GENESIS

I spent my teenage years traipsing through Surry Hills and Newtown to find my next hit…

Vintage was my drug of choice and I consumed it with reckless abandon. Every week, back in the mid 2000’s before Kendall and Hailey made it cool, I would wait for a new shipment of high waisted 501’s deconstructed denim shorts, Harley tees that had just the right amount of softness from years of wear and with holes in all the right places and that rare designer item that would crop up from time to time making me feel like I had won the jackpot. 

We all know fashion is an emotional experience but vintage fashion is next level. The sheer excitement of not knowing what you’re going to get and the knowledge that no one else will have what you have has always seemed crazy cool to me. I think vintage fashion is an ultimate reflection of individual style that is impossible to replicate through any mainstream brand. 

This is when I decided I wanted to get my hands dirty and work with vintage in some capacity “when I grew up.”

Well, I grew up and decided I wanted to start a vintage fashion boutique. I toyed with the idea of opening a store on the very strips I used to frequent a decade earlier but decided the way of the future was online shopping and so opted to create an online vintage boutique. 

At the time, there was only one online vintage boutique based in Australia that I knew of. Crazy right, this wasn’t even that long ago! 

I spent a big chunk of time Googling, calling and emailing every wholesale vintage supplier I could to arrange appointments. I then booked a ticket to the USA and then to Europe, cleaned out my bank account and maxed out a few different credit cards and was off and running! I started small with only a limited range of Harley’s and band tees (I love that these are still our best sellers…just on a much larger scale) and then slowly expanded. 

These buying trips were some of the most exciting times of my life because I felt like I was truly in the midst of creating something people would love! And luckily our early customers did love it because they kept returning and allowed me to keep going on buying trips to expand our product range. 

Don’t get me wrong, the rag houses where I handpick all this gold are dusty, smelly and sweaty and are located in some of the sketchiest areas of the world BUT I wouldn’t change them for anything. The feeling of landing on gold is unmatched by anything. 

I grew the business through a dedication to sourcing the best vintage consistently for our amazing customers, providing great customer service and providing the best value for money that we possibly can. I think this is why we have such a high customer retention rate. I truly believe that Gone Tomorrow Vintage is the best vintage clothing store in Australia and I’m obsessed with constantly making it better!