This is not your regular vintage store: no shaky old racks, no smelly piles of crackling fabrics, no need to navigate endless heaps of rummage, instead: clean chrome racks with carefully selected designer pieces, mirror cabinets presenting chunky jewelry and chic swimming attire, and lines of clean shoes. As well as a selection of the best Berlin based designers: welcome to Chrome Store.
While a few years back the centre of clothes-buying was certainly Mitte around Münzstraße, this area today seems to be entirely occupied by H&M owned stores. (Well, not entirely… One small street of indomitable fashion heroes still holds out). But don’t fret, Berlin is still vast enough to offer space for young entrepreneurs, courageous enough to start their own stores with a small budget. Like Gerda Jünemann, who just opened a small paradise for lovers of vintage treasures: The Good Store.
Do you remember those moments as a child when you stepped into the forbidden realm of your mother’s wardrobe when she wasn’t home? I used to love trying on her shoes and running my hands over all the different textures and fabrics, in awe of her collection of silk, fur, and tweed that spanned multiple fashion decades. My mother (bless her soul) always kept designer pieces from her twenties and thirties that she couldn’t bear to throw away. Much to my dismay, my waistline and my feet turned out to be two sizes bigger than hers, rendering it impossible to inherit her treasures. Despite this crushing adult realisation, it is this whimsical childhood memory that swept over me when I entered Soeur. The charming décor, the colour-coordinated hangers of clothing, and the rows of perfectly aligned shoes brought me back to a time when I wished that I could wear it all.
For the past, say, fifteen years, I’ve been shopping at Berlin’s Kleidermarkt stores, first as a yearly visitor to this fine city, then as a resident. While their Made in Berlin shops on Neue Schönhauser Strasse and Friedrichstrasse only sells priced ‘vintage’ clothing, Kreuzberg’s Colours and Schöneberg’s Garage also have large color-sorted sections where you buy your second-hand threads in bulk, by the kilo. Their unbeatable prices and mountains of American stock actually require that I limit my visits to two or three a year; I clearly already have enough amazing baseball and summer camp t-shirts to last several lifetimes.
Once I discovered Mankii last week, I felt the vintage hunting spirit alive in me again and decided to visit another fairly new spot just around the corner: Townes.
