Since opening my Falls Creek shop five days ago on Saturday 1 July, I’ve been inundated with requests to buy my vintage one-piece snow suits, jumpers, bib & brace pants and jackets.
People ask me why there are no price tags on any of the vintage clothing I have in my store multiple times a day. The answer is simple. I had planned to rent out the clothing.
Vintage snow suit/snow clothing rental is available in several places in Canada & America. It is definitely a niche snow fashion business option, but for the businesses that I’ve researched at least, it’s proven to be highly desirable and successful. It’s a fun option for family or friends dress up days when on holiday. Many people factor into their one week at the snow ‘onesie day’ or ‘retro day’ (what they really mean is vintage day, but that was the topic of last week’s article…) for a blue-sky day during their trip to make memories and, quite possibly, to stand out and make a statement on the hill.
Since opening my store, the requests to buy my vintage have been coming in daily thick and fast. Never one to ignore customer feedback, I’ve pivoted and have begun pricing up the vintage clothing for sale, adding sales tickets as quickly as I can on items in addition to the rental prices.
If you see something that you love and it doesn’t yet have a sale price tag on it, bring the jumper or suit over and ask me for the price. I’ll look it up and let you know ASAP. Most of the time it only takes a few minutes. Sometimes though, a customer picks out something from early in my collecting journey, and the search through the spreadsheets can take a little longer as I backtrack through decades of excel files (each year got it’s own file…it made sense at the time when it was just me being a ski nerd keeping track of my collection!).
I’m still going to rent out my vintage snow fashion this season. Why? I decide to open Australia’s first vintage snow clothing hire business to help us all to embrace circular fashion and do my bit for environmental sustainability. Selling some of the collection does give me an iron clad reason to keep buying more vintage snow suits, so I’m not going to complain about that turn of events!
However, renting clothing is a great way for people to have access to “new to them” clothing at a fraction of the cost of buying the item. It is environmentally friendly as it is re-using and, at times, remaking or re-purposing an existing item that has already been manufactured and is out in the world. I’ve had over 20 items repaired by Remote Equipment Repairs over the years and have a parcel from RER trucking its way to Falls as I write this ready to put on the shops racks.
So, if you are interested in dipping your toe into the pool of slow fashion, or vintage fashion visit the www.idreamofsnow.com Store on Level 1, St Falls Resort West. No matter whether you want to rent or buy, the environment will thank you for keeping clothing out of landfill and in circulation. Have a great week and see you in store!
Cheers, Nyree
Underneath PowederKeg Bar, St Falls Resort.