What's old is new again at vintage store

Da Wa, a post-90s fashion designer, quit a stable job last year and started her own vintage clothing business.

Bringing a sense of nostalgia to the country, vintage clothing was once a niche industry but is attracting more enthusiasts in China.

Da Wa decorated her home with old items collected over the last four years, changing it into a vintage store. Most customers coming to her shop are university students in Hangzhou.

In addition, she runs an online vintage store on Alibaba's e-commerce platform Taobao. The number of visits to her online store is far more than those to her brick-and-mortar store.

The vintage clothes sold at Da Wa's store were mostly made from the 1960s to the 1990s. Besides clothes, Da Wa also sells vintage sunglasses and toys.

She found most of the vintage clothes at secondhand markets in foreign countries. In 2018 she bought more than 2,000 items overseas. Sometimes, while travelling abroad, she only had one meal a day because she needed to save time for clothes hunting.

Da Wa said many young people know her store from the internet, and have come to visit. They often say they wish they could have a store like hers.

In Da Wa's eyes, although her life has become busier after starting a business, she enjoys her work very much because it is the lifestyle she wanted to have.