Local vintage shops and designers breathe new life into old clothes

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From the Haight-Ashbury storefronts to the sunny streets of Mission, San Francisco is full of hidden shops.

While the city by the bay is among the most expensive cities for secondhand shopping, San Francisco is host to a number of thrift, vintage and brick-and-mortar stores where locals and out-of-towners can find everything from mid-century to vintage. Midriff-baring Y2K fashions.

Among the city’s thrift stores, a handful of small businesses and distributors are reviving the thrift store culture and enhancing the look of the piece with aesthetics and sustainability in mind.

As the city celebrates National Thrift Shop Day, we take a look at a few shopkeepers and designers who specialize in mending rips, tweaking waistlines and making the old new.

The future is the past

12 Clement St., San Francisco
thefuturepaststudio.com

Lindsay Hansen is tired of the frustration and waste in the fashion industry: unworn clothes sitting in warehouses, artificial dyes polluting the earth and the overall relationship between fashion buyers, makers and consumers in global supply chains.

Lindsey Hansen describes her work and process of altering vintage clothing at Future Past Studio in the Richmond District of San Francisco, California on Thursday, August 12, 2022. | Camille Cohen / The Standard

“Throughout my career, I’ve been guilty of this with the amount of waste I’m contributing,” said Hansen, who worked in the fashion industry for years in Los Angeles and sometimes churned out 90 jacket designs in a month.

The Napa native finally decided to leave the scrapheap, moving to San Francisco about 10 years ago. In the year In November 2019, she opened a renovated vintage clothing boutique and atelier, Future Past, on Clement Street before the outbreak. At one point, the Otis College of Art and Design graduate was mostly making masks, but eventually her neighbors stumbled upon the shop, which specializes in customizing, mending and repairing vintage fashion pieces – especially jeans – and selling clothes made from natural fabrics. Or with natural dyes.

Details of Lindsay Hansen’s work at Future Past Studios. | Camille Cohen / The Standard

Because everyone was buying Hyper locally, it really helped me to work down here and focus on the people coming in,” Hansen said.

Now, when a customer walks into the store, they can see bike clothing from local designers or Future Past’s collection of recycled vintage pieces – from jeans to sashiko stitching (a Japanese embroidery technique with white geometric thread on an indigo background) to flour sacks. Turned into shirts. Customers can choose a piece from the rack to call for, or bring in an antique piece they want to repair, alter or rework for a more contemporary style. Custom jobs can range from $5 to $10 to redo an entire pair of jeans to $300 to mend a button.

Lindsay Hansen presents a portrait at Future Past Studios in the Richmond District. | Camille Cohen / The Standard

The seamstress, designer and owner hope to one day host sewing classes at the shop. But until then, she wants her customers to feel comfortable in the store and in their clothes.

“I want people to feel like they can be themselves,” Hanson said. “That’s the kind of experience I’m really trying to nurture and cherish.”

That

3608 19th St., San Francisco
(415) 865-0969
issosf.com

Likewise, sustainability has been the mission of Marie Biscarra and Ivy Chan Boutique Esso for 15 years.

Marie Biscarra, creative director of ISSO (right) and Ivy Chan, designer of ISSO (left) pose for a portrait at the Mission District clothing boutique on Monday, August 15, 2022 in San Francisco, California. | Camille Cohen / The Standard

The funky and colorful shop on the corner of Guerrero and 19th streets not only sells items “made, sourced or designed in the Bay Area,” but has also put its stamp on the hyperreal fashion scene as the most popular upcycling retailer of the past two years. A two-piece top made from oversized men’s polo shirts with the bottom cut in half. Biscar was inspired by halter tops and two-piece suits to rework the polos into cut-out collars and sport dresses, inspiring the costumes of Frankie Avalon’s “beach party movies” of the 1960s.

“It became a very hot thing, and so we just didn’t stop,” Biskar said. (Biskar oversees designs and merchandising, while Chan focuses on tailoring.)

Sophie Faustinelli, Camilla Faustinelli and Maria Garcia admire the outdoor racks of ISO Clothing Boutique on Monday, August 15, 2022. | Camille Cohen / The Standard

Other touches in the store include San Francisco-themed vintage jackets made by a local artist and edgy popcorn shirts cut into crop tops or bandeaus. (If those popcorn tops don’t sell, Biscarra isn’t averse to cutting them into smaller scarfs or strips, so the material doesn’t go to waste.)

“Our planet needs us to be more careful about what we do. So it’s just something we try to help ourselves with.Biscarra said.

Ultimately, Biscarra hopes that Isso can encourage consumers to be “intimidated” by vintage fashion or second-hand clothing and find inspiration within. “I like to think of what we carry in our store as a classic,” Biskra said. “So all these grapes, they’re timeless because they’ve traveled through time, and they’re still here. Now the twist comes in that each of us wears this item differently, and we’re here to help you figure it out.

Interiors of ISSO Clothing Boutique in the Mission District. | Camille Cohen / The Standard

WRN FRSH

wrnfrsh.com

watch out


Comfort and durability are also at the core of the WRN FRSH, the brainchild of Gene Duven and Michael Falsetto-Carta. A couple from Castro Flats produce a line or “batch” of unisex jackets, sweatshirts, pants and skirts sewn from “constructed vintage clothing” and sold through pop-ups, online or local shops. The future is the past. Falsetto-Mapp finds and collects scraps of clothing and textiles (sometimes the couple accepts donations), washes them, sorts them by type of fabric, and then begins the “decomposing” process.

The couple cuts the garments into panels, Duven separates them, sews them and assembles them into WRN FRSH garments. The final products are unique patches with subtle differences in panel size and color that are intentionally non-binary and speak in their own way.

“The panel arrangement is always different,” explains Falsetto-Map. It’s basically one-on-one, even though it’s in a set.

“You get some … individuality, but you get what you understand,” says Duven, who feels the freedom of being able to “control size” and “ignore gender” in her work and share that comfort with others. .

“It’s central to our cut because it’s non-binary,” adds Falsetto-Map. We don’t have boys and girls section. We never have. That was always intended as a physical type to control and regain power.He said.

If the customer says they don’t want the material to wear or have any holes or want it to be more monochromatic, Duven will further customize the piece.

“There’s a bit of flexibility,” explains Falsetto-Map. “Because it’s just the two of us and we’re making the gin by hand, we can make these adjustments.

Finally, as the couple falsetto-map says, they hope their “thread to table” work will prevent the severe environmental impact of fast fashion.

The way we do it is crazy to most people because it takes so much time. We call it slow fashion,” falsetto-Mapp said. “It’s very careful and takes a lot of purpose.

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