Fashionistas looking to shop local also have the opportunity to shop sustainably through purchasing second-hand, vintage and on-trend clothing.
Calgary store owner Myra Miller, along with her daughter Michelle currently run a clothing store called Velour Clothing Exchange.
Formerly called The Front Porch during its time as a pop-up shop at Market Collective, a community-based marketplace, their store now located just above Tubby Dog on 17th Avenue S.W., specializes in carefully curated, second hand, 60’s to 90’s vintage and on-trend clothing for men and women.
“We really support the local communities,” says Myra Miller.
Velour Clothing Exchange is a buy, sell, or trade store that purchases clothes directly from the public.
Customers are able to buy clothes in the store, sell their used garments for cash or trade their items for in-store credit.
With Velour a majority of its clothing comes from its customers through its sell and trade practice.
“The ratio of people bringing in clothes [than what we obtain from other sources] is 90 per cent,” Myra Miller says.
“That way you’re keeping items out of the landfills, and recycling items as well,” she says.
“It’s a good way to do it.”
According to an online study published by Nielsen in 2015 called the “Sustainability Imperative,” millennials are highly invested in businesses that follow sustainable practices.
Among those surveyed who were willing to purchase an item at a premium, 53 per cent preferred to support a product from a business that was committed to its community.
“I shop at Café Beano, Tubby Dog, and a lot of local shop owners seem to support each other,” says Myra Miller.
She says that buying quality clothing that isn’t going to fall apart is of importance to their business.
“You’re going to get that with vintage because vintage things are made out of wool, silk, real fabric,” she says.
“The clothes have been tailored, they’ve been made in union shops so that people have been paid a fair wage.”
Shopping locally is also about keeping capital in the local economy rather than the money going to the owners of a big corporation like Walmart.
“It’s really the sustainable way of the future, or it is our future,” says Myra Miller.
She states that they want to be more sustainable, and ethical with what they carry in the store.
Velour Clothing Exchange is reaching it’s one year anniversary this coming November.
