Market 755 is the vintage store catering to Melbourne’s eastern suburbs
WORDS BY CAIT EMMA BURKE
“The store is one big collaboration that involves us, the vintage sellers, jewellery makers and the small brand designers.”
Those who live in Melbourne’s inner north know that it’s bursting with high-quality vintage, preloved fashion and boutiques that stock a well-curated selection of local labels. But if you live in the city’s eastern suburbs, aside from the weekly Camberwell markets, shops like these are harder to find.
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Friends Marcus Quinn and Gus McClure saw this window as their chance to create something different within the vintage scene in Melbourne. Their Camberwell-based boutique is a fusion of their skills – Marcus is knowledgeable about vintage clothing, while Gus has a background in carpentry – and together they’ve created a a space they describe as “welcoming and bright”. Below, they share the story of bringing the store to life.
Tell me a bit about how the vision for 755 came about.
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Gus and Marcus: The vision for the store came from a want to create something different within the vintage scene in Melbourne. We realised most of the stores were located either [in the] inner city or towards Brunswick and Fitzroy and were typically very large spaces where customers had to really search to find clothing they liked.
To change this, we opened the store further out from these areas, so picked Camberwell because we knew the area had a large demographic of people who would otherwise have to travel to find vintage they liked. We’ve also made an effort to curate our selection so that customers don’t need to look hard to find something they like. As we have evolved our vision has turned more into a creative outlet where we can use avenues like photography, videography and styling to expand our audience and reach people with common interests.
How would you describe your store’s aesthetic?
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G and M: The aesthetic of our store has changed a lot over the 14 or so months of being open. In the beginning, we set out to give the store a clean, refined and curated look by not cramming in racks of clothing to ensure the store still had adequate light and space. We were, however, bound by time and money when opening the store so while trying to maintain this look we had to make certain sacrifices in order to complete and open the store.
After being open for a year or so we managed to find the time to perfect and finish off some of the missing pieces of the puzzle and we think we have successfully created a welcoming, bright and simplified aesthetic making the store more of an appealing and comfortable space to be in.
What was the process like putting the store together and were there any challenges or roadblocks along the way?
G and M: The process of putting the store together was both immensely fun but also quite challenging. It had many moving parts and we needed to be able to physically build the store itself while also finding sellers to be a part of it. Marcus knowing more about vintage in Melbourne and in particular vintage sellers took on a lot of the workload in sourcing and communicating with sellers to find stock for the store.
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The physical building part was mainly led by Gus who admittedly knew very little about the vintage scene in Melbourne but had enough experience in carpentry to complete the building of the shop which helped us save a lot of time and money in the fact that we didn’t have to hire any external tradies. A big part of putting the store together was also the mural painted by Charles.
Initially, Charles came along as a friend to paint the mural at the front of the store but since then has been a pivotal part in getting the store up and running as well as keeping it going in terms of graphic design, photography and videography. It was and still is a real team effort. A lot of the challenges we faced were mainly financial and time factors. We needed to open the store to earn money to keep up with paying the rent so had to work long hard hours for a month or so to get the store to a point where we were happy to open it while also trying to save as much money as possible.
Who did you collaborate with when bringing the store to life?
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G and M: We collaborated with many people to bring the store to life and frankly the store is one big collaboration that involves us, the vintage sellers, jewellery makers and the small brand designers that make the shop what it is.
From the beginning, we’ve been quite aware that we knew very little of what we were getting into, by listening to some of the more experienced sellers that we were stocking in the store we were able to acquire helpful information about processes like point of sales, social media and how we should run the shop in general. In terms of our marketing behind the scenes, much of it comes from the collaboration of ideas between us and our friends.
What’s your favourite feature/area of the store?
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G: My favourite part of the store is the studio/staff area out the back. It’s a great spot for our friends and us to hang out after and during work to pursue whatever creative ideas we have. Charles uses it as his studio for his art, design and sewing and a few of our mates come by from time to time to do their thing as well. It’s a really nice collaborative space where work can be done or just to hang out and chat.
M: I really enjoy that each rack in our store has a different style and curation. It makes for a really fun shopping experience where you can either target a specific style or just shop through the whole store and find something you may not have normally looked at. This curation also means that you don’t need to search through junk, and we pride ourselves on the fact that all the pieces in our store are top-quality vintage pieces.
What do you like about the area and the Melbourne creative scene in general?
G: One thing I like about the Melbourne creative scene is that there are so many avenues that young people can just go and pursue if they really desire to. Whether it be visual arts, design photography, videography music or fashion there’s space for everyone to have a go at whatever they have a passion for.
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M: I enjoy how welcoming the communities are within Melbourne’s creative scene. From my experience within the vintage scene, I’ve enjoyed how friendly and supportive are to people trying to get into and/or just starting out in the scene. We have been able to make a lot of mates and everyone is always happy to give you some tips or tricks from their experiences which we are more than happy to reciprocate when we can as such a friendly community encourages others to do the same.
You can follow Market 755 here.
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