WHY SHOP VINTAGE?

First of all, I want to encourage every single one of you to start shopping for clothes second hand. Not only is it CHEAP but, it has environmental importance as well, so, let me tell you all the benefits with it.

1. Okay, so the first benefit is clearly that it’s cheaper than buying clothes from normal retail stores. In other words, when you start shopping vintage you immediately start saving money. Even for vintage designer clothes, they are much cheaper than the retail ones (ex: Levi’s jeans can be found vintage for about €20 whereas they would be €100 retail).

2. The clothes are more unique. What I mean by this is that in retail stores they produce thousands of the same clothing piece which means that is very likely you bump into someone wearing the same outfit as you. However, when shopping vintage this is not very likely to happen. Usually, the pieces are old and from all over the world, meaning it’s unique and has a history. I think that’s pretty cool!

3. It’s super good for the environment. Basically, it helps decrease your personal CO2 consumption. I think at this point, we should all do our part in keeping the world at the temperature it should be at (to not only protect ourselves but nature and animals too. And SO, if you want to take initiative without starting to bike everywhere or changing something too extreme (in your everyday habits), shopping vintage is a really good way to do that.

HOW TO FIND THE RIGHT STORE

Usually, there are two types of vintage stores: the curated ones and the non-curated ones.

I 100% recommend going to the non-curated ones.

Curated basically means that the store owner looks through all the clothes they receive and only choose the designer ones to sell in the store. This means that they can automatically make the price of the clothes much higher since it’s designer. In non curated stores, however, they don’t go through the clothes and put all t-shirts at the same price no matter the brand (maybe the quality will influence the price, if anything).

SO, in non-curated stores, you can often find much cheaper clothes and if you’re lucky, they are designer as well. However, if you’re specifically looking for vintage designer clothes then go to a curated one. In the non-curated store, there’s also usually a much larger variety of clothing pieces which makes it more exciting. So it really depends on what you’re looking for.

If you’re willing to pay more for designer → curated

If you want to pay less and have a larger variety → non-curated

KNOW WHAT YOU WANT

Often shopping vintage can be quite overwhelming. This is because of the fact that there are so many pieces of clothing to choose from. A tip to find something nice is to actually have an idea what you’re looking for. For example, if you really want a blue sweater; remember that and look for it in the store, or, if you really want Levi’s pants, keep that in mind when looking through the store. Usually, when I go vintage shopping I have something in mind, like for instance a leather coat. Last time I did that was with a blue shirt; I knew I wanted something in that color and found something really nice for €2!

TRY IT ON

What a lot of people do is that they buy things without trying them on. DON’T DO THIS. Usually in vintage stores you can’t return the clothes and so if you buy something and you end up not liking it, it was a waste of money and you’ll probably end up never wearing it meaning you took away the opportunity for someone else to buy that piece of clothing (who might have actually enjoyed it). To keep it short, try things on, not only for yourself to save money but also for other people’s sake.

USE IT

Okay, the last tip is for when you’re actually trying the clothing piece on. A lot of times when I try stuff on I think it looks cool and so I buy it, however, I end up not using it anyways. This is because I either have nothing to wear it with or I have no occasion to wear it at. So, what I have started to do when trying clothes on, is that I’ve been trying to think about what I would actually wear the piece with. If I can figure out at least two times I would wear it, I buy it. This is because at that point I already know that I will wear it and so it’s worth buying. Opposed to if I buy it and don’t end up wearing it (then it’s just a waste of money).

Of course I also buy things retail, but in general, I find vintage shopping much more rewarding. Hopefully, you learned something from this article. Make sure you check out the gallery at the top of this article to see some of my vintage outfits!