsets from the '50s. Auction houses are even allowing buyers to bid for top pieces online. (For example, Doyle, the famed New York auction house, posts its Internet catalog at doylenewyork.com a few weeks before most of its sales.) And around the world, followers of fashion are launching their own boutique sites where women can buy and sell pieces directly with each other. One such boutique is Piece Unique (pieceunique.com), whose current listings feature some well-priced classics by Pucci, Chanel and Courreges.

Lily Shen, a senior manager for apparel at eBay, says that vintage sales have grown 53 percent year on year, making vintage one of the fastest growing portions of eBay's clothing business. Holly Brubach, a ...