If the joy of second-hand shopping for you is in the hunt, we have the perfect weekend plans for you. A three-day-only pop-up market coming back to Queen West is about to be the most affordable way to shop vintage, thanks to its unique selling model. Vintage Mrkt is bringing another $5/pound event from Friday to Sunday this weekend, where you can scoop up as much clothing as you want and pay for it by weight!
The market is taking over It’s Ok* Studios at 468 Queen St. W., and for those who have attended the market before, this is a major upgrade: the event organizers are promising a much bigger space than previous iterations, meaning there will be a lot more inventory — and they mentioned more purses specifically. There will also be reduced wait times thanks to the larger space. New items will be added hourly, so don’t worry if you can’t show up on the first day — there’s so much clothing to dig through that the selection certainly won’t be picked over by the time the final hour chimes on Sunday.
Of course, the key to a by-the-pound event is that you need to be ready to hunt: past iterations of the market have included massive bins of clothing that you’ll have to dig through. Of course, it’s all worth it if you set aside enough time to find the gems buried in these piles.
But if you do want to be first to the bins, you can show up as early as 12 p.m. on Friday. The market runs until 8 p.m. every day, beginning at 11 a.m. on Saturday and 12 p.m. on Sunday.
There will be vintage clothing and accessories in all sizes and from all eras, and hauls from the previous (and inaugural) by the pound Vintage Mrkt show plenty of 2000s-era slips, vintage jerseys, cosy ’90s sweaters and even brands like DKNY.
If you can’t make this weekend’s market, there are more places to shop by the pound in Toronto. On Orfus Road (an underrated second-hand shopping district in the city), there’s Market by the Pound, where you can thrift clothes and accessories for $4.99 per pound.