Multimedia Journalism
A customer enters Heart & Lou’s, a newly opened vintage store on Thompson Street. Vintage refers to secondhand garments that are resold. As clothing waste increases and over 92 million tons of clothing end up in landfills each year, vintage stores have risen in popularity.
Little manages her vintage store."I’ve been working as a stylist since about 2012 and I’ve always encouraged clients to shop secondhand, I’ve always collected vintage myself,” Little said. “You see, being in the fashion industry, just the amount of waste and overproduction that there is and there are so many beautiful clothes that already exist.”
A worker at Funny Pretty Nice, a vintage store on University Place, organizes racks of vintage clothing. The store currently has two locations and gets their clothes from vendors in Europe and across the United States. The clothes are curated by sellers then end up in one of the company’s two stores in New York City.
Employees at Funny Pretty Nice have added decorations including vintage hangers to turn their secondhand store into a brand. “We built this second store a year ago so that was really cool, going through the entire process of what it’s like to design the store and what stock was gonna be in here,” Manager Isabella Torres said. “Just seeing the progression of the brand has been super rewarding.”
A rack of secondhand clothes in No Standing, a new vintage store in Soho, New York City. Cofounders Sari and Helena Dweck first began selling clothes on Instagram from their grandparents' closets before opening up their own store in Soho to combat fashion waste.
Helena Dweck displays vintage designer bags on a shelf in her store. “Vintage is all about the circular economy,” Dweck said. “Clothing is one of the number one waste factors right now, so instead of wasting clothing, there’s so much clothing in the world that’s going around. These pieces, they really have a history, they’re always coming back in style and they’re great quality, much better than what’s made today.”