Early on a precious weekend morning, groups of young adults make a trip to the weathered Kapo Factory in Tai Seng, where they join a snaking queue outside a nondescript wooden door in the dim building. The queue slowly grows longer as they wait patiently.
When the door finally opens at noon, they swarm into the tiny industrial unit, no bigger than a living room, and start rummaging through sweaters with enthusiastic designs of 1990s icons like Cartoon Network and authentic band tee shirts emblazoned with the names of popular bands like Black Sabbath or Massive Attack.
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This frenzy happens once a month at vintage pop-up retailer Death Threads. For these fans of vintage wear, a month of waiting culminates in whatever they can get their hands on minutes after opening.
Fans of vintage clothing jostle for deals in this photo from 2019
Since 2017, Death Threads has grown its cult following from a handful of avid vintage fiends to a notable number who are more eager than ever. The brand has close to 17,000 followers on Instagram, where their page description — “We are a monthly pop-up vintage store based in Singapore” — invites more questions than it answers.
The store began as a pop-up in co-founder Deon Phua’s creative studio. “We made the move about 11 months after our opening in June 2017. About nine months in, it was apparent to us that Death Threads’ popularity was getting too big for the studio to accommodate, and we weren’t comfortable with that many people being around studio equipment,” says Phua, 29.
While the vintage scene in Singapore is hardly as prominent as Japan’s, strong demand drives value for rare finds. “We found a My Neighbor Totoro [a popular Japanese animation film] tee and we sold it for $40 in the store,” says team member Joshua Lee, 25. “A couple of months later, we saw a similar print go for three times that amount!”
Barter trading, too, makes for good gains. Team member Jon Tan once traded two tees he found at a thrift store for a Supreme Box Logo tee from 1999. He later sold it for $800. “One of our favourite finds was made before joining Death Threads,” says Justin Siow, another team member. Working with Tan at another vintage venture, the duo flipped a pair of 1985 Vandal Supreme sneakers for 10 times its value.
The team behind vintage pop-up retailer Death Threads. From left: Joshua Lee, Justin Siow, Deon Phua, Jon Tan and Edmund Tan
That said, the pandemic has somewhat tempered enthusiasm for the physical pop-ups, says Tan, an undergraduate. “The pandemic has generally impacted the whole retail scene and Death Threads is no exception. We had to rethink our usual approach of opening once a month now that fewer people are going out. We explored e-commerce and we’re now going through a rebranding, set to launch in 2022.”
Death Threads has also pivoted to selling on Instagram, with “drops” — small collections of tees for sale — every Sunday at @theathdreadsvtg.
“We have been exploring online sales as a new approach to reach our customers at home. The weekly drops have been doing pretty well and we have also been expanding our reach to the international market as well,” says Tan.
“Vintage items have definitely increased in demand since our early days and there seems to be a rising interest in this market, with more vintage stores opening up to keep up with the demand,” says Tan.
“We are seeing trends about vintage items on social media that has been a huge driving force for its popularity among youth.”
Trends favouring upcycling, vintage wear and pre-loved clothes came to the fore amid the economic downturn. A Vogue article in November 2020 declared that “2020 was a big year for old clothes”.
Fashion houses, too, have latched onto the zeitgeist, wrote Vogue’s Emily Farra. French designer Marine Serre spliced up vintage garments to create new ones for her Spring 2020 collection, while Coach’s Spring 2021 collection included handbags upcycled from its 1970s archives.
Last October, Levi’s launched the Levi’s SecondHand website to sell vintage and secondhand denim jeans. Dubbed an attempt at “recommerce”, customers can turn in any Levi’s denim item for a gift card.
Can notable names sway public opinion in favour of secondhand collectibles? One Singaporean sneaker collector thinks so.
A 33-year-old civil servant, who wants to be known as B, he has amassed a collection of over 80 sneakers, and has even flipped a few pairs for a tidy profit.
“Ironically, I was never into shoes or sneakers as a kid but I grew interested as a teenager. Because I’m into sports, I am drawn to the shoes worn by basketball legends like Kobe Bryant and Lebron James. I used to get their jerseys and went on to buy shoes similar to the ones that they were seen wearing,” says B.
A sneaker sits on a shoe box in the living room of a sneaker collector and trader in Beijing, China (Photo: Bloomberg)
The costliest pair of shoes in his collection are limited edition Jordans, a subsidiary of Nike. He forked out $550 for the secondhand pair, which were sold out just seconds after launching online. “Many shoeaholics had been waiting for it for a while. Many of them used bots to place orders for the shoe the minute it was launched,” he says.
B has lost count of the total number of sneakers that have been in his collection, but he remembers his largest takings: a profit of $580 from a single sale.
“It was a limited edition maroon Air Force One. I had many buyers who were interested in the shoe but I eventually sold it to a girl who wanted to surprise her boyfriend with it for his 30th birthday. She had a hard time finding the shoe, and in the size that fits her boyfriend, so I guess that’s why she was willing to buy it,” he recalls.
How does his family feel about his growing collection? “They always say my shoes take up a lot of space and they roll their eyes every time I have a new pair delivered to the house,” says B. “But they are also supportive; I sometimes send my sister down to meet potential buyers or sellers because they tend to lower their sale price when they see her.
“Once, a seller insisted that he would only let go of a pair of pink Air Force One shoes at $400, but he somehow relented and sold it for $300 after my sister spoke to him.”
Photos: Death Threads
