Walk down an old street, buy an old object, and have a long, long dream.
Interview | aspartame
Written | aspartame
In October 2020, an ordinary night in Changsha.
Just after ten o'clock, Sixteen came out of a fashion brand buyer shop on time, she skillfully stepped on the shared motorcycle, put on her helmet, and then scanned the code, turned the handle, and started. She had just finished her day's work and was a little tired. The temperature in Changsha in October was not too low, but at night it still revealed a hint of coolness, and the oncoming wind was a little cold, and she tightened her neckline and sped up the speed. Usually, she doesn't think about anything, emptys her brain, and then it's another journey without memory. But suddenly, a thought came up from Sixteen's mind, and then I couldn't erase it, "I don't want to work anymore, I want to open a shop."
Almost as soon as she said, the next day, she chose a small façade in Xuanyuandian Lane. The storefront is not large, surrounded by old residential buildings, crowded with old dance halls, tea houses and unknown takeaway shops, fortunately, near Wuyi Square, the rent is not expensive. Without enough savings to decorate, Sixteen will do it herself, and for more than a month after that, she will come to the store in the gap between work, brush paint, arrange objects, or DIY directly on the wall.
In this way, in December 2020, the antique shop "SIXTeen vintage shop" opened.
「SIXTeen」
"Special people open special shops."
Ancient clothing, meaning ancient clothing, refers to clothes that are really old and no longer produced in the second-hand market. The ancient clothes here are expressed as "Vintage" in English, and the Japanese is also called "ふるぎ", which mainly refers to old clothes that have a history of at least 30 years after the 1920s. Ancient writings originated in post-war Europe and became popular in Japan. But with the passage of time, the concept of "ancient writings" is now not limited to clothes, but extends to accessories, clothes, bags and other items.
It may seem sudden, but the idea of opening an antique shop has long been written into the sixteenth life list. When she was a student, Sixteen liked Hip-Hop, and in some of the films about Hip-Hop, she noticed that the people in the film often wore some unique clothes, and she was curious and even more fascinated. After that, she went to check the information and slowly came into contact with the concept of ancient writings. At that time, there were no antique shops in Changsha, so she asked her friends to buy the first ancient book in her life. She remembers it as a TNF 80s coat, and for no particular reason, it was "looking good, it was special," and she recalls putting it on, "I really liked it because it was a solitary product, it was unique." Since then, the idea of opening an antique shop has been buried deep in the heart of Sixteen, and she thought that she would open an antique shop in the future, and then sell flowers at the door.
Oda is the owner of another shop in Xuanyuandian Lane, "Guzhi Market", before opening the store, she worked as a nurse, worked in a welfare institution, and finally quit her job to go to a youth hostel to chat with people from all over the world. She then studied photography and photographed it for more than a year. She claimed to be a restless person, and after doing photography for a while, she found that "there were no new ideas", so she and her friends hit it off and became a partner of the antique shop.
Oda and "Ancient Market"
Like Sixteen, Oda also faced financial problems in the early stages, she rented the door in front of an adzuki fish takeaway shop, no money to tear down and start over, she and her friends followed the decoration style of the original storefront, and simply cleaned up. More than ten square meters of storefront, fortunately, the original wall is a warm yellow tone, pasted with the poster of the early century style, but also some feelings. It's just that the facilities in the store are old, and from time to time a "disaster" bursts out: the tide returns, the water seeps, and the narrow storefront is a bit awkward. At this time, Oda can only fight herself, tinkering, she laughs at herself, "I have learned everything."
Fortunately, Oda is optimistic and likes to be ancient, which is also the direct reason for her decision to join the company: the first flower shirt she bought in college is still in the closet, and she will take it out and wear it from time to time, not just one, in fact, two-thirds of Oda's wardrobe is ancient. After opening the store for nearly half a year, she still maintains the habit of visiting the ancient shop, even if she goes to play in other places, she also has to go to the local ancient shop to shop, "but the world is really too small, often walk around and find that everyone knows." 」
The fashion store will not go again, Oda counted his recent shopping activities, has not remembered the last time to go to the offline fashion store shopping time, encounter really want to buy, she searched for an order on the Internet. She does not deny the attraction of emerging fashion to her, but "buys less", and now what can make her "remember" will only appear in the ancient store, "anyway, fashion, think about it, there is nothing to think about, if I encounter the ancient, I will think more, because sometimes hesitate to disappear, and then I can only clench my fists." 」
"I don't want to be homogenized" is Oda's definition of herself, she wants to experience "life is different", so she has been trying different careers. At present, she plans to stay in the ancient book shop, and then comes to two conclusions, first, "I really can't stay in the system", and second, "the ancient clothes are very special, I am also a very special person, I have special clothes, and there is a special shop."
Regulus Hall Lane
The age of not going back.
In Xuanyuandian Lane, there is also a special toy store. Like a normal toy store, there are all kinds of cute dolls, or plush, or plastic, or three-dimensional, or flat, different characters look at each other, as if they have really entered a fairy tale kingdom. It's just that if you flip through the appearance dates at the bottom of these dolls, you'll see that most of them are products of the last century.
The owner, Ah Liang, gave the shop a name: King's Theatre. "King" refers to the profession, while "theater" is derived from The Nutcracker, "Toy things actually came out in the form of theater at the earliest times, including the earliest puppet paintings, which evolved from this aspect." He wanted to build a theater, but it belonged to the toys.
