Meet Laina McWhorter and Xoe McAleece

Today we’d like to introduce you to Laina McWhorter and Xoe McAleece.

Laina and Xoe, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
We met in 2009. Sparks flew instantly. We fell madly in love and got married, twice. We’re huge nerds with an untamable passion for history, travel, music, pop culture, art and film. We adore kitsch, nostalgia and anything strange, unusual or weird. Those passions soon began to turn into a small collection of collect cool, unusual, old things. That collection grew over the next decade, and as the collection itself became too big to contain, Subjective Vintage was born!

Has it been a smooth road?
As with any mom ‘n pop shop, or in our case, mom n’ mom pop up shop, one of the biggest challenges is exposure. We work our butts off to get the word out through social media marketing and other shameless self-promotion but it requires a lot of creativity when you are on a startup budget. So, that’s what we do, get creative.

The biggest challenge of all is standing out. The vintage resale market is quite competitive both online and the real world, so finding a niche that reflects what consumers desire can be tricky. So, for the most part, we stick with products we grew up with, the things that make us giddy, the things we love.

Tell us more about the business.
We sell things that may, or may not, give you that warm, fuzzy feeling. Subjective Vintage operates online and via pop up shops at various vintage markets, offering weird and unusual pop culture items mainly from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Nerd stuff, smut, art, music players, vinyl and cassettes, nostalgia and rare decor. We deal in your childhood and ours. Pop culture and nostalgia are what we dig the most so we sell a variety of merchandise that reminds our customers of that one time, way back when.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
We’re already starting to see it change, there are some who don’t think 80s and 90s era stuff has a place in vintage, but there are a lot of folks like us who think it’s totally rad. We think the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s are going to continue to be popular eras when it comes to trends in consumer demand for resale vintage goods. We hope to see a lot more vintage markets, festivals and events catering to folks who dig it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.SubjectiveVintage.com
• Phone: 6023214285
• Email: subjectivevintage@gmail.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/subjective_vintage
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/SubjectiveVintage

Image Credit:
Photos Of The Vintage Merchandise We Resale Is Done By Laina McWhorter.
www.lainamcwhorter.com

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