Antiques and Collectables for Beginners: Vintage Clothing

Vintage clothing can be a good start for the beginners of antiques and collectables. Finding and selling vintage clothing can be a rewarding hobby, but for the beginner, the learning process can be quite costly if you don't know what you're doing. The following tips will help beginners immensely, when starting this type of hobby.

Identifying Buyers

The first thing a beginner should know when collecting vintage clothing is there are two types of buyers for vintage clothing. The first types of buyers are collectors. Collectors are looking for clothing that can define an era. A good example of this would be how platform shoes and bell bottom jeans identified the 1970’s. If you are looking for the kinds of vintage clothing collectors would by, you should familiarize yourself with the types of clothing that are associated with a certain decade.

The second types of buyers of vintage clothing are people looking for retro style clothes to add to their wardrobes. This type of buyer is looking for the type of vintage clothing that will be considered trendy, so that they can keep with the different fashion trends. If you are looking to sell to this type of customer, you should familiarize yourself with the current fashion trends.

Finding Vintage Clothing

The first thing you will need to do is determine the kind of vintage clothing you are looking to sell. If you are looking for clothing of a specific decade, the best place to start is in your own closet or the closets of your friends and family. Most people aren’t aware of the treasures they have hidden away in their closet, and if you offer them a few dollars for the vintage clothing you are looking to sell, they will consider it a blessing. Some other good places to look for vintage clothing would be at yard sales, thrift stores, and estate sales. These places are a bit harder, because there are many people in search of vintage clothing, so it’s important that you stay on the lookout and revisit places as often as you can. You never know when you’ll find that special piece of vintage clothing you’ve been looking for. Another good idea is to network with people you meet at these places, because they might be able to point you in the right direction later on.

Pricing Vintage Clothing

Pricing vintage clothing just right will take some time to learn. There are many factors involved in pricing, and for beginners, learning these factors will require some trial and error. The important thing to remember is to buy your vintage clothing as cheaply as possible and then mark up the price so that you can turn a profit. A good article you can read to learn more about the factors of pricing is:

The Seven Secrets to Buy Vintage

Buying and selling vintage clothing can be a tricky road to navigate, but if you stick to these simple tips, you can avoid going broke before you learn the trade. Keeping up with your fashion trends and knowing the correct ways to identify vintage clothing is an ongoing process, but after you learn enough you might even begin to start being able to predict the trends people will be looking for. If you’d like to learn more about vintage clothing, the following articles can be quite helpful:

11 Ways to Know It's Vintage by Labels and Tags

Cleaning and Storing Antique Clothing