Vintage Vera has been around since 2016, starting out in Wetherby but soon spreading across the area and eventually becoming a popular pop-up outlet in The Gate, where its range of vintage and classic American clothing sold at £20 a kilo has been a big hit since 2020. We spoke to Vintage Vera’s Gordon Martin about how things got started and how Vintage Vera operates.
“I saw that my previous business was in decline, so I thought I better get something else lined up!”, Gordon explains. “I have a friend who has a vintage clothing company, so I chatted with him, he said occasionally he did kilo sales, so I thought ‘right, I’ll do that!’ It sounds ridiculous but I just bought a tonne and a half of clothing, borrowed some rails, hired a van, got a friend to do the branding, found a location and did our first kilo sale. That was about six years ago in Hull. We were doing it from a front room, then I got a little garage. But at some point, I thought, ‘right, we either do it properly or we stop’, so I got a warehouse, bought a van and all the rails and spoke to some universities, getting booked for sales. And it’s been really good.”
Gordon explains that the relationship with Newcastle started early on. “We’ve been going to Newcastle University since day one, and we have such a good relationship with everybody there. And from doing the university, we got introduced to the team at The Gate. They had a temporary pop-up shop space so we started doing weekends where we’d tip up on a Saturday morning, set everything up, and then take everything down and clear out on a Sunday evening. The space was smaller than were were used to for our events but it worked really well. Then when lockdown hit, a business in The Gate said ‘well, that’s game over for us’, so that space became available and we’ve been in there since the start of the first lockdown. Again, we’ve got a very good relationship. We have a temporary lease and we leave everything there and open every other weekend or so.”
Gordon is aware that at some point the unit Vintage Vera uses will probably get picked up for permanent use but he’s pragmatic about it. “At some point it’ll end and we’ll find somewhere else, we’ll just cross that bridge when we come to it.”
The stock is all sourced from the US, Gordon explains. “It’s all what the industry classes as Grade A, so the best quality, the vast majority is branded. We get some amazing stuff - today I pulled out a Christian Dior jacket, we’re 99% sure it’s real! It makes you wonder why someone would give that away! We get brands like Ralph Lauren. Tommy Hilfiger, Adidas, Nike, all the usual college and NFL stuff. It’s all graded to our specifications, we don’t know the precise stock being shipped in advance, but we know it’ll be x amount of sweatshirts, x amount of jeans etc. And we know that’s going to be to an agreed standard. Every day we’re hanging amazing stuff. It’s exciting when we’re unpacking a new delivery, it’s like Christmas!” All of the stock in Vintage Vera is available at £20 per kilo but individual items can still be purchased, for around £3 per item,
More and more companies are embracing sustainability as an ethos and Gordon is clearly happy that Vintage Vera is part of that. “First and foremost, we’re a business, that’s the reality. But the positive side of that is yes, it is sustainable, it is part of the circular economy, so it’s kind of a win-win – we’ve got a great business with a great team of employees and we’re doing our little bit, I guess, in terms of saving stuff that would go into landfill. It’s easy to run a company and disregard the effect you’re having on the environment, but if you can run a company well and still have the positives, that can only be a good thing!”
And The Gate are obviously happy to be working with Vintage Vera. Inge Johnson Mitchell, Centre Manager at The Gate said: "Gordon and his team from Vintage Vera were introduced to us back in 2019 through our work with Newcastle University Students' Union, and we loved the concept of their pop-up events. They are a great fit with The Gate's sustainability values and have wide appeal to our visitors. Their events have proven to be very popular and bring something different to The Gate each month."
For more information about Vintage Vera, you can check out their website here. And for more details and forthcoming dates of Vintage Vera events at The Gate, take a look here.
