The contemporary vintage shop is a carefully curated trove of one-of-a-kind pieces; a hotspot for fashionistas. Thanks to celebrities like Bella Hadid, who has made vintage her wardrobe staple, embarrassment about wearing second-hand clothes is long gone. Now, it’s a fashion trend to boast about. Demand has soared, welcoming the era of a brand-new profession: the Vintage Wholesaler.
Felix Giles, who looks like a standard 23-year-old with his mop of blonde hair and thick-framed glasses, entered the vintage wholesale industry in February 2023, co-founding Girl Vintage Wholesale with his friend and business partner Simon Betteridge. With a focus on Y2K womenswear, the business’ debut year was a success that yielded a six-figure profit. So much so, that Felix is relocating to a larger warehouse in Hailsham, East Sussex, to meet the increased demand for his inventory.
For the past seven years, Felix has been active in the vintage-selling community, initially running a business on Depop and ASOS Marketplace with Simon, who he met at the barber. At the end of 2022, the pair felt they’d reached a plateau.
“I was happy with things, but wanted to do something a little bit different,” he says. “We’d noticed most wholesalers were focused on menswear, but there are so many women selling female-centred vintage clothing in the UK and beyond, but not many places to source the items they’re selling.”
The shift from operating as a vintage shop to becoming a wholesaler has been an interesting change for Felix. Additionally, switching from selling men’s fashion to women’s has too.
“The biggest learning curve was moving into womens fashion. I wear mens clothes and naturally gravitate towards selling them because of that. I feel like menswear is very straightforward, whereas womens is so interesting, and has a lot more diversity with patterns, designs, and shapes of items.”
Alongside finding more joy in womens vintage fashion than men’s, he says he enjoys wholesaling more than running a vintage shop.
“It’s a completely different relationship working business to business rather than business to customer. When you’re selling vintage to just one person, there’s only that transaction and you likely never speak to them again. But with store owners, they shop with you regularly, and you build up a relationship with them and understand their needs.”
Customers shop at Girl Vintage in two ways – purchasing wholesale bundles on the website, curated by Felix and categorised by a particular Y2K aesthetic, or by video handpicking. Sellers book a video call appointment and Felix curates a selection of items to showcase on the call. video handpicking makes Girl Vintage accessible worldwide, and since the business began, they’ve supplied over 500 sellers around the globe.
Many repeat clients will pick out 100-150 items via video handpicking once or twice a month, and Felix says they’re open to supplying to anyone who expresses interest, from those “dipping their toes into the world of vintage wholesale” to sellers who’ve been running physical vintage shops for years.
Every two weeks, Girl Vintage gets a delivery of this stock directly from Italian clothing sorting factories nicknamed ‘rag houses’. “New delivery days are the best!” Felix says grinning.
The factories operate to sort and grade second-hand garments before distributing them to recycling centres, charities, and businesses. Since 2022, Italian municipalities have been legally obliged to provide collection points for clothing and fabrics to be recycled, so factories have been more inundated than ever with items to sort and distribute.
“We’d noticed most wholesalers were focused on menswear, but there are so many women selling female-centred vintage clothing in the UK and beyond, but not many places to source the items they’re selling”
Italian fashion is typically synonymous with quality, and Felix says this is one reason why he chose the European style capital over other countries. “Italian quality is unmatched, and they’re big on sustainability. I’ve sourced from Thailand, America, and Australia and none of them are as good, and stock arrives much faster from Italy, too.”
Similarly to modern fashion trends, the hottest in vintage fashion fluctuates constantly, predominantly driven by influencers and celebrities. Felix says a problem with this is it operates in a similar way to fast fashion, contradicting the objective of vintage. He says people see someone wearing an item on social media, such as ‘graphic baby tees,’ (tight cropped t-shirts with printed designs on the front), or denim miniskirts, and they want that same, specific item.
However, unlike fast fashion, there isn’t an abundance of one individual vintage item readily available. Felix says this scarcity is the beauty of vintage, but it can be hard to navigate as a supplier.
“It’s difficult at times to source what someone wants if they’re looking for something too specific. This plays into what fast fashion is because people want something vintage but lots of it, and the point of vintage is that things are one-off items.”
At the moment, Girl Vintage is solely run by Felix and Simon, and he says he feels like he does many different people’s jobs meaning two days are never the same. He runs their social media accounts, packs and ships orders, and carries out the video handpicks.
“Rather than working in a corporate setting, or even in a coffee shop, you come to work, do your job, and then leave at five pm. With what I do, I decide what needs to be done on the day. It’s ever-changing and evolving and rewarding and challenging at the same time.”
The future for Felix and Girl Vintage Wholesale looks exciting, and similarly to his day-to-day, full of unforeseen opportunities which he says surface all the time. TikTok recently contacted him to be part of a new section on the app, TikTok Pre-Owned,where second-hand sellers are promoted, and he has plans to open a shop in Brighton to sell some of their stock and have space to conduct video handpick calls.
Felix says his own experience of the vintage selling world has made him appreciate and want to support new sellers. “It’s nice to not only supply to people trying to make something out of it but also to understand that journey,” he says.
He ruminates on a famous Mark Twain quote as he sips his nearly-finished latte. “That quote says something along the lines of ‘do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.’ I’ve always been very interested in fashion, so I feel very privileged to be able to work in a role where I’m involved with that, and where I also get to help other people do what they love.”
Vibe Check
Clothing genre: Y2K
Price range: Low-mid
Writers favourite item: Von Dutch denim jacket
Ambiance: Funky fresh
Pictures: Felix Giles
Designs: Pius Bentgens