From A Fast Fashion Addict to Vintage Seller & Tutor

NYC-based vintage seller Alexandra Stevens launched her vintage business called St. Evens in 2019. She also works as a bar manager and bartender as making a full-time living selling vintage in an expensive city like New York is challenging. Here is her story from a fast fashion lover to a committed vintage spokesperson.

How did you move from fast fashion to vintage?

I was so into fast fashion when I was younger. I’ll never forget the first time I went to a Forever 21 – my entire life changed. Being able to walk into a store for the first time in my life and buy five different pieces of clothing at once felt like a kind of wealth and freedom that completely altered my relationship with fashion in a really bad way.

In my teens and 20s I worked at The Gap and Anthropologie, and all of my roommates in my first NYC apartment worked at Urban Outfitters. Working retail really enmeshes you in a toxic culture of consumerism. It becomes so normalized to unbox thousands of new styles each week, to buy new clothes constantly, to turn around and give back your meager paycheck to a company that’s exploiting you.

fringe hem skirt

New York Fashion Week 2016

phone cord purse

Re-wearing the skirt in 2024

fringe hem skirt

I was covering fashion week every season from 2013-2015 while I was a journalism student, and I definitely felt pressure to dress for the shows. I couldn’t afford much outside of fast fashion, so I started incorporating a lot more vintage and secondhand into my outfits.

I finally really slowed down on fast fashion after I left my last retail job with Anthropologie in 2017. I briefly left New York to live in California for about a year, and my relationship to fashion really started when I came back to the city. People have such inspiring style here, especially older New Yorkers! And the vintage shopping here is some of the best in the world. It’s not the cheapest, but the curators here have such an eye, and so much passion.

90s baggy jeans

Family photo from the early 90s

1995 t-shirt

With mom and brother in Singapore around 95-96

90s Kenzo

Wearing mother’s old 90s Kenzo coat

90s baggy jeans

How about your family – were they into secondhand at all?

Yes, I grew up in a “keep everything” kind of family and a lot of our furniture and home goods had previously belonged to other family members. From an early age, my perception of secondhand wasn’t that it was old or used, but that it had a story and a past that held its own value.

My mom has always been a big influence on my style, I always loved going through her closet. She’s from Japan, and she’s held on to a lot of her pieces from the 80s and 90s. I was always so excited and proud to get to wear one of her vintage pieces, but it was definitely more of a special occasion type thing growing up. I didn’t regularly start wearing vintage until later in life. My mom has also always been really into garage sales and flea markets, so treasure hunting together was always one of our favorite activities.

Why do you prefer vintage to wearing new?

New clothing is generally much lower quality, with enormous negative impact. Almost anything being manufactured new has a more thoughtful, more interesting, better made vintage version out there. Vintage also forces a sense of creativity and appreciation in a way that new clothes don’t. It’s so easy these days to see someone wearing something you like and just go buy the exact same item. Vintage doesn’t really work like that.

80s leotard

tomato red puffer jacket

70s patchwork dress

80s leotard

How did you become a vintage seller?

I really credit my husband for where I am today. We had just moved in together when I hit ten years of bartending, and that milestone was really weighing on me. The lifestyle can be rough, especially here in New York, and he knew I was unhappy. He forced me to sit down and think about my interests and my talents, and consider the paths I had available to me. I started creating St. Evens in 2019 - the name is a play on my last name, Stevens. I spent months building out branding and a website and a 50-piece collection to launch in February of 2020, a month before the city shut down entirely. The uncertainty of lockdown was really scary, but it ended up allowing me time to step away from nightlife and work on vintage full time for the first few months in business. It definitely steepened the learning curve, but it truly ended up being a blessing during a dark time.

I’m selecting every piece by hand, I’m spending hours mending and cleaning and researching, I’m hearing stories from previous owners that I’m able to pass along to the next wearer. It’s connected me with so many incredible people! I sell through my own website and at Seven Wonders Collective stores here in NYC.

ILGWU Union Made

70s green house coat

vintage clown costume

ILGWU Union Made

You educate people about vintage through your newsletter 1-800-VINTAGE. Why do you think the educational aspect is so important?

