With the fall season approaching, Well Made Vintage has been preparing to release its new batch of outerwear for the first time as a brick-and-mortar store.
“Pop-ups that we have done in the fall and winter [are] when we are able to sell our crewnecks, bigger coats [and] outerwear that will keep people warm,” said Blake Edwards, one of the co-owners of the store.
The store, located at 1614 W University Ave, is co-owned by Blake Edwards and Seth Pope and has been curating its vintage outerwear collection. They said they curated specially in months when business was slow, such as the summer, they curated most during that time.
“This summer has always been a really good time for us because there’s less people around.” Edwards said. “So, one, there’s less pickers [other resellers] and two, there’s different sales hitting in different areas besides outerwear.”
They have curated a collection that consists of outerwear, such as jackets and hoodies, that they said are rare to come by and considered “vintage” in its truest form.
“A lot of Starter jackets and Carhartt jackets and stuff like that,” Pope said. “These are the things that we have seen people come after in the last couple of winters we’ve sold.”
Most of these items will eventually be stocked in the store through eventual releases, mainly throughout the month of October.
“It will be in phases.” Edwards said. “So everything won’t be an instant drop, it will just be showing items slowly on the floors, you know we kinda changed a few things here and there with the layout, but I say all of our coats will definitely be out by mid-October.”
One method that Well Made Vintage has used to showcase its stock is through pop-up events.
As such, this was the case for their presence at the Second Ward Vintage Market vintage clothing pop-up event at the Primeval Brewing in Noblesville.
The event, held on Sept. 30 from 12-6 p.m. featured collections of vintage clothing curated by nine vintage clothing resellers.
The resellers present at the event, besides Well Made Vintage, were HTV Styling Co. (@hand_thrifted_vintage), Threadsvintage (@threadsvintagefinds), Vintage Society Indiana (@vintagesocietyindiana), D.B. Retro (@d.b. retro), fitsngrits (@fitsngrits), Clothing by Mikki (@flashbackclothingbymikki), Vintage Kat and Mom (@vintage_kat_and_mom), and Gloomtown Vintage (@gloomtownvintage).
For many people, such as college students, this was an opportunity to take off from the stress of academia. This was the case for Zane O’Neill, a third-year college student at Purdue and Anderson native, who was visiting the pop-up to take time off from school and to interact with the community built by vintage resellers and their customers.
“Community, the people, everybody is just having a different vibe, and [I] like how everyone intermingles with their different thoughts and views,” O’Neill said.
As for the vintage resellers, they have different goals in mind, especially when it comes to the process of hosting a pop-up shop. This could be due to the various methods of selling vintage clothing, whether it is selling exclusively online or functioning as a physical store.
For Edwards and Pope, it proved to be quite a challenge for them to set up a pop-up, more so than they expected.
“It’s really a system,” Pope said. “If I didn’t do this a lot in the past, it would probably take me an hour. So, that ends up being a nine-hour day between a 6-to-7 hour event and breaking down or setting up.”
Choosing what kind of clothing to take for the event, according to Pope, is the most challenging task in the set-up process.
“We curate everything we take towards a specific event,” Pope said. “We’ll pick a certain 500 pieces or so off the floor. Just [ones that we] think will sell better.”
More than often not, Pope said, determining what items are going to sell best all come to the intuition of the reseller.
“We have to go through our whole inventory and say is this going to sell here or not,” Pope said. “That’s a lot of work in itself. It took me an hour and a half to pick all this stuff out.”
On the other hand, most shoppers look around at whatever items impress them the most, something O’Neill had intentions of as soon as he came to the event.
“Just anything that sparks my eye,” O’Neill said. “Maybe some racing stuff, it depends.”
For most resellers, including Pope, the wants and needs of shoppers are at the forefront of their approach, which is having the most interesting clothing piece that draws customers into their stores or pop-ups.
“Just knowing we were gonna come and have our stuff on the floor that was different,” Pope said. “[It was] a lot of work.”
Some resellers have additional ways of approaching shoppers, which incorporate customer service and building a long-term relationship with the shopper. Jermaine Dillard, owner of HTV Styling Co, which is located at 5434 N Keystone Ave in Indianapolis, explains this as his own process that he has based on the experience he has gained through owning his shop.
“You’re always going to receive attention when you come with uniqueness,” Dillard said. “But, you have to look past that and go towards what people want. [You have to] interact with them, talk with them, network right with them. There [are] so many bonds that I would not have had if we didn’t have a certain item. [One] that would’ve affected the customers [enough to say] ‘Oh my god. I have gotten a lot of compliments for this shirt.’ That makes people feel good.”
For this reason, resellers must be determined to price their stock carefully, especially items that they see as worth more than others.
“To be real, we brought 300 pieces up from the backstock to put on the floor today,” Pope said. “It took us a week to find those.”
The stock of items brings up the question of how resellers can compete in fair market competition when the value of pieces is often up to the perspective of the customer.
Reputation is a make or break element for resellers, according to Dillard, relationships with customers are what can be the difference at pop-up events.
“At times, there will be an element of high school drama, a little cliquey,” Dillard said. “Competitors see me as big competition, but it’s not a competition. Take care of the people first, they talk by buying and coming [back] to you.”
Dillard said, at times, among his reselling colleagues, there is an element of envy simply for the attention that certain items that each seller brings to their tent would receive.
“It does bring jealousy sometimes,” Dillard said. “You can’t pay attention to it. I like to talk up to my fellow vendors because everybody has a unique piece … Everybody has something different and just by being confident in what you’re bringing, you don’t have to worry about competition.”
The sale of vintage clothing, according to the resellers, can present sophisticated steps in order to create events such as the Second Ward Vintage Clothing Pop-Up. The efforts made to create such an event has left some with a sense of community.
O’Neill, for one, said it felt this way as a shopper.
“Everybody is just having a good time,” O’Neill said. “There’s no bad vibes going on.”
Contact Jose Padilla with comments at JPadilla4@bsu.edu
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