Cop The Drop: Spice Vintage

Gracie Collier, Founder and Owner of Spice Vintage is certainly heating up the vintage industry with her carefully curated online vintage shop. Her weekly drops are not to miss with each one selling out in a matter of minutes!

Not to mention her contagious aura and optimistic personality that we live to see on her platforms. Gracie sits down with us to chat all things sustainability and gives us the essential tips and tricks to in finding the perfect vintage pieces. 

What inspired you to start Spice? 

Spice was originally a gateway for creativity. I was in a really unfulfilling marketing career and I just had to start something! I knew I always wanted to work for myself but I just didn’t know what capacity that would be. So I created the brand originally just the name and I started there.

Initially I wanted to start a festival clothing brand but then I realised very quickly I couldn’t design clothes or I couldn’t make clothes, and it’s really hard to make festival clothes sustainable. So I left the brand sitting there for about 7 months and I just started to build up a vibe of what I liked and I made a Pinterest board. I remember starting and it made me feel so much better.

Not long after, I quit my job and moved to West Cork to slow down and focus on my wellbeing and once I took the pressure off myself to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, that’s when it all started to flow in my favour.

What was it that sparked the idea to buy vintage items?

I was given a pop up shop space by a friend and I was like “sure what would I do with that?”. And only for she said it to me “You should start a vintage store” I was thinking “ok.. yeah I actually could do that”. I used to sell clothes on and off at markets and Depop, making tie dye and selling it at school so I was always kind of involved, I just never thought it would be what I do for my life.

There’s something in that as well that makes us special. I think we can take for granted because it comes so easy to us. But whatever makes you special, I think that’s what you should create into a business and mine was the ability to pick clothes and put outfits together. 

How would you differentiate yourself from other Vintage Stores in Ireland? 

My differentiation with Spice came from me shopping vintage from the age of about 14 and when I started Spice I was 25, so for me, over the years I’ve built up a comparison to other vintage shops in general as a whole and not just Ireland. 

I literally got a page and I wrote down what I don’t like about Vintage shops and the other side was how Spice could remedy this. I had a pretty long list, one of them being the vibe around a vintage shop is very cool and exclusive and it’s not accessible to everyone so I  wanted to make spice feel like a vintage shop that anyone could shop from no matter how “cool” or what you’re into or what you do for a living.

How do you target new customers and maintain that personal connection with them?

With vintage clothing, people feel like “it’s only a certain amount of people that wears vintage and I’m not that because I’m an accountant and I only shop in Zara” but I know for a fact that the way I’ve marketed Spice, the way that the shop looked/felt, the way my staff were to customers, the way I am to customers – Just that inclusive vibe meant that a lot of girls in Ireland have converted over to vintage because Spice have made them feel like they could. 

Another thing we focus on at Spice is the styling of vintage as opposed to just stocking a shop, filling it up to the brim and expecting people to be able to shop it and put outfits together. I decided to spoon feed our customers and followers and really make an effort with putting pieces together, creating multiple aesthetics with the Instagram because I want ALL types of vintage girls to get involved in Spice so that’s y2k vintage, 70s vintage, 80s vintage, 90s vintage, the preppy vintage, the prettier vintage, the grungier vintage, the sporty vintage. I’m all those girls on the Instagram because I want all of those girls to feel like they can shop from my shop. Everyone’s involved, everyone’s included and everyone’s welcome. 

Gracie Collier -

“We need to rewire how we shop and how we think about consumption and what we expect from brands.”

What’s your most loved vintage piece that you own? 

So I have this Matte sequin crazy print bomber jacket from the 80s, that I got about 5 years ago on eBay. Right now they’re going for around 700 euro, I think I paid 90 euro for this one at the time. Its literally like a piece of art. It’s my most cherished piece. It’s not an everyday piece but I wear it to every single festival and I always get stopped and asked wear it’s from, but by far my greatest thrifting cop in terms of value. 

How does a garment qualify for spice? 

I don’t really know what it is but I would base it on a feeling. So everything gets a reaction. Because I’m handpicking the guts of about 10 different styles of girls / boys and all different walks of vintage style. I usually pick something up and say “what would I style this with?” “Who would wear this?” and “Is it special enough”. I’m also very keen on giving items a chance because I’m very aware that when I’m handpicking I’m giving clothes another life so I will also hand pick with compassion for pieces (I know that sounds crazy) but I do want to give as many vintage items a chance at another life as I can.

Sometimes something won’t seem very special when it’s not on but I’m ill just be like “but I know if I style this I can make it special” and then it will sell and be out in the world again and it won’t end up in landfill. 

When you are hand picking the garments, what do you look for? Do you have to forget your personal style as you’re buying for other people?

I always go for prints, shapes, styles for example sunflowers, floral print, bardot print, anything with animals, embroidery, anything with a back logo. Anything that’s kind of weird. I love random vintage like stuff that has like a crab or something on the back of it. Just anything that makes the item special. I’m very particular about T-shirts, Crewnecks, and Knitwear.

I won’t just buy something because I know it will sell, I will always buy it because I like it and I feel like it suits spices aesthetic and someone will enjoy it belonging to my customer base. I wouldn’t wear everything I buy, but that’s not the point, it’s about being the hands and the eyes and making light work for the girls that just need an easy shopping experience. There’ s something for everyone on the website always, whether you wear vintage or want to get into vintage. 

Some tips and tricks when rummaging through vintage shops? 

For me, never ask yourself if you’ll get enough wear out of it because its vintage. If you like it enough to want to buy it, generally, you like it for a reason you don’t even know why you like it. So don’t ruin the shopping experience by saying will you get enough wear out of it. That’s what’s stunning about vintage shopping, it’s so creative and you can just pass yourself over to the process and let the shop dictate what you buy.

Rummage and search for that feeling. I also talk about the feeling you get when you find something no one else will have, it’s awfully exciting and I think you should let that take its toll and follow your gut. If you like something and you don’t know why you like it, just trust that. Because of Instagram and bloggers telling us what to wear every day of the week, people are losing their creativity and it’s really sad because they’re all copying each other but that’s why I love vintage because it just brings you back to that authentic style and it works your creative juices and it makes you be more intuitive about shopping and connecting to your heart and what you like more. 

Another tip if you do struggle and you find it overwhelming is to go with something specific in mind and just go looking for that one piece and leave it at that. Gear your mind to pick up something for that specific reason and you’re more likely to get something if you go in with purpose rather than just hoping to find something. 

What does a sustainable fashion industry look like to you? 

Pure and simple – it looks like less. Less seasons, less consumption, less marketing, less influencers, less urgency, less manufacturing. Just continue to do it. It’s realistic to think it’s always going to exist but the quantities the volumes we need to rewire how we shop and how we think about consumption and what we expect from brands and just take out a couple of seasons, bring down how much is manufactured, bring in a legislation about how many units of a certain item can a shop have in stock. Scaling it back is how I see it moving forward.

If sustainability is not yet in your vocabulary and you want more from Gracie, you can find her on Instagram @spice_vintage or if your lucky enough to cop something from her drops over on https://spicevintageonline.com  

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