“FIRST and foremost, when attempting to buy vintage the shopper has to get over a few vintage issues,” laughed Clare Stack, one half of vintage style duo and online store traders, Gin and Tonic. “Finding the perfect item in your size is difficult for one thing.”
They largely stock clothes that champion the nineties aesthetic. Think Will Smith in the Fresh Prince Bel Air and David Bowie before he settled with supermodel Iman.
I met Clare and her business partner Natasha Naimin (both pictured above) upstairs in the Terrace Bar, Northern Quarter where they hold their monthly vintage markets. The two stylists and entrepreneurs were attempting to convince me to ditch my uniform of high street trends and leap out of my comfort zone in bright, kaleidoscopic eighties and nineties prints.
A small selection of G&T's vintage hoard
As I’ve personally discovered, it’s almost integral when buying old and second-hand clothes to accept that your purchases have lived a previous life.
In most cases, the popular cut-off Levi's shorts, broad shouldered blazers and oversized t-shirts have survived decades before you were even born. Along with a few bumps, tears and scrapes, your new-old items come with the memories of previous owners past.
They can also smell a bit musty.
Of course, this doesn’t bother the fashionable types (and yes, Thrift Shop rapper Macklemore) who have helped turn charity store Oxfam into a frequent fashion haunt and rebranded vintage as something contrary to David Dickinson and the old tack he auctions off on Real Deal.
Similarly, Gin and Tonic have contributed to Manchester’s own vintage fashion identity. Earlier this year they debuted their vintage finds at Manchester Fashion Week.
Gin and Tonic debuted at MCRFW
Taking me through a small selection of their hoard, I braced to try on their loud and proud collection of bold vintage finds. As we played around with props and got a little silly with a ladder, it was hard to see who was the gin and who was the tonic – they’re both equally as wild when it comes to picking outfits.
Clare picks out bright prints
Natasha said: “The high street is saturated with the same looks and we find that people are more inclined to search for that unique item that no one else wears.”
“I bought a really cool Topshop shirt with palm trees on it and spotted about two other girl’s wearing it on the same day.”
Accidentally coordinating your outfit with girls you cross on the street is the risk you take when following trends and shopping in trend-led high street stores.
“When you shop in Primark, for example, you have to be wary of buying prints. Otherwise you’ll bump into a few other people with the exact same outfit,” said Clare.
The likelihood of bumping into anyone wearing the outfits picked out by these two was slim. They largely stock clothes that champion the nineties aesthetic. Think Will Smith in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and David Bowie before he settled with supermodel Iman.
Pink and green CAN be seen
Embracing colour with bold prints
“We’ve had vintage market traders turn their nose up at us because we specialise in eighties and nineties secondhand. To them the clothes are not technically vintage. To us, if it’s over ten years old it can be classed as vintage. We’re eighties babies, so we’re vintage too.”
Whilest experiencing snubs from other markets, Gin and Tonic's clientbase is steady. They cater to the archetypal creative Northern Quarter lot that wear slogan t-shirts to be both different and ironic as well as those looking for a bright, vintage find.
Brighter the better“Manchester is lucky as it has quite a few places to find vintage clothes,” said Tash. “That’s why we love doing the markets alongside the online store, as it’s fun to encourage shoppers to wear items in their own way. It’s about finding your personal style and running with it.”
“A lot of girls can be very insecure with what they wear,” added Clare. “We tell people to just throw on whatever you want. This is exactly what I want to look like today and here I am. That confidence is what makes it your style.”
Helping others define what their personal style is all about is what Gin and Tonic do best. After an hour in their company it became a fun game of dress up. I was dressed in mens shirts and clashing prints and threw on dresses that to the eye shouldn’t really work.
The result was quite wearable outfits – if I became a little braver.
Wearable?
Act natural: L'Oréal looking completely casual by a ladder.
One of the best things about Gin and Tonic’s stock, besides the good finds and good prices (clothes seem to range around the £20 mark), is the quality of what they sell.
“We source clothes from secret stockists and sometimes we use wholesalers. But we’d rather sift through all the clothes ourselves and make sure it fits our style, is clean and also not damaged. It takes a lot of time,” explained Tash.
Clare added, “We’re the distributers, the marketers, the salesmen, we do all the heavy lifting but it’s all part of the fun.”
Shop the clothes on the Gin and Tonic website and visit this month's market at Terrace Bar, Northern Quarter 1- 5pm on Saturday 5th July.
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