Long gone are the days of heading to the mall for a new wardrobe. What’s old is in as Gen Z and millennials hit the thrift stores for their wardrobe, and, no, we’re not talking about Value Village.
From Another opened in Edmonton five years ago in a tiny shop in a back alley on Whyte Avenue. In 2020, the brand upgraded to a large retail space also on Whyte in an upstairs loft, and opened a second store, in Calgary, this year.
“When From Another first started, I don’t think there were any sort of secondhand sneaker or vintage stores in the city, so we definitely filled that space, and as time went on, a few others popped up on Whyte,” says Tom Heuver, owner and store manager of From Another’s Calgary location.
Heuver lists off a handful of other similar types of shops that exist in the area, including Wildrose Vintage, but he says there isn’t competition; each store is unique down to the process of how they collect stock. Some consign, others browse the internet. From Another buys directly from the public. People can bring in their used, unwanted streetwear and sneakers to sell for cash or store credit.
If you attend one of From Another’s pop-up sales, you’ll see a large table in the middle of the room piled high with $5 items. Digging through the pile is akin to fighting over TVs at Walmart on Black Friday.
Items are priced by researching similar items online and determining the supply and demand for that particular item. Vintage NASCAR bomber jackets are hot sellers right now and sell for upwards of $100. “We can’t keep them in stock,” Heuver adds.
Popular resale app thredUP’s 2021 Fashion Resale Market and Trend Report projects that the secondhand market will double in the next five years, reaching $77 billion USD. The growth is driven by more sellers putting products on the market thanks to the ease of apps like Depop (which was recently bought by Etsy for $1.6 billion USD) and Poshmark, and the increasing number of local resale stores popping up in each city. Even with the popularity of online shopping, Heuver doesn’t see these types of apps as competition.
“You don’t have to search something specific on Depop or spend hours staring at your phone searching,” says Heuver. “You can just go into the store and see what each store owner curates, and see what you vibe with.”
From Another sees a growing interest in vintage and repurposed goods across Western Canada (the brand recently attended a sneaker convention in Vancouver), and with the worldwide push for sustainability, Heuver doesn’t think it’ll wane anytime soon.
“I think sustainable shopping as a whole is going to last, but what it looks like in the future is going to be a little different in terms of what trends will be in,” says Heuver. “Fashion is super cyclical. I think they say usually every eight to 10 years, and then every 30 years for the big trends. So essentially, in maybe two or three years time, there’ll be a new trend and everyone’s going to want all the vintage versions.”
From Another
10544 82 Ave NW Second Floor, Edmonton | fromanother.ca
