Shop More Than 3,000 Pre-Loved Goods in Mount Pleasant This Weekend

Billed as Canada’s largest consignment warehouse shopping event, Archive is taking over Heritage Hall with 60-plus vendors in tow.

Vancouver may be known for its green streak—in more ways than one—but, according to local creative Randa Salloum, there’s one eco-friendly area where the city is lacking. “We’re an eco-conscious city, but I don’t think our textile and textile-recycling industries reflect that.”

She isn’t wrong, given recent stats from Metro Vancouver that indicate that more than 44 million pounds of textiles were tossed by the region’s residents in 2018. (That’s roughly 44 T-shirts per person!) So to help divert textile waste from the landfill, Salloum and Fall For Local founder Kelly Turner created Archive, a consignment warehouse shopping event that’s billed as the largest of its kind in Canada.

Taking place on Friday and Saturday (May 31 and June 1) at Heritage Hall, the second biannual Archive will feature more than 3,000 pre-loved clothing, shoes and accessories for men, women and kids from over 60 vendors. Salloum says that the lineup of sellers is not curated (vendors pay a fee to participate and take a cut of sales, though items must be in adequate resale condition), which means there will be a wide selection of brand-new and gently used products that span a myriad of styles and sizes.

Brands available at Archive include fast-fashion names like Zara, Wilfred and Banana Republic, and designer labels like Prada, Chanel and Gucci. Prices range from 50 cents to $250 for non-designer goods, and $250 and up for high-end pieces.

Local luxury consignment stores Mine and Yours and Reluxe, as well as online resale platform Poshmark, will also be on-site with pop-ups, and shoppers will have a chance to weigh their purchases on a scale before checkout to see exactly how many pounds of textiles they’re diverting from landfills. (More than 500 pounds of textiles were rehomed during Archive’s first iteration last fall; organizers are hoping to triple that number this time around.) After the event, sellers have the option to donate any items that are unsold.

For Salloum, Archive offers a “middle option” to locals looking to consign goods, one that’s between boutique consignment stores (which are generally very picky in curation) and big-box thrift stores. “Those elephant shorts you got in Thailand—we’ll take them, we’ll sell them and you might just make a bit of money from them,” she says.

Archive

When: Friday, May 31 and Saturday, June 1

Where: Heritage Hall, 3102 Main St.

Cost: Entry is $25 for VIP access on Friday; $10 for early access (from 10 to 11 a.m.) on Saturday; and free on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

More info: heyarchive.ca