Go Vintage, Go Green

With the popularity of sustainable fashion, shopping for vintage streetwear clothes has been on the rise as well

One such example of being dressed in a Vintage Streetwear Style. (PHOTO: VALERIE KOK)

Take a stroll down Orchard Road and you’re bound to bump into teens decked out in streetwear. If you ask them where they get their clothes from, you will probably get the  reply, “it is thrifted!” Undeniably, sustainable fashion and thrift shopping among youths are becoming more prevalent, especially with the new wave of the vintage streetwear style. According to ‘Thred Up’, in the past three years, the resale market has grown 21 times faster compared to the retail apparel market. In addition, 18-37-year-olds are adopting second-hand items 2.5 times faster than other age groups.

With this increased in popularity, many vintage thrift shops are starting to open in Singapore. EXIT CO is one such example of a shop selling vintage streetwear in Singapore. Charmaine Lim, the co-founder of EXIT CO, said this about the trend of thrift shopping now. “Thrift shopping has already been on the rise for quite a while already, but with everyone wanting to be more eco-friendly now, the trend is starting to grow more. Streetwear has always been in the scene but vintage in a sense did make its comeback. Once you see more and more people wearing it more often, it becomes more normalised and more people are then willing to try it, which starts a trend,” she replied.

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Youths, being the age group that thrift shops often, gave their stance on the thrift shopping trend for vintage clothing.

Vince Torres, 19, said this about the topic, “I feel that vintage streetwear shopping has mostly appealed to students, especially because most of us have a very limited budget. With these thrift stores becoming more popular, we have cheaper and more affordable clothes to purchase. In addition, there is a hype to it so naturally, most teens will jump on that ‘hype train’ once they discover it.”

A trend is like a roller coaster ride; it goes up and down, it comes and then it goes. Charmaine also points out how previously there were all the trends of Ombre or monochrome style, but now vintage is in style.

Now definitely not all vintage items are in trend but more of the vintage streetwear fashion. As such, you see a lot of people wearing monograms, big logos or letterings. It’s now all about being loud and colourful with all the colour blocking, which is achieved mostly by older pieces. So this makes vintage go on the rise now. In addition, the recent Paris Fashion Week showed that there are many different interpretations of what vintage is and what is coming back in trend so they remix old and new together.

Co-founder of EXIT CO, Charmaine Lim, posing together with the shop. (PHOTO: VALERIE KOK)

Nikita Ong, 20, who frequently thrift shops, also mentions that what celebrities wear and what fashion is shown in the media has played an integral part in making this trend of vintage streetwear fashion as styles has been slowly changing within the years. This has  then influenced Nikita’s way of dressing and making her like the vintage streetwear look. In addition, vintage items are unique and most of them are very limited in stock. As such, she enjoys shopping for vintage clothing from stores instead of online.

“Personally, I feel that vintage shopping is leaning towards like in a store. There are online ones but I prefer to know how it actually looks in real life compared to picture references. It’s nice to talk to the owners and they are mostly very friendly,” - Nikita Ong

As a co-founder of EXIT CO, Charmaine also shares similar sentiments where she felt that the best part of running a physical shop is all the tiny interactions with the customers that she really enjoys. One such interaction is getting to know her customers, where  she gets to talk to them about what they like and what they are looking for because she understands that they may not know everything. She also stated, “I think this whole place, we wanted to make EXIT CO less like a store and more like a community and I think we are somewhat on the way there already.”