"This kimono is beautiful, I have to have it!" Exclaims Paige Dabonde, holding up the part - it shines in all the colors of the rainbow. The young woman is on her way to the Grampians Music Festival near Melbourne with her sister and a friend, looking for some fancy clothes.
"Here on Sydney Road, there's just the best selection," says Paige, running to the checkout. Ten Australian dollars, the equivalent of six euros - and the kimono is hers. Just like they are in the street in the Melbourne Brunswick district many "op-shoppers" on the way, so people looking for cheap vintage clothes, discarded designer dresses or simply eco-friendly second hand fashion.
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Sydney Road: The vintage paradise of MelbourneAt the "Vinnies", where Paige found what he's looking for, the two-dollar stand offers everything, at least for a very personal style. "Mix'n Match" is the motto here: bronze-glittering high heels to flowery skirts - that's clear. But heavy boots to black jeans as well. "Our concept is 'pre-loved to re-loved' - clothes that have been loved are saved from the dump," says Morteza Raffei.
The pensioner with black glasses and a turquoise scarf on a plaid shirt works as a volunteer in the shop, run by the ecclesiastical St. Vincent de Paul Society. The profits of the approximately 650 Australian "Vinnie" stores go to flood victims in Queensland, conflagration homeless on Tasmania or the drought-suffering farmers of Australia.
The sustainable fashion utopia
The textile industry has long been considered one of the dirtiest industries in the world with its gigantic consumption of fibers, water, chemicals and energy. The mostly cheap fast fashion is worn on average only two to three times and then usually thrown away. There is no end in sight: The "Pulse of the Fashion Industry" report estimates that clothing consumption worldwide will increase by 63 percent by 2030.
Sydney Road between Brunswick Road and Victoria Street, on the other hand, looks like a sustainable fashion utopia: Here, a few hundred meters more second-hand shops line up than those with new clothes. In between there are plenty of cafes with wobbly flea market tables, bars with live music, Italian grocery stores and Arabian butchers.
Young people jostle each other on the narrow sidewalks, sometimes they are shaved bald, sometimes their hair is dyed green, in knit tops, dotted trousers or barefoot. Only suits can not be seen - except at real estate agents who have also discovered Brunswick. But the energy of the Sydney Road still does not suffer from gentrification.
In the next window hung a letter garland, which is the name of the shop: "Brunswick Style" - and colorful Hawaiian men's shirts for the equivalent of 22 euros. "We try to offer something for the men," says Cameron Graetz, one of the store's owners. "And colorful, printed things, because monochrome's everywhere." But clothes, blouses, skirts hang on the stands by the hundreds.
In a corner, Logan Trask dresses in a ruffled, pink nightshirt. "Vintage clothes just all have a story, new things do not interest me, they're too clean for me," says the young American. At the cash register, Graetz even picks up the tiny paper price tags to reuse them. "We try to be as sustainable as possible," he says.
Secondhand shop in boutique style
A few meters further, "Mutual Muse" opened in early February - and looks almost empty in comparison. White, empty walls, concrete floors, clearly arranged clothes racks: one each with blue denim shirts, white blouses, dark trousers or fine dresses. Looks more like boutique - a boutique of second-hand goods.
"We mainly have Australian and New Zealand designers, and we do not want polyester, but rather cotton or wood-based fibers, because of the environment and comfort," says Emma Barton, who is behind the cash register. The prices are accordingly higher: Blouses and trousers from the equivalent of 20 euros, clothes rather twice as much.
"Buy - Trade - Sell" is the concept of the store: everyone can be buyer and seller at the same time. Those who bring their sorted, clean clothes, get either immediately 30 percent on the selling price of the accepted pieces - or 50 percent as a voucher in the store.
An entirely different concept pursues "scavengers" - translated as "rag-pickers". The shop sign is hand painted, the blue painted walls as well. Shrill dresses in pink, red or metallic blue hang under the covers, next to a very beaded bridal gown. Used floor lamps throw cozy light on boots and football boots, upcycling earrings and imitation leather bags.
"We buy our goods on second-hand markets or as old-fashioned bales." What does not fit, we donate, we want to keep the clothes in circulation, "says saleswoman Juules Evans. You can shop here reasonably priced, the prices are similar to "Brunswick Style".
The replenishment is saved
If that's too expensive, go over the Sydney Road - to "Savers - the recycle superstore". The name lives up to its promises: the large, unadorned hall in lightly tinted beige has around 100,000 items of clothing on offer. There is no music, but you can hear endless click - from the many customers who work through the long rows.
Roxanne Steers and Maddy Aylett from Tasmania are two of them - they rather pull out punk T-shirts. "Where I come from, there are only two shops - they all have the same thing, you can find stuff that nobody else has and you do not get pulled off," says Maddi. In fact, cotton t-shirts usually cost 1.80 euros, children's shorts 1 euro. And those who do not find anything today will surely be lucky tomorrow: every day, 5,000 new parts hang here in the shop.
At the back entrance of the hall, old clothes are being donated continuously - to the NGO "Diabetes Australia", which sells the goods directly to "Savers". And what turns out to be a storekeeper, is sorted out after a while. After all, replenishment is more than enough in times of fast fashion.