ː AESTHETICS WORDS GUNNER ONKST PHOTO SARAH FRICK DESIGN SARAH GREIVER
How one small business owner seeks to bring back the old
Picture your dream clothing item. If you’re like me, you’ve definitely made a Pinterest board all about it. For me, it was a skirt. But not just any skirt. I’ve always admired the ’90s pop-grunge maxi skirts that actress Kate Hudson flashed on the red carpet and singer Mazzy Star wore on stage. That explains my excitement when I found the skirt at the Time Travelers Vintage Expo. The name doesn’t lie. You truly travel to a different time period as you walk among the collection of booths. Sarah Frick, owner and organizer, travels around the Midwest and surrounding areas to gather vendors with a passion for vintage clothing, records, and novelties. She started the expo in 2021. “I’ve done pretty much every pop-up in the Tulsa, [Oklahoma] area under the sun and beyond,” Frick says. Fast forward to my jaw dropping when I see vendors dressed up in their favorite bell bottom jeans, or ’80s button ups featuring geometric prints. ABBA and The Bee Gees are playing over the speakers. Rows and rows of booths are all covered in clothing, jewelry, prints, and records. It’s retro paradise. After winding through rows of vendors, my friends and I stumble upon Viva Vega Vintage. Their booth has racks of clothes from the ’50s but our eyes jump to the skirts. There it is. My dream skirt. It’s black, lined down to the floor with a pattern of flowers, seed packets, all in yellow, blue, and red. It has to be mine. I’m not the only one mesmerized by their skirts. So is Bailey Moore, an expo visitor from Tulsa. She appreciates the variety of clothing that you just can’t find at places like Shein or H&M. “I bought this maxi skirt, and it had safari prints on it. It was so unique,” Moore says. “I never would have been able to find that at a modern store.” Sarah Vega, co-owner of Viva Vega Vintage, says that she’s “hooked” and always wants to come back
10 SUMMER 2024
to sell at the expo. She plans on selling at half of the 12 shows scheduled in 2024. “I love how happy somebody gets when they find their dream piece,” Vega says. “Vintage means something different for everybody, and it brings back memories or somebody that they are trying to reflect or style around.” Each expo is unique. In Dallas, vendors featured more items from Western and Hispanic backgrounds. Tables and booths were piled with vintage bolero jackets, ponchos, and vests with intricately embroidered designs. Shopping for vintage is a trend as Gen Z focuses on creating capsule wardrobes. A capsule wardrobe means gathering fewer clothing items that will last a lifetime, rather than falling into the trap of fast fashion. According to earth.org, online clothing returns accounted for 2.6 million tons of landfill waste in 2020 in the U.S. alone. By shopping vintage, people are saving the planet from piles of unused or unwanted clothing. “Things were made with so much better quality back in the day,” Frick says. “[Young people] have really caught on to the fact that these things were made with integrity, and not fast fashion.” Providing more people with good quality clothing and vintage items is one of Frick’s reasons for putting together the expo. “It’s always the best to hear vendors say, ‘This is the best event they ever vended.’ That’s why we do what we do is to support small businesses, creators, and collectors,” Frick says. “That is like my middle finger to corporate America.” The Time Travelers Vintage Expo continues to add new stops in the Midwest to its list. Visit timetravelersexpo.com for more info.