I have a bachelor’s in journalism, so my newsletter has given me an opportunity to utilize my writing background to expand my vintage world. A couple years into selling professionally, I realized that a lot of my social following is other vintage sellers. I found that sharing content around vintage history, garment care, and other more industry-focused topics had a really good response. I absolutely love the research and history that’s an essential part of dealing in vintage, and it was exciting to realize that other people wanted to learn about it too. The vintage and secondhand market is growing every day, but there aren’t a lot of good, reliable resources out there. I’ve come across so much widespread misinformation online, but it can be really hard to parse out what’s accurate and what’s not. Of course there are amazing platforms like the Vintage Fashion Guild and the Fashion Conservatory, but even they can’t cover everything.

70s novelty print shirt

70s floral pants

green pink patterned flares

70s novelty print shirt

How did you start your collaboration with Clotheshorse Podcast, Amanda Lee McCarty’s podcast about ethical fashion and its complexities?

I actually have no idea when I first connected with Amanda of Clotheshorse! They’re one of those people that I feel like I’ve known forever. We actually just met in person for the first time this summer at the Clotheshorse Jamboree in Pennsylvania, and it felt just like seeing an old friend. I’m a big podcast listener, so it makes sense that Clotheshorse was on my radar pretty early on. I believe I first reached out about a potential episode idea, and our relationship just grew from there. Clotheshorse is one of the most important communities that I’m part of. I’ve met so many wonderful people through the pod, both other guests, and listeners who have reached out to me after hearing my episodes. The work Amanda is doing is truly invaluable, I’m so inspired by them!

flour sack shirt

Selling at Manhattan Vintage Show

vintage basket bag

flour sack shirt

What are some things about secondhand and vintage that more people should know?

I wish more people understood the true value of vintage. The quality is miles above anything that’s available new at the same price. The rise of fast fashion and the declining quality of mass market apparel has completely warped people’s perception of value. New clothing should never, ever cost $5 or $10. It’s literally not possible without massive amounts of harm and exploitation. The clothing isn’t actually cheap, you’re just not the one paying the price. People are more detached from their clothing than ever - the average shopper couldn’t tell you what their clothes are made of, where they were made, what elements of the cut or seams or finishings makes a garment worth a certain price. I see people balk at vintage prices all the time, and it’s really disheartening. There’s this idea that “used” should mean “cheap,” and that just results in people passing up incredibly high-quality garments because they don’t recognize the true value.

90s red slip dress

St. Evens at Seven Wonders Collective

beaded vintage bag

90s Giorgio Armani blazer

90s red slip dress

Do you have any unpopular opinions about secondhand and vintage?

This is an interesting question because I think there’s a big divide between those deeply rooted in the vintage community versus casual shoppers. I think my opinions are probably pretty popular amongst other dealers and devotees, but unpopular with those who might have less of an understanding about the industry. I strongly believe that secondhand sellers are doing a public service. The most in-depth discussion I’ve had on Clotheshorse was a four part series debunking various myths about secondhand and resale. One of the conclusions we came to was that people turn against individuals, in this case resellers, because of a general feeling of hopelessness and frustration at larger issues and systems. But the reality is that there’s a truly unbelievable amount of stuff out there, and resellers are doing extremely valuable work by sorting, processing, and re-homing it.

Another perhaps unpopular opinion I have is that I think of preserving vintage as a top priority. There’s a lot of online discussion about changes in the secondhand industry, many of which we discussed in our reseller myths series - rising prices, perceived scarcity, competition. At the end of the day, I think the most important thing is that irreplaceable vintage items are being saved. Listen, I love getting an amazing deal. I understand the thrill of a score, of finding something incredible at a thrift store or a yard sale for a great price. But my personal desire for cheap vintage is much less important than keeping as many of these one-of-a-kind items in circulation for as long as possible. I hate the argument that resellers are taking pieces from others, because the reality is that so few secondhand items ever find homes at all. An overwhelming majority of pieces in the secondhand industry are never re-homed, which means thousands and thousands of incredible vintage pieces are inevitably ending up in a landfill, or being shipped overseas to overburdened communities in developing nations. If someone rescuing a cart full of vintage from the thrift store means you find a few less $5 sweaters, too bad. I know a lot of people won’t like that, but I’m always happy to have a conversation about it.

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