More than 1,500 shoppers attended a vintage clothing event on Saturday in what used to be a bleak lot in East San Jose, uniquely bringing together new and old generations looking for flamboyant fashion steals.
“Pop-Up San Jose,” hosted by 30 different second-hand clothing curators, was created by vintage vendor Dre Lucero, who collaborated with the Boys and Girls Club of Silicon Valley, a non-profit youth development organization, to organize the clothing gathering in San Jose.
Vintage fashion has been receiving a lot of attention in recent years leading some students to collect clothes from thrift stores and yard sales and resell them, profiting from the demand for vintage clothing goods.
Saccid Tovar, a San Jose State public health junior and founder of the shop El Jardin Vintage, said that this was her third vintage market as a vendor. Other markets she’s attended include the
So-So Market in Berkeley and Pop-Up Indigo Vintage in Santa Cruz.
“When I moved to California four years ago, I was kind of broke, so I started reselling mainly household appliances,” Tovar said. “But then a year ago I started El Jardin Vintage as a way of making extra money but also getting creative and having fun.”
The demand for vintage and second-hand fashion has been on the rise compared to fast fashion, a marketing trend that emphasizes making apparel quickly and cheaply available to consumers, according to Merriam-Webster.
H&M, the second biggest fast fashion retailer, reported its net sales declined by 50% resulting in the closure of more than 500 stores since the coronavirus pandemic began.
Zara, one of H&M’s biggest competitors, recorded a 44% sales drop from February through April.
According to San Francisco-based online consignment store ThredUp, one of the largest online retailers, the secondhand market is set to increase by $36 billion in sales since 2019 with a total increase of $64 billion in the next five years.
“Resale is expected to overtake the traditional thrift and donation segment by 2024,” ThredUp stated in its
2020 online report.
The same report found 40% of Generation Z shopped for second-hand apparel in 2019, largely because of more awareness and less stigma of environmental sustainability.
While second-hand shopping may help people save some money, vintage clothing has become more popular in thrift shops and flea markets filled with trendy adolescents.
Lucero said organizers had nothing planned three weeks before the event, but in the days leading up to it he reached out to fellow vendors to organize “Pop-up San Jose.”
“In two weeks, [“Pop-up San Jose”] ran our Instagram from zero to over 1,600 [followers],” Lucero said.
With the high demand for pop-ups and flea markets in San Jose, vendors and customers traveled to bond over vintage collectables.
He said before Saturday, he had a feeling the event would be successful in bringing the vendor community together.
The line at “Pop-up San Jose” began to wrap around the block hours before the event started at 10 a.m.
Lucero said since the line was getting so long, organizers opened 30 minutes before the
scheduled opening time.
Theresa Martin, San Jose resident and caregiver for kids at Villasport, said she was extremely pleased with her experience at the event.
“The prices were super reasonable and I had a lot of steals, which I’m very happy about,” Martin said.
She said the vendors were great people and that the clothes on display were really cool.
Many vintage clothing community members said they are coming together to provide local residents with the latest trends from various generations.
Daniel Reyes, a University of California, Merced alumnus and founder of the online shop
Mf (a)rchive, traveled from Berkeley to attend the event and said he became a vintage vendor after thrifting in high school.
“It’s a business opportunity that I can see, and I can bring people together with clothes,” Reyes said. “Fitting people with the right personality and the tee-shirt is one of my favorite things to do.”
