Vintage selling out of COVID

IT started as a creative avenue during last year’s COVID lockdown but now the experience has made a vintage clothing connoisseur and retailer out of Dellaram Vreeland.

With existing expertise in the social media realm, Ms Vreeland said while unable to see her friends and family, lockdown gave her the opportunity to focus on a new creative hobby.

“For a long time, I had all of this vintage for a long time, some of it was mine, my mums or my grandmothers just lying around the house and I thought one day I would do a market,” she said.

“My sister-in-law said I should start selling the pieces so when COVID happened I posted a few of the things on Instagram because I already had the account from ages ago when I dabbled in it.

“Then I made a few sales and thought, this is fun, so I started to do more stories and being interactive on social media, doing more drops and just kept getting more and more orders.”

While still juggling a busy life as a writer and mother, Ms Vreeland said setting up her online store was a great way to both feel productive and stay connected to the outside world.

“It got me through COVID in a way as well because it allowed me to harness my creative energy and discover a community within the sustainable, pre-loved fashion world on Instagram,” she said.

“With everything else going on, it’s just small and still my side hustle for now.

“To make it easier, I’ve set up shop here in Eureka House where I’ll be open until the end of March on Fridays or by appointment.”

Starting off with a few of her mothers, her grandmothers and even her own vintage pieces, Ms Vreeland said she quickly exhausted that stock and started considering new sourcing avenues.

“I love op shopping, I love vintage and I love styling so it was all coming together and became a hobby that took on a whole new life,” she said.

“Friends will donate pieces, a lot is from op shops and even things from my own wardrobe, it’s a very 80s aesthetic, bold, bright vintage that makes you stand out from the crowd.

“Amazing textures, prints and a lot of colour, that’s my style and so when I’m looking for vintage, that’s what I’m looking for and that’s what my muse would wear.”

With disposable fashion and sustainability becoming growing global concerns, Ms Vreeland said she noticed a huge amount of uptake in customers over lockdown seeing second-hand clothing as an option.

“People have been forced to re-think how they shop, how they live and how imperative sustainable living is in today’s world,” she said.

“To me, it’s never made sense why you would go and buy something new where you don’t know how it’s been produced or who suffered as a result of its production when there’s already so much beauty available in the world.

“The best way to shop sustainably is to shop something that’s already in circulation and also allowing people to understand that you can mend, you can wash you don’t have to throw it away.”