Our New Year's Resolution, Part 2

I talked about lowering prices on vintage clothing in Our New Year's Resolution, Part 1 last month. We have lowered all our prices on vintage items and are already seeing improvement in sales! Thank you! 

Part 2 is where it gets tricky.

Our New Year's Resolution, Part 2: Lowering our prices on redesigned and handmade items.

Photos by Jordan Hampton

Photos by Ian McFarlane

Community Service is our in-house line of redesigned and handmade clothing. Our redesigns can be as simple as shortening the hem of a skirt, or taking the sleeves off a dress. Some are more involved, like adding leather sleeves to a wool coat, or completely changing the fit of a garment and transforming it into something new. 

Photo by Jeremy Barton

We bring out the potential we see in the thrift store find that is made of great fabric, or has a fabulous pattern, or a unique detail that we fell in love with. We strip away the ugly and the dowdy, the dated and the costume-y. We cut around holes and stains, and take off satin flowers and shoulder pads. What is left is flattering to the modern eye, and inspired by runway fashion and our favorite boutiques that we wish we could afford to shop at.

Photo on right by Ian McFarlane

Taking it a step further, we also make clothes from scratch, using vintage and sustainable fabrics. Some of these are leftovers from a redesign project. The bottom of a shortened dress becomes a skirt, or a bandeau. We make party dresses out of curtains, and skater skirts out of a little boy's bed sheet that is covered with a print of all this favorite football teams. If we are lucky we find a roll of vintage fabric in the thrift store, or buy one from an elderly customer who had it stored since the 80s.

Photo by Sanni Baumgärtner

For our 2014 collection I got to design my own fabric though a sponsorship from Spoonflower, a company based in North Carolina, that offers digital print on fabric from your own design. The revolutionary thing is that you can order a very small quantity, as little as one yard of fabric, which makes it possible for a young designer to create a unique collection without having to invest thousands of dollars to get started. 

Inspired by lichen on a recent hike, I took Athens' photographer Ian McFarlane on a trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains to photograph lichen, moss, and tree bark in it's natural habitat, which Spoonflower then digitally printed on 100% organic cotton fabric. The Community team created a collection from these fabrics, mixed in with some vintage fabrics and redesigns. So the Community Service lichen print dress, the moss print men's button front shirt, and the bark print tank dress are truly unique and only available at Community.

Photos by Ian McFarlane

Aside from the special organic cotton fabric from Spoonflower, the cost of material for a Community Service design is usually less than 30% of the price of the garment. The price for the redesigned and handmade items is mostly determined by the cost of labor. I still sew some of my designs, but as a business owner my time is limited. The majority of sewing is done by our seamstresses and re-designers, who either get paid by the hour or get a percentage of the retail price once the item sold. I care about them and their hard work, they are precious to me and the business, and without their skill, creativity, and enthusiasm, Community Service would not be what it is today. I am striving to raise their hourly pay, so they can make a living. 

Photo by Becker Whitney

Yet, we are determined to find ways to lower the prices of our Community Service pieces this year by creating faster and more efficient ways of producing them. Rather than taking a one-of-a-kind vintage dress that we are spending hours redesigning, we are working on developing patterns, so a dress can be made from a variety of fabrics, and in a variety of sizes. Once we have the patterns, we can produce more than one at a time, streamlining the process, so we can cut down on the time spent on each item. We are still working in very small numbers, we might make 6 skirts, not 600, so everything is still made from start to finish by one person, rather than a production line, where each seamstress just completes one step.


We still won't be able to compete with H&M or Forever 21 for rockbottom prices, but we provide better quality, and sustainability by producing locally and from vintage and ecofriendly materials. If you have ever been to Community, you know our seamstresses don't work in sweatshop conditions, but instead in a place filled with light and warmth. We are not aiming to create clothing the cheapest way possible without consideration for the people, animals, and environment involved in the process. Instead we aim for making your new favorite dress that is affordable and will last for as long as you want to wear it. And when your friends ask where you got it from, you now have a whole long story to tell.


Sanni Baumgärtner, owner of Community

Our New Year's Resolution, Part 1

We have just started into a new year and with it comes the magic of change and new beginnings. We want to be our best selves, and in that moment of excitement, we feel sure that we can make all our resolutions come true. So we begin 2015 with new ideas and renewed ambition for moving towards our goals. 

Our new year's resolution, Part 1: Lowering our prices on vintage clothing.

We at Community have a passion for vintage. It is not so much out of nostalgia for a time passed, rather we appreciate the quality of material and design that survived the test of time and is difficult to find for an affordable price in today's boutiques and department stores. As champions for sustainability, we also prefer buying used rather than supporting the dirty industry of fast fashion that puts a strain on the environment and people alike with it's synthetic fibers, chemical processes, and poor factory conditions.

The golden age of vintage buying, when thrift stores were filled with 50s prom and 60s mod dresses, that sold for dirt cheap and often by the pound, has long passed. Goodwill & Co. have caught on to the vintage trend, pre-selecting vintage pieces before they even hit the sales floor and whole selling it by the ton for a higher price. Some stores now have "vintage sections" with prices that are comparable to hipster vintage stores. Pickers everywhere are selling their finds on Ebay, and since Mad Men first appeared on the TV screen, pieces of mid-century modern furniture and home decor are nowhere to be found. What is left are the orphans of fast fashion, cheaply made clothing of synthetic fabric and "vegan" leather shoes, just barely out of style. 

Yet there are still treasures out there, which makes the endless hours of combing through overflowing racks fly by and the hunt still exciting. It makes me get up at 6 am to wait in line at estate sales, and scout the long rows of flea markets, searching for the trends from the 80s and 90s. The silk shirts and velvet skirts, and knits that were still made from wool and cashmere. The Doc Marten's and the vintage Coach bags. The 90s platform boots that are coming back in style. Slightly obscure designers like Maison Martin Margiela and brands like Rag & Bone and All Saints are not yet household names in the thrift store world, and therefore priced the same as something from Old Navy. Staying ahead of the curve and spotting those treasures and coming trends before everyone else does, is what pays our rent and keeps our lights on. 

The mark-up on vintage is usually more than 100%, even more for the occasional designer finds, but aside from the hours of shopping and driving, it requires washing, steaming, ironing, and often mending, then tagging and pricing it before a piece is ready to be sold at Community. There is something deeply rewarding about bringing a vintage garment back to life, so it can continue writing it's story.

We like sharing our appreciation for vintage with you, and for you to enjoy our treasures. We are determined to lower our prices on vintage clothing this year. We want our prices to be fair and affordable for you while we still want to get paid for our work, and balance the overhead of having a brick-and-mortar store where you can try on your outfit before you buy it. So this year, we will try to find that balance point by adding more inventory but marking it up less. 

Lower prices means more affordable for you, and the more you shop, the more we can lower our prices and still be able to pay our bills and ourselves. More sales also mean a higher turnover, which keeps the store inventory fresh and exciting. 

One thing that could happen though, if you buy more of our vintage clothes, is that we have to go thrifting more often - and that we wouldn't mind a bit. 

Sanni Baumgärtner, owner of Community.