On Sunday, Oct. 12, the MU Health Care Pavilion was filled with booths with various goods such as vintage clothes, trinkets and handmade jewelry. The Missouri Vintage Fest hosted around 50 vendors from around the Midwest, each selling a carefully curated selection of vintage items..
One of the hosts of Sunday’s event, Tony Santos, notes that the event has started attracting crowds of various ages, including older generations.
“A year ago, they didn’t understand this at all,” Santos said. “They didn’t understand vintage or secondhand shopping. And now they’re all about it, so it’s nice to see it expand into different generations.”
For Santos, it isn’t as much about finding vintage clothing as it is abo
ut shopping secondhand. He says the clothes being sold are economically and ethically sourced, which creates less waste and more unique pieces for buyers.
“Just shopping secondhand, to me, is way more important,” Santos said. “It’s not really vintage, like I have a lot of Brandy Melville in there. So right, yes, it is new, but it is again being saved. It was going to a landfill, and now it’s not.”
This is reseller Keely Von Gemmingen’s second time at this location with her business Space Cadet. She recognizes the sustainability aspect of selling vintage clothing and considers it when she is sourcing for her business.
“I do really like going to the Goodwill outlets, just because that’s where clothes go to die before they go to a landfill,” Von Gemmingen said. “So I try to prioritize that more, just because I feel like it has a bigger impact on the environment.”
The event had a variety of different booths. Some sold sports jerseys, while others focused on Y2K pieces and others had a large selection of vintage jackets.
“So I curate my selection based on everything that I’m knowledgeable in and everything that I personally enjoy in life,” owner of Counterfit Chicago Alejandro Rivera said. “So I
always tell people, it’s the reason why I love these events is because, technically, we’re shopping for what we attract. I mean, the buyers are shopping our personal closet for what we enjoy.”
Some businesses had a variety of different styles. Three-Eyed Cat Secondhand sources from Goodwill bins, Whatnot, thrift shops and antique stores. Mars Sinclair and their partner select what to sell.
“So my partner is more into, like, the true vintage pieces,” Sinclair said. “So they get all the stuff from like, the like 30s and up. And then I like to get a lot of our more Y2K stuff, a lot more of the stuff that will sell quickly, which is, like, our mini skirts, Y2K baby doll tops and all that kind of stuff.”
For some of these sellers, their businesses are about more than just cloth
es. Sinclair and their partner started their business this past summer. From the start, they decided to donate part of their proceeds to Palestine.
“My partner has been talking to a Palestinian family for like, two years now, and has become really close with them, and talks with them all the time about what they’re going through,” Sinclair said. “And so we try to donate as much money as we can for them. So we have our cash donations that we give directly to him, obviously, and then 20% of all of our proceeds go to the family.”
The event fostered a sense of community amongst vintage resellers and vintage lovers.
“I feel like there are a lot of really great vendors here,” Von Gemmingen said. “We all have, like, a good relationship. It’s kind of like a little community. And so I really value that.”