Approved by (Spotted by) locals: our 10 best vintage stores

Vintage lover? We got you covered! In this article, you can read about ten vintage-and secondhand stores with a fun twist to check out! Spring is the perfect time of the year to score some new items for your wardrobe or even for your home. And even better if it’s vintage, right? Have a coffee while checking out urban 90’s clothes at Café Filtr, score an item for €1 at Think Twice or find yourself lost between vintage lamps at HotKoTyr!

At Spotted by Locals we highly value sustainability and support initiatives that reduce the impact of humans on the earth. It is important that we all take care of our beautiful planet. Therefore, together with our spotters, we selected ten must-visit vintage and second-hand stores in cities all over the world. Doing good for the planet and shopping at the same time? What better way to spend your city trip?

Want to discover them all with us? Download our Spotted by Locals app The Spotted by Locals app to discover all spots!

Image by Cindy Fonvig

BLK MKT Vintage – New York

Image by BLK MKT Vintage Instagram

Café Filtr – Prague

Café Filtr is a second-hand shop in Prague. “First coffee, second clothes” is the motto of this place! Filtr is for one a brew bar that serves amazing coffee and also a second-hand/vintage shop. They hold a great selection of urban street-style 90s-inspired clothes along with unique and one-of-a-kind pieces and vintage accessories. Check out their Instagram @filtrprague to see the new pieces in the store.

Image by Eliška Pelková

 

 

Neuzwei Vintage Store – Berlin

Neuzwei Vintage Store stands for curated and classy secondhand clothes. This store is a very refreshing escape from ordinary second-hand shopping and a well-hidden germ in the more quiet part of hip Berlin-Neukölln. Second-hand shopping can sometimes feel very overwhelming: the way most vintage stores are stuffed with clothes of all kinds of different colours and fabrics…

You can pass by this small boutique without noticing it, that’s how unobtrusively and elegantly it presents itself. Inside, you find a carefully curated selection sorted by colours (ranging from cream white over dusty pink to burgundy red) and featuring some of the finest materials, such as cashmere, silk and wool. Everything has its price of course (coats come at 100€ onwards) but you won’t regret the quality you buy. This is a vintage store where you will want to touch (and even smell!) every single item and where you could find an outfit for the next big occasion!

Image by Anna Hantelmann

Think Twice – Brussels

If you’re looking for affordable vintage and second-hand clothes, head to Think Twice! With its name wisely chosen, Think Twice not only refers to not just buying clothes without thinking about them but also in this way not making the fast-fashion pile get even bigger. At Think Twice you can expect a wide range of amazing vintage clothes, accessories, shoes, professionally selected True Vintage pieces and of course exclusive super brands.

Good to know: when a new collection is about to arrive at Think Twice, they will do big discounts on the old collection – this is called ‘Think Twice Days’. You will have, for example, a day with 50% off and a day where everything in the whole store is priced at €1! Think Twice is definitely worth checking out for all you vintage lovers!

Image by Charlotte Mewis

Szpeje – Krakow

Szpeje is a colloquial term for lumber, stuff, or junk. And this is precisely what you can find there. The store collects little treasures from the PRL-era (Poland under the communist regime period). Szpeje was created to give a chance to the old, in a world where there is way too much stuff, as the owners say themselves. Quite rightly so, they underline that modern mass production will never match the quality and uniqueness of some vintage items.

In the shop, you can get anything from cufflinks to lamps, vinyl records, and posters. Every vintage item has been hunted down personally by The Chief Shopkeeper at flea markets, sometimes online or directly from previous owners. Every one of these treasures has its history, so do not hesitate to ask about it!

Image by Katarzyna Hausner

Bivio – Milan

BIVIO was the very first fashion resale shop to see the light of day in Milan, in 2013. Everyone knows Milan for its high-end boutiques and fashion, but who says that high fashion can’t be affordable or reusable?

Bivio buys and resells unique clothes and accessories that come from both your grandmother’s closet and fashion bloggers’ collections: and it is always worth a visit precisely because they’ll display a stylish Gucci jacket from the 1980s as well as the latest most popular sweatshirt. Besides, Bivio likes to spoil its customers with flash sales, DJ sets and happy hours. So yeah: get ready to buy, sell, swap and browse around Bivio in search for your next great outfit!

Image by Susanna Baggio

Latei – Amsterdam

Latei is located at the Zeedijk, in the heart of the touristy centre, tucked between souvenir shops, Chinese restaurants and waffle and ice-cream places. In there, there’s local organic food – affordable! -, good coffee and vintage goods. Everything you find inside is for sale, except for the cat. The place is unlike any other in the city: colourful, and full of stuff. It is usually full of people as well: the old man reading the newspaper, the student getting ready for their exam, the tourist who has found the place by chance and decided to stop for a coffee. The awesomeness is in the mix, and, of course, in the unexpected trinkets you find yourself surrounded by.

Image by amsterdive.com

Humana Vintage – Riga

In a time when vintage clothing prices have skyrocketed around the globe, here in Riga they don’t pay a fortune to look stylish. Humana Vintage is a true old-school vintage shop. It feels like a grandparent’s flea market that has already shown its worth by surviving through the decades. Everything can be found here, including massive, old-school leather suitcases to stuff with everything else that is impossible to resist buying here.

At first, with new collections, the opening prices are higher. Then they gradually get cheaper during a period of 6 weeks, and then, on the last day of the collection, everything costs 50 cents. New items take the place of the sold ones every day, so it is worth passing by from time to time.

Image by Elvita Rakstite

HotKoTyr – Copenhagen

HotKoTyr in Copenhagen primarily sells lamps, all kinds of old lamps: lamps from the sixties, old dental lamps, kitschy lamps shaped as gnomes and monkeys with shining eyes, but also really nice vintage lamps. The guy who owns the store fixes them up himself, and in addition to lamps the store is full of old sockets and light switches no longer in trade, posters from the sixties, old models of cartoon characters in plastic and miscellaneous curiosities of even more peculiar sorts. There’s a limited amount of room to manoeuvre in among all the stuff in the shop, so I recommend removing any large backpacks before entering. HotKoTyr is definitely worth a visit, even if you’re not looking for a lamp.

Image by Cindy Fonvig

B-52 Vintage – Florence

Vintage shop B-52 Vintage is ultra-specific: it’s almost entirely men’s wear, mostly American, spanning from the 1940s to the ’80s. It’s carefully curated, collection-based, and historically informed. Here you’ll find stacks of vintage Levi’s, Nike’s from the ’80s and loads of ex-military wear and gear. You may find the occasional pair of women’s sunglasses from the ’70s, but the store is clearly centred on masculine apparel, which is a nice rarity!

The shop is a bit outside of the city centre, in the area of Legnaia, a very residential neighbourhood. It has a relaxed atmosphere and the owner is very friendly. You may just find yourself as the only customer in there, with all the space to browse and discover the abundance of vintage wear on your own!

Image by Veronica Rodriguez