Pistol Whip Vintage : Sarah Graham interview

It's a big frustration for a lot of girls, you spend the whole night getting ready to look great only to find that someone else has the same outfit as you. New style is hard to come by these days, which is why it's only appropriate to go back to old styles that were popular even when your grandparents were in high school.

Vintage is the 'in' thing. Thrifting is becoming more and more popular, and high end designers and other stores are giving all of their clothes a 'vintage look.' One of the many pleasure of actual vintage clothing, is that by now, it's almost one of a kind. Which is why Pistol Whip Vintage is helping to spread the joy of real vintage clothing.

who is the owner of Pistol Whip Vintage, and how did it come about?
It is owned by me! Sarah Graham. I graduated this year after transferring from Fashion Business to Marketing at university. I worked for Topshop for nearly four years as a sales assistant while I studied. I decided to leave and start my own business. I was fed up of high street clothing. I would go out to a club and see 10 people wearing the same dress. This dress was more often than not, inspired by vintage fashions.

Over the years, I had accumulated a collection of vintage dresses, coats and accessories so I had a clear out and planned to sell the unwanted items. I then went on a vintage shopping spree buying loads of vintage items that needed repair. I fixed them up and sold them on ebay for a profit!

I decided to create the website and adopt a more professional online store. Ebay had served me well, but the selling fees were high. I got a group of my more photogenic mates, went to an old fashioned cinema in the west end of Glasgow and I took loads of photos of them wearing all the vintage clothing that I had. The pics turned out great and the rest is history.

how easy would it be for someone in the United States or any other country to order items from your site?
We ship internationally so it is really easy! Shipping costs vary from country to country depending on the size and weight of the item, but I try to keep the shipping costs to a minimum.

what makes vintage clothing great?
Vintage clothing is ethical and environmentally friendly as it is essentially recycling clothing that would be otherwise reproduced in factories that give off emissions and are made in unhealthy and unsuitable working conditions.

A more frivolous reason is that you can pretty much guarantee that nobody else will be wearing the same dress as you on a night out. Vintage clothing is often less expensive than the ridiculous prices on the high street. Fashions re-emerge time and time again. In the last year, 1980s fashions have made a come back and before that it was 1960s. Isn't better to have an original from the period, rather than a poorly made, unethical copy?


do you design any of the clothes on your site, or is it all found treasures?
I do not design any of the clothing on the website. We only sell vintage items at the moment, although we used to sell handmade, accessories. We are always looking for designers who would like to sell through our website.


can clothes from Pistol Whip Vintage be bought from anywhere other than the internet? if so, where?
At the moment, our only outlet is our website, but who knows what the future holds?!

Pistolwhipvintage.com