Down the block and around the corner, a line of well dressed, mostly college-aged individuals, wrap around The Revere Hotel near the Boston Common. The building’s main floor is already at its 450-person capacity and the lack of outward-flowing bodies is severely holding up the line.
After waiting roughly 30 minutes in the freezing cold, people walk into Select Markets’ Feb. 15 Valentine’s Day themed event with mouths wide open at the sheer size of one of Boston’s biggest vintage conventions. From 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. the venue hosted roughly 2000 attendees, including 400 people who purchased a ticket to cut the line.
Since their debut market on Nov 4, 2023, that attracted roughly 300 people, fourth year Northeastern University students and founders Josh Maizes and Joaquin Crosby-Lizarde have seen an exponential uptick in popularity for their free-entry pop-up events. In only a year and four months the Select Markets Instagram account has gained 26.8 thousand followers.
“It’s crazy to see other people care so much,” Maizes said. “I don’t think there was something like us before, and I wouldn’t even say there’s something like us in most cities.”
One of their passion project’s main goals has been to fill the hole in youth-based events around the city, especially in terms of Boston’s growing fashion scene. Crosby-Lizarde remembers what Boston events were like as a college student before Select Markets started.
“We didn’t really like the vibe they were going for. It felt very corporate, felt very boring,” Crosby-Lizarde said. “We’re like, let’s make this something that we’d want to go to.”
Roughly each month the organization hosts collections of clothing vendors and other sellers at a different location in the Boston area. Their two-part Valentines Day event was “more than just a shopping experience” according to Maizes. It included a live DJ, temporary tattoos, tooth gems, caricature drawings and over 60 individual vendors.
One of the vendors who sold with Select Markets on Feb. 15, is Jessie Lamb, a co-collaborator who works with 161 Vintage, a business launched professionally almost a year ago.
“We love Select (Markets),” Lamb said standing in front of racks of clothing and crowds of people passing by. “It’s a great way to bring the community together.”
Over the course of their progression in the vintage fashion scene, Select Markets has developed a vendor database of over 1000 sellers willing to buy a spot at one of their events. According to Crosby-Lizarde, an estimated 75% of them are of college age.
Predominantly youth selling to the same age shoppers has created a large community relatively uncommon in Boston.
“I think that it is the coolest thing, to see that we’re creating a space where so many like-minded people are coming together, connecting, bonding and forming relationships,” Crosby-Lizarde said.
Kery Rodriguez, a vendor and embroiderist from Providence, Rhode Island who sold on Feb. 15 believes that Select Markets is highly beneficial to the fashion community.
“They’re giving a lot of the younger crowd a place to thrive in the vintage space,” Rodriguez said. “Giving a lot of artists places to thrive.”
It’s something that has been developing for the fashion community long before Select Markets began. According to Frances McSherry, long-time teaching professor of theater design and fashion history and theory at Northeastern University, youth interest when it comes to fashion has shifted heavily in the past ten years.
Since 2015, a new movement has swayed college students to a more sustainable, individual and cost-efficient form of consumption: second-hand and vintage clothes. McSherry believes Select Markets is just another step in the forming of an already developing community.
“It’s just making vintage more accessible and more desirable, getting word out that there’s these garments that exist, that are still alive, still working, really well made,” she said.
Select Markets is a business created from youth interest. The founders goal was to create a space for people to come together in a city otherwise lacking in events.
“Just having something to do on a day, because we know that we didn’t have something to do on a day. And I think that’s what allowed (us) to be a community,” Maizes said. “Community over everything.”
Sydney Woogerd 