At first, he and his wife opened a grocery store selling medieval jewelry, and then the number of items in the store gradually increased, and he wanted to subdivide it, so he took over a store to open this toy store. When he was a child, Ah Liang liked to collect items, and he didn't like to lose things, plus he learned to paint, he always had a special feeling for old objects. Before high school, Ah Liang was shopping for goods in China, and after going to college, he began to go to foreign markets, and it became more and more frequent. In fact, most of the dolls in the store are recovered from abroad, and the old objects in China are difficult to find, "Chinese will imitate their own products, it will not have any difference, but the old things abroad will not be repeated to produce, such as this shape, today I came out, I will never come out again." 」
A corner of the "King's Theatre"
The style that can no longer be reproduced, the sense of history behind it, is a large part of the reason why Ah Liang collected these toys. His favorite two dolls on the counter, the mascots of a theme park in the Netherlands in the 1950s, have been exposed, and the color of the original fabric has been dimmed, and they are really not beautiful compared to the many dazzling dolls around them. But for Ah Liang, these are two non-selling products. The two mascots, one that he found in Japan and one that he retrieved from Thailand, "found it very interesting, but it was hard to find."
However, due to the freight plus the purchase price, the price of many flawed dolls in the store is often much higher than that of the dolls on the market, and many customers who are attracted by the store often feel exaggerated after asking for the price. "In fact, now this kind of ancient, not only toys, clothes or good, most people who come to consume, 90% will not go with you to struggle with how old this thing is, how cultured, he will not, he only said I like, dress well," he laughed to himself, "I am neurotic I buy you [old dolls]."
Luckily, there are also people who really like it. He met a girl from Chongqing who came to Changsha to play, and he fell in love with a Garfield series of marionettes hanging in the store, which was originally one of his non-selling products, but Ah Liang couldn't help the girl from running every day to ask for it, and finally sold it. "Does it make sense to spend a few hundred dollars on an old toy?" It makes sense to me, my money is spent on emotions for it." He likes to learn the story behind every toy in the store and tell it to the guests, of course, based on the fact that the guests are willing to listen.
"But now you say to reproduce, to study how to go, there is no way to restore it in particular, because the era you are in now is different, for example, if you wear it out, others will think that you are very showa and very OK, but you are no longer a person of that era." 」 Such a sense of history is also a pity in Oda's view, and after staying in the ancient circle for a long time, she often hears such remarks: "I like that era" and "I should be a person of that era", but she knows in her heart, "You are now in 2022, doing the things of 2022." Changing what you wear and putting on the ancient is one of the best ways to experience that era. Occasionally, she would go to themed parties with her friends: West Coast, '90s dance halls..., "Get dressed and go back to that time."
Some of the clothes sold in the "Ancient Market"
Savage growth.
In fact, for Oda, in addition to not going back to the era when the ancients were located, they have not even been able to go back to the days when they could freely shop for goods recently.
Sixteen remembers the nervousness and anticipation of her first time shopping for goods, "Changsha is cold, But Thailand is very hot," she fiddled with her less proficient English and translation software, looking around for markets, often sweating, and finally concluded, "The security in Thailand is not as bad as rumored." But now, due to the impact of the epidemic, she has not gone abroad to find goods for a long time, and can only contact foreign suppliers to buy through online mail. It's not just sixteen, and now the ancient shops in Xuanyuandian Lane are basically buying goods in this way. The advantage is that you don't have to act yourself, and the disadvantage is that the quality is difficult to guarantee. Oda describes, "It's like opening a blind box."
Usually, an ancient piece from Tao to the shelf, need to go through a cleaning and disinfection process, and some of the ancient mailed over the Internet, because there is no way to judge the quality at the first time, there will often be damage or difficult to clean, "this time only throw away." Although it is an affordable ancient, Oda is still a little distressed when encountering this situation.
In fact, for many antique shops, going shopping for goods in person is not work, but more like an outing. Ah Liang has always enjoyed going shopping for goods, for him, this process satisfies his hobby of collecting, and the "encounterable but unattainable" of some items adds to the fun of this action. At the counter of the King's Theatre, there is also a Garfield fish tank that is A Liang's treasure, a product of the last century, which is now basically extinct. He was a little proud, "Placed here, people who know how to do it know that this shop knows how to do it."
Garfield fish tank in the corner of the "King's Theatre"
"I don't know how to do it" is also a point that Ah Liang criticizes many ancient shops. As one of the first stores to settle in Xuanyuandian Lane, Ah Liang witnessed the development of this street: from the initial façade fee and the rent of the upstairs tenants, it has now multiplied, and the ancient shop has also grown from three or four to more than a dozen. But he said bluntly, "In fact, a lot of people don't understand, they are just coming to do business, he is just opening a store, not playing circles or playing culture with you." 」
Sixteen also felt the same way, she used "chaos" to describe the current situation of Xuanyuandian Lane, "many of them are not buying serious ancient books, but taking some from Taobao to sell, which has a great impact on the reputation of this street." She found that after opening a shop for a year and a half, there have been many voices of "scolding this street" recently: some people have come because of the fame of "an ancient street", but they are disappointed. "If there are more people, it will be miscellaneous," in the view of sixteen, only items from the 80s and 90s can be called ancient, and some "can't be called ancient shops at all." Recently, she is planning to "escape" from this street, "Now the atmosphere of this street is upsetting me, and I want to find another house." 」
A corner of "SIXTeen"
—
For Oda, the biggest pain at the moment comes from income and boredom. Like most people who open shops, "enduring the boredom of being uninhabited" is the norm for shopkeepers. Usually, Oda opens the door at 1 p.m., tallys the goods, then takes pictures of the newly arrived items, then keeps an account, and then has nothing to do, and "friends come over to sit in the shop" becomes her happiest time. Occasionally, she would complain to her mother about the business downturn, and her mother comforted her, "Normal, business is like this, just wait."
She smiled and shot back, "There are still 99 years to go before the century-old store, so let's work hard."
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