Sat 20 Feb
Small Stories: Restated Vintage.
Ben Randall’s passion for his work is palpable. Within two months of launching Restated Vintage, he had quit his job in web design and was following his passion full time.
‘It was a fluke,’ says Ben, the founder of online vintage retailer Restated Vintage, when asked about how the company started. Ben had been working as a web designer, and built the original Restated Vintage website as a learning exercise to see how his idea for reselling vintage clothes could come to life.
He started by uploading a few items to the site and experimented with marketing on social media. Within two months, he’d quit his full-time job and Restated Vintage took on a life of its own.
A new solution for old problems.
Restated Vintage is an Aussie small business based out of Sydney’s Northern Beaches selling recycled clothing online. Ben and his team of high school friends (all under the age of 26) source second-hand, vintage clothing from around the world. They bring it to Australia, prepare it to be re-sold, then upload it to their website and app, helping to extend the life-cycle of clothes and keep them from ending up as landfill.
‘I didn’t have a plan. I was just loving what I was doing,’ says Ben. The young entrepreneur began by selling vintage clothes as a New Year’s resolution set in January 2018. Soon, he was packaging clothes out of his car and walking them down to the post office during his lunch break at work.
Two months later, he’d quit his full-time job and was operating Restated Vintage out of his apartment bedroom, and a few months after that, out of a storage unit. Now, he runs the business out of a warehouse in Sydney’s beach suburb of Manly, with office space for him and his team, plus warehouses around the world to house stock.
Restated Vintage HQ.
'Our growth was organic. Each move to get bigger was out of necessity. We needed a bigger warehouse, then we needed more inventory, and so on. I was just going with the flow.'
Currently, Restated Vintage has nine full-time employees and about 9,000 products on the website and app at any given time. On average, they sell about 400 items per day, ranging from vintage American sports brands, to Disney merchandise – even a sweater from the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, which was ‘the oldest item that’s ever come through our warehouse,’ remembers Ben.
‘Vintage is trend-based, so we’re constantly looking for new items and brands, and taking requests from our customers online – and it’s great because stuff we’d never considered will often be our top seller for the month.’
Making old new again.
Ben suspects there are a few things that make his business so successful. It starts with changing perceptions and people wanting to make more sustainable choices. ‘I think customers like knowing that the clothes they’re buying aren’t impacting the environment in a negative way,’ explains Ben. Plus, the knowledge that you’re less likely to walk down the street and see someone wearing the same sweater as you:
‘There’s also a lot of nostalgia around it. People remember having certain things, they see that they can get it again, and they know no one else is going to have it.’
But it wasn’t always easy. Reflecting on his first year, Ben acknowledges the pathway he needed to create for himself. ‘No one here had been doing it on a large scale before, so we had to establish the framework and the supply chain to get it all working. It’s a little easier now, but a few years ago it was more difficult.’
Vintage is bang on trend.
What’s new for the team.
Right now, there are two goals for the team. ‘Our kids’ vintage range will be launching soon, and we’re also launching our American website. We really want to get into the global market,’ says Ben.
Ben’s attitude towards his business is quite remarkable. His company’s rapid expansion doesn’t seem to phase him; he exudes an everything-will-work-out attitude. ‘When you reach a problem, you overcome it,’ says Ben. ‘Most businesses fail before they even start because people don’t act, they don’t think they can do it. When in reality, you can do it.’ And just as importantly, they have fun. ‘We have fun doing it, and we think that shows. Customers like seeing the people behind the brand.’
His advice for anyone thinking about starting a business is so elegant in its simplicity. ‘If you’re passionate about it, then the best time to start is today. I would do this for free. I love it. I would do it every single day.’
Ben's quick-fire questions:
- Do you have a private collection of your favourite vintage finds?
I do! During the first couple of years, I didn’t take any items for myself as I was so excited to be growing the business. Seeing customers in Australia wearing a rare item that you found at the bottom of a bale in a tiny town in Spain is a really good feeling.
Nowadays though, I do have my own collection going; I don’t take the rarest items or the most expensive items, generally my own style is pretty basic and minimalist, so the items I collect reflect that.
- Are you scared you’ll run out of product?
I’ve probably lost hundreds of nights of sleep thinking about this problem, especially when the business was starting out and we didn’t have the supply chain we have today. In a traditional fashion business, you can manufacture items by the thousand and scale relatively easily. But for us, if our team can’t find vintage Nike tees or Harley Davidson tees one month, then we don’t have that category to sell. Lately though, I’ve come to the conclusion that so long as people are buying good quality new clothing, there will always be a vintage market.
It will definitely change over the next few years, but as long as we stay ahead of that change everything will be sweet.
- What do you do for fun outside of work?
I’ve been working on this a lot lately; it’s really easy to get consumed by work, especially when you love what you do. These days, I spend as much time as I can surfing and camping up or down the Australian east coast with my mates. Just investing quality time into my relationships with loved ones is really nice. I normally spend a good portion of the year travelling, but like everyone else I’ve had to hit pause on that for a while.
- What’s the most unique item of clothing you’ve come across?
That’s a tough one. I think it would have to be a vintage Nirvana tee we found last year. It was an original in perfect condition, and it was one of those items you run around the warehouse screaming about when you find it.
- How many items of clothing do you estimate you keep out of landfill a month?
Right now, I’d say at least 6,500 items are being recycled here every month, and that’s just items we sell. We have warehouses around the world stockpiled with hundreds of thousands of items in stock at any given time. In a world of fast fashion, it’s nice to be doing our part in growing sustainable fashion and having a positive impact on the environment.
- What three words would you use to describe your business?
Fun, Sustainable & Nostalgic.
- What three words would you use to describe your business?
It’s a bit of a cliché, but Palm Beach in Sydney’s Northern Beaches is hands down the place I always go for a surf for inspiration and perspective. It’s really quiet up that way during the week, and growing up on the Northern Beaches I basically lived in the water and have a lot of really good memories there.
