It’s been two years…
Vintage Vitamin has been in the game for two years. Through these years we have met and made friends that led to the creation of an amazing community who shares the love for vintage and nostalgia through affordable good quality clothing. Since we’re in the business of nostalgia, for our second year, we might as well take a trip down memory lane to the humble beginnings of Vintage Vitamin…
The Birth of a Good Idea
The owner/creator of the brand, Brice, started designing early in his life. Back in 1999, when he was still in the fourth grade, he used to be his uncle's layout artist. Now, some might think that the passion for designing and the arts started up way too early, but for him, he just really wanted to hang out in his uncle's office and do what young boys do…play video games. He never took designing seriously until college. During this period in his life, the main reason behind his passion for creating art and doing vector designs was his Friendster account. If you know, everybody's Friendster page back then was an avenue to bring out their personalities and make friends. The only problem people had with this beta version of social media was finding the perfect color schemes and creating the best layout which screams "I'm emo enough!".
Anyway, fast forward to 2017 the love for designing and making content for social media remained as one of Brice's niche. He then created Vintage Vitamin on Instagram as a meme page. As much as he wants it to have a touch of his punny personality, Vintage Vitamin was also intended to be a complex magazine type of page which posts contents about new clothing brands, news from the vintage clothing industry, and so forth. Little did he know that in the grand scheme of things, something great was about to happen next.
Deals n’ Steals Consignment
If there are three of the many things that he likes, he will tell you that it would be puns, sneakers, tees, and Marvel… oh wait that's four. Still, wouldn't it be better if all of these likeable things come in vintage? In the same year of starting the Instagram page, he also came across the vintage clothing community. He actually copped a Stone Cold Steve Austin 3:16 tee
(Picture 1)
and resold it for PHP 1.500. That was when he knew that there are people who loved vintage clothing, that there's a great community around it, and that he supported its causes—oh and he could earn by doing what he loved. Instead of using his personal social media accounts, he thought, why not just use the Vintage Vitamin page since it's very fitting of the business and the brand? This started off the "curating vintage pieces" phase of Vintage Vitamin where he traded and resold unique pieces of vintage clothing.
F*ck it Let’s Just Make Our Own
The real story starts here. One time he was just scrolling around on Ebay looking for some good finds. When he saw the price range of vintage megaprints—his jaw dropped. The actual price of a Marvel megaprint was around PHP 3.5 million. Like, for a used shirt?! He didn't wanna spend that much money, nor did he have THAT money so he thought…why not just bootleg it and do his own thing? The first bootleg Vintage Vitamin tee is the 1988 Akira Tetsuo shirt which sells around $836, his second one was the 1995 Ghost in the Shell Manga Vintage tee.
Starting up a business was never easy. For things to actually work out, you would have to build the brand, your community, source out supplies, and find a team who share the same vision with you. Brice encountered these hurdles and more. Some people do not particularly like the idea of bootlegged tees. However, Vintage Vitamin remained dedicated to its goal which is to give people a dose of nostalgia through good quality shirts without breaking the bank.
So one candid day, when he was just casually hanging out with Brenna, his partner, amidst bingeing the Modern Family series—he goes "Oh f*ck I want a Silver Surfer shirt but it's too expensive". And on the next day, he woke up and chose…printing.
(Picture 2)
He printed a sample of the design, hopped on Madonna Vintage's Instagram live and the next thing he knew… he instantly had 15 pre-orders. A lot of people wanted it so he had to double the slots and cater to the demand. To everyone's surprise what started off as a weekend project in the garage, ended up as the Vintage Vitamin Studios that it is today. A team of 15 people, a community of many, and a lot of good stuff that you guys love. The rest, as they say, is history.
I guess we'll just leave it here with a simple finale. Now, we both know the becoming of Vintage Vitamin Studios. However, we’re both uncertain of what is to come. Even so, whatever it is, we are certain that it’ll be great.
See you on the next one!