Founder & President
Doris
Raymond
The Way We Wore
Four Decades Defining the Art of Vintage Fashion
"Destination all things Doris… is one of my most precious occupations… an endless source of inspiration, oxygen to all creatives."
John Galliano
A Life in Fashion
Doris Raymond is the founder and president of The Way We Wore, one of the world's most influential vintage fashion institutions and a living archive spanning more than four decades of collecting, curating, and preserving the history of dress. Known internationally as "the fairy godmother of fashion inspiration," Doris has fundamentally shaped how the fashion industry values, studies, and draws from the past. Her archive, estimated at over half a million pieces of inspirational material, has directly influenced the runway collections, costume designs, and creative output of some of the most important names in fashion, film, and culture worldwide.
Fashion as Social Anthropology
Doris's passion for vintage fashion was never simply about clothing. It was, from the very beginning, rooted in a fascination with social anthropology: how human beings express identity, class, aspiration, and belonging through what they wear. For Doris, a garment is a primary source document, as revealing as any letter or photograph, encoding the social rituals, gender politics, and creative ambitions of its era. Where others see merchandise, she sees human narrative. Where others appraise market value, she reads the social contract stitched into every seam. This perspective has made her archive not merely a collection of beautiful objects, but a deeply researched body of cultural evidence that designers, scholars, and museum curators have relied upon for decades.
At her core, Doris Raymond is a profoundly curious person, someone whose genuine fascination with humanity radiates from every conversation and every room she enters. Anyone who has had the pleasure of meeting her will tell you the same thing: she is endlessly interested in people, in their stories, in the details of how they live and what they carry with them. That quality of deep, generous curiosity is inseparable from her work, and it is why a visit to The Way We Wore so often feels less like shopping and more like an encounter with someone who truly sees the world, and the people in it, with uncommon attention and warmth.
An Unconventional Beginning
Born and raised in New York, Doris's early career was as unconventional as her eye. She worked as a disc jockey in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and later as a door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson across the American West, experiences that sharpened the instinct, tenacity, and encyclopedic curiosity that would come to define her approach to fashion. Her personal fascination with vintage clothing took root in the late 1960s and 1970s, drawn to the quality, artistry, and bohemian spirit of garments from earlier eras. What began as a way to build a unique personal style on a limited budget evolved into a lifelong vocation and an unparalleled body of knowledge.
A Career in Moments
Four Decades of Defining Vintage Fashion
Doris begins collecting vintage clothing in New York, drawn to its craftsmanship and individuality. After relocating to San Francisco in 1974, she sells her finds at the Marin City Flea Market, building a devoted following among early vintage enthusiasts.
Doris opens her first boutique on Union Street in San Francisco, establishing what would become an internationally recognized name in archival fashion. The store quickly attracts fashion aficionados and begins to serve as a vital resource for designers seeking inspiration.
The boutique relocates to Fillmore Street. Doris deepens her research into fashion history and her collection grows to attract costume designers and the fashion industry's creative elite from around the world.
Doris closes the storefront to focus on costuming for film and television from a warehouse space, and becomes a partner in the legendary Vintage Fashion Expo trade show, one of the premier events of its kind, running for many years and shaping the national vintage market.
Doris relocates to Los Angeles and opens The Way We Wore at 334 S. La Brea Avenue in the heart of the city. It is here that the brand and Doris's recognition truly take off. The store becomes an instant destination for the fashion industry's top creative directors, design teams, wardrobe stylists, celebrity clients, and fashion editors from around the globe, establishing The Way We Wore as one of the most iconic vintage institutions in the world.
Doris stars in L.A. Frock Stars, a docu-reality series on the Smithsonian Channel that brings her world of high-end vintage to a global television audience. The show runs for two seasons (2013 and 2015), following Doris and her team as they source rare fashion across the country and serve a clientele that includes celebrities like Dita von Teese, costume designers, and serious collectors worldwide.
Julien's Auctions presents "A World of Fashion: Property from the Archives of Doris Raymond" at their Beverly Hills gallery, a landmark 400-lot sale featuring rare pieces spanning centuries, from Gabrielle Chanel and Mariano Fortuny to Azzedine Alaïa and Maison Margiela. The catalog carries endorsements from John Galliano, Michael Kors, Martin Margiela, and Mark Bridges.
Doris opens The Way We Wore showroom at 8057 Beverly Blvd #200 in the heart of West Hollywood, a high-end vintage showroom operating by private appointment. The space serves as headquarters for all ecommerce operations and houses her renowned library and design inspiration spaces, continuing to offer a curated selection of archival fashion, textiles, and research materials for both private clients and the trade industry. It is the next evolution of everything The Way We Wore has come to be known for.
In Their Words
The Industry's Most Celebrated Voices
"Doris has a remarkable eye for design and quality and has gathered the most focused collection of the very best of vintage fashion. The pieces at The Way We Wore have served as great design inspiration for me, my team and so many designers around the world."Michael Kors
Fashion Designer
"I remain astonished by her uniqueness, the depth of her knowledge and, above all, her touching persona."Martin Margiela
Fashion Designer, Maison Martin Margiela
"Whenever I am designing a film and need something vintage, special, beautiful and unique, it's a sure thing that I will call Doris Raymond at The Way We Wore… Whether I'm designing for Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson, or Steven Spielberg, I have to check if she has some treasures for me. And fortunately, she usually does."Mark Bridges
Two-Time Academy Award Winning Costume Designer
"Doris Raymond is the spark that has ignited the imagination and designs of many runway collections, costume designs and major fashion labels across the universe. Her four-decade career in collecting, researching and archiving fashion has made an undeniable impact."Martin Nolan
Executive Director, Julien's Auctions
Designers & Houses She Has Inspired & Collaborated With
Saint Laurent Tom Ford Gucci Michael Kors Maison Martin Margiela Valentino Armani Chloé Bottega Veneta Louis Vuitton Givenchy Marc Jacobs Alexander McQueen Versace Balmain Tory Burch
Film, Television & Education
Doris's archive and expertise have been instrumental to award-winning film and television productions. Academy Award winning costume designers, including Mark Bridges (Phantom Thread, The Fabelmans, Vinyl), Arianne Phillips, Sandy Powell, and Colleen Atwood, have relied on her collection and knowledge to source authentic garments and to ground their storytelling in the material reality of fashion history. Her pieces have appeared on red carpets, in museum exhibitions, and in the wardrobes of cultural icons from Dita von Teese and Angelina Jolie to Adele.
Equally committed to education, Raymond has opened her archive and her expertise to fashion and art students, scholars, and emerging designers through classroom visits, lectures, and spirited one-on-one mentorship. Her adjacent design inspiration space, housing over one million archival swatches, textiles, trims, and embroideries, serves as a primary research resource for couture houses, ateliers, and independent designers worldwide, providing the conceptual foundations for countless collections.
In 2022, Julien's Auctions presented "A World of Fashion: Property from the Archives of Doris Raymond" at their Beverly Hills gallery, a historic 400-lot auction featuring pieces spanning from the 18th century through the late 20th century, including rare works by Gabrielle Chanel, Jeanne Lanvin, Mariano Fortuny, Christian Dior, Paco Rabanne, Azzedine Alaïa, and many others. The sale underscored Doris's singular role as both collector and cultural steward.
"Fashion is not ephemeral, but enduring, and its preservation is an act of both cultural responsibility and human connection."
Doris Raymond
Founder & President, The Way We Wore