Old vault doors are the only obvious hint to the site’s former life as a Westpac bank branch,which the charity has converted into a modern retail space.
Yolanda Saiz at the first new Vinnies store in Sydney’s inner-city to open in a decade.James Brickwood
Vinnies NSW acting chief executive Yolanda Saiz hopes the prime retail location on Crown Street in Surry Hills will provide a community hub for those in need while tapping into local demand for vintage fashion,particularly among Millennials and Gen Z.
“Young people in particular are really conscious about their shopping habits. They want to shop in places that are environmentally and socially minded,” she said.
“But it’s more significant than just the commercial presence,it’s about social presence. We’re a place that people turn to for help,and we will never walk away from that.”
The new inner-city store is part of Vinnies strategy to open five stores in NSW every year. A conducted in the United States projected that the second-hand clothing market in the US would grow to $US64 billion ($93 billion) by 2028,outstripping the $US44 billion value of the mass-produced “fast fashion” industry which has.
The new Surry Hills store is part of Vinnies strategy to open five stores in NSW every year.James Brickwood
Saiz said the used and vintage clothing market was on a similar trajectory in Australia,and Vinnies was well-placed to benefit from the boom in recycled fashion.
“You can make a difference to people,and you can make a difference to the environment,” she said. “I think that’s what differentiates Vinnies from other shopping experiences.”
Vinnies was no different from commercial retailers in struggling through COVID-19 lockdowns,but Saiz said the charity’s retail division had seen a pleasing rebound recently.
“The last two years have been really challenging for the organisation. But we’ve been able to recover quite well from that,” she said. “The last three months have been really positive for us,so we hope to build on that in 2023.”
Vinnies shops are a lucrative money-spinner for the charity,which saw demand for its services grow by 20 per cent in the first quarter of the 2022-23 financial year.
“One in four people are coming to us for the first time,and that should be concerning to everybody,” Saiz said. “More and more people are having to turn to charity,some for the very first time in their lives.”
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