Bazaar Vintage

This is a little shop but packs a pretty big punch in terms of quality vintage items. The shop covers the bottom and top storey of an old flat, but the fact there is stock on the top half is not advertised very well and I almost missed it. There were a couple of nice finds in the downstairs area, the focus point being on the rack of one-​off designer vintage dresses from the United Kingdom and Europe which were all 50% off. I’m not very into vintage and all the weird colours and florally patterns so I can see why some of them hadn’t sold yet, but at half off it was a good deal for a piece that you know no one else will have.
There was also some nice vintage luggage and boxes with a beautiful Audrey Hepburn design and a massive cushion with her face on it, just in case you wanted to take her to bed with you at night. Reasonable prices on most things, even though it is advertised as vintage which by rule of thumb is usually old, crap stuff selling for expensive prices because it’s old and crap.

I’m in total agreement with Lana on this one: I didn’t get what this shop was about either. The frontage looks very cool and I strolled in expecting to see some cute kitschy gear, but the space felt bare and unfinished and the stock was a bit of a miss match.
The proprietor came in from her smoke break and didn’t look happy to be interrupted. We got a brusque ‘can I help you?’ and my daughter got a ‘don’t you dare touch anything’ stare, which frankly I did not enjoy. The vintage dresses and little tops were lovely and I would have been keen to get a better look at the jewellery if the owner wasn’t waiting for us to get the heck out of there. I felt awkward and skipped on out.

This vintage clothing store has apparently *just* opened on Grenfell Street. By «just» I mean that the morning I visited, they were still cleaning up the inside of the boutique from the launch party the night before.
The space has A LOT of potential: spacious yet cosy, great window frontage, staircase and second level. Bazaar Vintage have decked the place out with some great elements: Turkish rugs, ornate ‘40s benches, vintage trinkets — but the rest is a bit of a mishmash: pin-​up girls and pop-​art Audrey Hepburn cushions and quirky fittings. It doesn’t quite coalesce or advertise what the shop is all about.
This vibe extends to the clothing too: from the exterior I guessed it would be more pin-​up and ‘50s vintage — I was wrong. From midriff tanks and teensy cutoffs that’d look at home on an LA fashion blogger to Alexa Chung-​esque peter pan collar dresses, it’s a bit of a free for all. The sales girl told me the dresses — some of which are way cute — are re-​worked vintage one-​offs (it looked to be one size fits all). And while they were lovely, with a $ 200 price tag I would rather hit up Etsy for the same thing to be honest.
I feel there’s a lot of potential here, and the collection would definitely benefit from a good edit and a stronger identity (as well as more reasonable average price).
Let’s hope it’s just the boutique finding its feet — good luck to them!