There is a neighborhood called Yeonnam-dong in Seoul where cute stores and restaurants are unexpectedly discovered like hidden gems. Areas around Gyeongui railway, which connected Yongsan, Seoul to Sinuiju, North Korea in the early 1900s, were transformed into a nice urban park. Despite its official name “Gyeongui Line Forest Park”, young folks call it Yeontral Park which stands for Yeonnam-dong Central Park.
Yeontral park…where you can wander around aimlessly and relax on a bench to refresh your tired legs…where you can enjoy great music from buskers as much as you want. There are a lot of houses and low-story residential buildings around the park. As you walk on a street among the buildings, you might come across a tiny house where clothes hung on a clothesline and old items harmonize beautifully under soft orange lights.
The tiny house is Magnolia Miss, a vintage clothing shop based in Yeonnam-dong, Seoul.
Magnolia Miss…as the name implies, Magnolia Miss means yearning for magnolia. Magnolia blossoms new flowers every spring and shows off its beauty. The founder of Magnolia Miss named his vintage clothing store like that as he believes the shop breathes new life into old items that have already vanished. Also, he chose Magnolia, a tree widely loved in the US for its beauty, given that the main theme of the vintage store is American vintage. For example, former President Barack Obama gifted two magnolia trees and spoke about hope two days after the Sewol Ferry sank at his visit to a high school where students died in the tragedy.
Magnolia Miss wasn’t in Yeonnam-dong. It started in 2012 as a small vintage clothing store in front of Hongdae Subway Station Exit 6. The business went very well, driven by heavy foot traffic in the area where multiple subway lines stop, including express trains to the airports. But Hanhyeon Kim, founder and CEO of Magnolia Miss, was not really comfortable with the location.
Needless to say, all customers matter. But too many visitors that just dropped by for curiosity made it nearly impossible for Hanhyeon to focus on the customers who wanted to take their time looking around the store and understand the meaning of vintage clothes at Magnolia Miss.
That’s how Magnolia Miss moved to this beautiful place in 2016. The old house is beautifully aged as it is timeworn, a perfect place for a vintage shop. The fact that Hanhyeon handpicked this place by himself highlights his keen eye for aesthetics developed by his experiences as a professional photographer capturing many beautiful moments with his cameras while traveling around the globe.
I have many fashionista friends in love with Magnolia Miss. They gave me similar answers when I asked them this question—what do you like the most about Magnolia Miss?
“Hanhyeon, founder and CEO of Magnolia Miss, is so dope. Whatever I ask about any of the vintage clothes at Magnolia Miss, Hanhyeon gives super comprehensive details, including origin and history of the items, who wore them before they came to Magnolia Miss and much more, which are even hard to find online.”
In many vintage clothing stores, particularly those in Japan, such curating services as available at Magnolia Miss are factored in pricing. But curating is considered a basic right for vintage customers at Magnolia Miss. Thus, obviously it is provided for truly free without affecting the prices of the vintage clothes at the store.
There is certain insight into vintage clothing that can be developed only by dealing with a gigantic number of vintage items. Magnolia Miss is one of the places where you have unlimited access to the insight free of charge.
In terms of products, military wear and denim jeans are the specialty of Magnolia Miss. From broader perspectives, their specialty is military and work wear. What do military and work wear have in common? Yes, they are uniforms. In human history, it has not been long since clothes were mass produced. Most clothes were tailored made.
There are several reasons why Magnolia Miss primarily focuses on uniform wear. First, uniform wear was produced in large quantities. Second, it is easy to track vintage years for uniform wear. There were not that many cases historically where the same clothes within a certain category were as mass produced for a specific period of time as uniform wear, particularly military wear. Thus, military clothes and accessories are great items to cover for vintage clothing stores. On top of that, a lot of detailed elements of modern clothes we wear every day, including designs, are based on military clothes developed back in the day. Vintage military wear is indeed meaningful in many aspects.
Along with military wear, Magnolia Miss handles workwear, including denim jeans, Hawaiian shirts, Ivy or preppy looks for college students for the same reasons as military wear. All of these items have standardized styles with specified purposes—battles or training for military wear; tough physical labor for workwear; vacations in a hot summer for Hawaiian shirts; and college life for Ivy/preppy looks. These types of clothes are labeled as uniforms and get special attention at Magnolia Miss.
Magnolia Miss is second to none when it comes to the ability to collect and sell vintage military items. Let’s take OG-107 pants, basic work utility uniform (fatigues) of all branches of the US Armed Forces for about 40 years since the 1950s, as an example. Few vintage clothing stores have as many varieties of vintage OG-107 pants as Magnolia Miss.
Even OG-107 pants with the same design cannot be said to be alike from a vintage perspective as there are tons of other considerations besides design for classifying vintage clothes—like vintage year, fabric, product condition, how they were cleaned/cared for, prior owner and other subtle details of the pants probably not discernible by most folks not interested in vintage clothing. Based on these criteria, pairs of OG-107 pants that look alike can be totally different pants in the vintage universe.
Unlike most clothing stores, either new or vintage, which display clothes in a way that customers can get some ideas on potential styling of these clothes, Magnolia Miss puts like items together. Obviously either way has pros and cons. One of the biggest pros is that you can easily compare items in detail within the same category, like comparing vintage OG-107 pants.
Magnolia Miss has focused on certain vintage clothes over the last decade and, as a result, developed unrivaled expertise in these products. Magnolia Miss thoroughly shares their decade-long experience and deep insight in these vintage products with their customers regardless of purchase amount. Magnolia Miss is an ideal place for those who are looking for particular vintage clothes in their mind.
A lot of Magnolia Miss customers were those working in the fashion industry when it first opened. Some came to get inspiration ahead of a new season while others visited in need of vintage accessories. Moreover, a lot of fashionistas love vintage clothes. So, they naturally account for the majority of Magnolia Miss customers.
It’s already been ten years since the start of Magnolia Miss. It has gained a lot of passionate customers over that time. They now make up the majority of Magnolia Miss customers.
“Being a vintage clothing store cannot be an excuse for staying away from the latest trends. If street fashion or oversized fashion brands are popular, people ask for vintage clothes with similar silhouettes or details. So, we might be affected by current fashion in procuring vintage items. But I believe there are people not interested in fast fashion, which is good for a season and then quickly becomes out of fashion soon after. I hope those folks come check out Magnolia Miss. Classic style is timeless and that’s what Magnolia Miss does”, said Hanhyeon.
“Magnolia Miss started with American vintage as its main theme, but ironically we are trying to erase the traces. Obviously, we still carry basic items with solid quality. But we do more than that currently. Magnolia Miss handles secondhand clothes of trending brands and collaborates with new brands too. We will get pigeonholed if we view everything based on whether it is a meaningful vintage item. It’s my vintage clothing store anyway. So, Magnolia Miss is likely to go with items or projects that look good to me and are consistent with my tastes no matter what. Our goal is to keep that flexibility.”
“Selling vintage clothes is actually selling values, which cannot be as objective as you might think. So, it is critical to acknowledge different tastes of other people. Not everyone likes vintages, but hopefully, those who love vintage clothing become more generous so as to accept different perspectives as they are. Magnolia Miss aims to introduce more various vintage clothes going forward. Please keep an eye on us!” said Hanhyeon.
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