SAN ANTONIO — Sage Vintage Market in San Antonio is a hunting ground for hipsters. They paw through piece after piece, looking for the perfect find.
Thankfully, the sellers do most of the digging for you already. Every shirt on their rack is a nugget of gold.
Young entrepreneurs like Jose rifle through racks of clothes to find trends that turn a profit.
"You could go to flea markets, you could go to warehouses, you could go to yard sales," Jose said. "I go picking probably like five days a week."
He then resells them to the next buyer for a higher price, kind of like a finder's fee.
“It takes time and energy to go and look for these pieces.”
Revisiting a trendy style is about as close as you can get to a time machine.
Marina "Red" Madden is an assistant professor of communications at UTSA. She said some people may be drawn to vintage because of the memories that come with it.
“Nostalgia is a very important human feeling," Madden said. "I think nostalgia is a romanticized kind of reconnection to a memory or a time. There’s wonderful research on this that we do attach ourselves to objects."
Madden said the pandemic could've added to the popularity of ageless attire.
“When things are turbulent, we often romanticize and feel a desire of nostalgia almost to connect to maybe a simpler time or a more beautiful time," Madden said.
But your ticket to the past may get a little pricey. If you ran out today and picked up a regular T-shirt from the store, it would be pretty affordable. But don't expect every vintage tee to be.
James Rauschuber co-owns The Vaulti, a vintage resale shop in San Antonio. He said their shirts range from $5 to more than $1,000 each.
"We're digging through thousands, hundreds of thousands of shirts to find very specific items," Rauschuber said. "Plus, these items are, you know, sometimes 30 years old, 40 years old, 20 years old. So when you factor those things in, a shirt lasting 30 years, 20 years and standing the test of time, is why vintage is so expensive and why it continues to rise in price."
The vintage hustle puts money in the pockets of proud pickers, who have found their calling putting historic clothing back on the streets.
If you'd like to see what your clothes may be worth, you can buy sell or trade them at The Vaulti. To learn more, check out their Facebook page or Instagram.