Traffic on the corner of Melrose and Fuller frequently comes to a halt here on any given Saturday, as buyers from near and far dart through traffic in designer sneakers. They’re attempting to receive from one Round Two store to the next.
A couple of years earlier, this corner was empty. Now it’s Round 2’s block, or “village,” as owner Sean Wotherspoon calls it, with its three stores clustered for a special retail experience. In the Round 2 vintage shop, shoppers comb through vintage Polo jackets, Janet Jackson trip Tee shirts, and other rare vintage finds, some with $200 pricetags. Next door, consumers in the primary store are hanging out more than shopping. Some are simply taking it all in– they have actually only seen the put on Round Two’s YouTube program. The third store, devoted to Round Two’s own top quality product, is hosting a pop-up event for a young New York designer. The DJ remains in the back setting up for the evening’s celebration. There’s an opportunity A$ AP Nast will come by.
It’s brick-and-mortar gold in the era of the “retail armageddon.” Along with Round 2’s other shops, they clock estimated yearly sales of about $20 million.
Wotherspoon, 29, started collecting vintage clothing in a 10-by-10 storage system in Richmond, Virginia, in 2013. Residents would visit for unusual clothing that were sourced from thrift stores or flea markets for couple of dollars. There was such a demand that Wotherspoon teamed up with a couple friends and opened an official brick-and-mortar across town. They began to movie their day-to-day operation and interactions with customers inside the shop and released the hourlong episodes on YouTube. “The Program” ended up being an internal advertising and material factory. The videos drew a devoted following, even some who ‘d never stepped foot in the store.
6 years later, the Round Two vintage empire has broadened to hip areas of a number of destination cities. Each shop– they’re in New York, Miami, Los Angeles and Richmond– is an antidote to the cold pretention of retailers like Supreme and Kith, while likewise handling to avoid vintage-store moldy. In each place, the stock shows local tastes. Classic Disneyland t-shirts fly off the racks in the Miami place. Film and music merchandise sells great in Los Angeles. New Yorkers love old Polo and Supreme. The extremely curated, enormous supply of priceless ’90s gear, sports souvenirs, and style odds and ends is what keeps the hype going, along with an army of Round Two fans constantly publishing on Instagram about their finds and experiences.
” The Program” has became a star-studded occasion, and there’s talks of it relocating to a bigger platform.
” We simply wished to record what we were doing, and ended up turning it into a show. We put it on YouTube, which’s what got us recognition, like, outside of Virginia. That made us able to broaden out here, and after that global,” Wotherspoon described to VICE NEWS.
VICE News accompanied with Wotherspoon on a shopping trip to a huge rag house where he stockpiled with about $2,000 worth of Madonna tour t-shirts, 1970s jeans, and other classic finds– to be resold at his shops for about 30 percent more.
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