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Cara Mia Vintage – How Cara Weinstock Built Her World-Known Vintage Business
Cara Weinstock has been running her vintage business out of Sydney for 14 years. But the obsession started way before that.
Back in the late 90s, Cara Weinstock was a teenager spending $15 at the newsagent on copies of The Face, French Vogue, Italian Vogue – anything European she could get her hands on. Australia felt isolated, and those magazines were the window. She fell hard for designers she couldn’t remotely afford. So she started hitting up flea markets instead.
It turned out that nobody in Australia knew what they were sitting on. People were selling Versace dresses for $AUD 50. She’d spot a 70s Zandra Rhodes top for $AUD 20 because she’d been studying those magazines like textbooks. She still has an Ossie Clark dress from that era – one of her first finds, which is too sentimental to sell still.
Cara calls it the Wild West and the golden age of vintage – before vintage went mainstream and everyone figured out what things were worth.
After school, Cara traveled to London and New York, where vintage was already a proper scene. Resurrection in New York blew her mind. One of a Kind in London had Westwood corsets and early Galliano from before Dior, she remembers. She lived in the East Village and just pounded the streets for hours: Tokyo 7, markets, meeting the real characters who deal in the vintage world.
“It becomes like an addiction. You’re obsessed with the hunt.”
She returned home to Australia, tried being a lawyer, hated it, and turned the collection into a business. She sold online only which meant she could reach customers everywhere. Her best clients are still in New York and LA, mostly celebrity stylists.
Her collection is almost entirely European designer from the 60s through the 2000s, mostly French and Italian. She gravitates toward Westwood, Karl Lagerfeld-era Chanel, and Gaultier – feminine, glamorous statement pieces.
Sourcing has gotten harder, Cara says. Prices are up, people know what things are worth, and Australia’s currency doesn’t help when you’re buying in euros, US dollars, or pounds. Add duties, taxes, and shipping costs on top. She tries to buy locally when she can, but it’s not easy.
Still she finds things. The last time she went to New York, about a year ago, everyone told her it was picked clean. She found stuff anyway. "You need to know where to look.”
Some of the best stories come from private sellers, like a woman in Canberra who was not a fashion person at all. She was just someone who loved magazines and thrift shops the same way Cara did, except she never sold anything, just collected. Cara bought 20 or 30 pieces from her.
But the real find? About ten years ago, she spotted an eBay listing for some YSL Rive Gauche pieces. Maybe 10 photos, but the description casually mentioned 150 more items, most with tags still on. Cara messaged the seller immediately. Turns out it wasn’t 150 pieces – it was 500. Plus 150 boxes of designer shoes. Plus bags. All stuffed in garbage bags in a Melbourne garage, left behind by a wealthy woman who used to visit the YSL concession at a department store weekly in the 80s and 90s, then moved to the Philippines and just never came back for any of it.
The condition of the deal was to take everything or nothing. Cara flew down, saw the haul, bought it all, and hired a moving van back to Sydney.
That one kept her going for a long time.
Gucci by Tom Ford