A person who wears vintage clothing, especially from the swing dance era (
late 1920s to 1940s), as everyday apparel, as opposed to wearing it only for
special occasions. See also retrovestry.
From 'retro', a Latin-derived prefix meaning backwards, which today often refers specifically to the imitation of fashions from the recent past, and 'vest' (Middle English: from Old French vestiment, from Latin vestimentum, from vestire 'clothe', or from the
Italian vestis, meaning 'garment'), plus '
er' a suffix descriptive of a person of a type described by the rest of the word.