Crushes is a boutique on Auckland’s Karangahape Rd selling vintage and second-hand clothes alongside pieces made by local designers and artists. Co-founder Rose Hope has established a strict code for her sourcing process. She tells Madeleine Crutchley how a strong ethos and a “bad business model” work in an ultra-fast
The vintage and second-hand racks at Crushes are about to get a refresh.
Rose Hope, co-founder of the Karangahape Rd boutique, has spent the week searching for pieces that suit the brief. Like many of her sourcing sessions from the last 13 years, it’s been a gruelling hunt. Each time it seems to take longer and longer.
“[I see] how the back end of an industry is working. It’s changed so much in my lifetime.
“It’s just increasingly hard to find anything of quality anymore. And there is so much stuff to go through to find a nugget.”
Though Rose isn’t set on a particular era or style as there is a diverse customer base that frequents the store, there are some aspects she looks for in individual pieces of clothing.
“The things that I’m always looking for are integrity, wearability, desirability and inspiration. Does it hold history, or skill, or interest?”
This is especially true in terms of quality in the manufacturing and fabrics of these pieces – which makes the search so difficult.
“I go through so much Shein every day.”
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Advertise with NZME.It’s a recurring story – the ultra-fast fashion industry’s choking effect on global supply and waste chains (and the people working within them). In Aotearoa New Zealand, local fashion groups have requested Government engagement and organisations have continuously attempted to highlight the harms. As Mindful Fashion’s Jacinta Fitzgerald noted last year, Auckland’s biggest landfill receives 70 trucks of clothing waste each week.
The volume of this waste makes Rose’s sourcing process difficult – Crushes employs a strict rule that all second-hand pieces stocked in the shop have to be found locally.
“You only get what you’re given. It means that you might have a massive haul one week and a smaller one the next,” she says.
The alternative to this process might include ordering shipments of vintage, categorised by label, from overseas. For Rose, this isn’t an option worth considering.
“We’re not super passionate about adding more potential waste into the country. Especially because we’re seeing such a quick turnaround with trends and people just disposing of everything... I suppose I don’t trust that imported stuff will stay circulating within the community because [there is] a quick consumer mentality.”
Rose says coming into contact with piles of clothing amplifies her frustration towards this type of consumption.
“I go through this crap all the time because it was cheap and on sale.
“I become quite indignant, and I try my best to be like, ‘no judgement here’ but it’s like... when will we change?”
Due to the dwindling numbers of quality clothing, Rose is increasingly relying on a restorative approach to find stock for the shop.
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Advertise with NZME.“[They are] great products that are just holding on for dear life. They need some help.”
Upstairs in the Karangahape boutique, one room is filled with mending tools and fabric scraps. In another, white garments are sun-bleaching in a window. While it’s a rewarding process that allows Crushes to abide by their strict sourcing rules, it is a tax on Rose’s hours running the business.
“I’ve only recently realised what a time-sink it is to bring stuff back from the brink of death.”
Laughing, she says, “It’s not a great business model.
“[The clothes] are stinky, they’re stained, they’re a bit broken. To get our supply up, there’s a lot more mending and it’s a big waste of time.”
Each clothing item demands something different.
“It’s a lot of mending... Anything white will need a big soak. Almost every shoe needs a clean, a glue, a polish.
“Sometimes I see a good base and I add a ribbon or a rosette because I see the vision but it’s not enough for someone to take home.”
This idea, of getting customers to see the “vision” of her second-hand pieces, is something Rose is placing more emphasis on. This week, she’s found a few pieces that speak to this aim.
For example, within the collection she sourced over the week, she’s found a mesh Vamp cardigan with a bizarro architectural print (it makes her think of Chopova Lowena and she imagines it styled in a similarly punky, “scantily-clad” way). There is an ornately patterned autumnal coat with a hint of whimsy that she pictures local stylist Chloe Hill wearing.
This imagination is part of the work that becomes invisible once the clothing is hanging on the rack.
“It’s the art of curation. What do I do with a pile of crap and represent it so people want to engage with it?”
While this process is hard work, the sourcing rules for the boutique have also created some exciting opportunities.
On several occasions, Rose has come across a run of vintage and deadstock garments and collaborated with artists to create something unique for Crushes. One such project was the “Woke Lesbo” T-shirt, made following Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick’s response and reclamation of hate speech graffiti scrawled on campaign hoarding (one of which is now housed at the Charlotte Museum Te Whare Takatāpui-Wāhine o Aotearoa, dedicated to lesbian histories).
Another was a collaboration with tattoo artist Madison-Lee of Baby World, where prints were added to a run of 1000 raglan baby T-shirts – the full collection sold out.
“We’ve got this huge audience ready for something we can sell multiples of, so it feels like a solution to a really hard business model,” she says.
In the fast fashion overwhelm, Rose is attempting to give customers at Crushes a sartorial point of view with values.
“All of our rules limit us, but it is the thing that keeps people’s interest.
“Just from the nature of upcycled and handmade, it comes out pretty lo-fi. I think a lot of us are lovers of fashion in a world of mass manufacturing – it can give you a sense of agency and style.”
Madeleine Crutchley is a multimedia journalist for Viva and premium lifestyle and entertainment at The New Zealand Herald. She covers stories relating to fashion, culture and food and drink, from her hometown of Auckland. Recently, she’s written about vintage and second-hand bridal, the debut of an emerging designer and local circular design.
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