Knoxville Vintage Market fights the fast fashion trend with curated pre-owned clothes

Ricky Hopkins has the spirit of an entrepreneur and the principles of a conservationist.

Through his business, Past Around, Hopkins and his staff seek to counteract the effects of so-called “fast fashion” – a relatively new phenomenon in the clothing industry that forms a key part of the toxic system of overproduction and consumption that has made fashion one of the world’s largest polluters.

And if the crowd at his most recent sales event is any indication, it’s working.

Past Around’s tagline is “Roots+Culture – Vintage and Pre-owned Curated” and the fashion Hopkins sells has its focus in Black history and culture. Oversize athletic jackets with bold graphics, color-saturated sweatshirts, prominent logos – anyone looking for urban style and swagger at friendly prices will find it at Knoxville Vintage Market (KVM), the “road show” version of Past Around.

For these frequent popup events, Hopkins sometimes welcomes other vendors such as Second String, Thrift Knox, Grandma’s Attic, J Nastyboi, and The Thrift Fairy. On Jan. 22 at the KVM in front of the Old City Performing Arts Center, fellow vendor Spencer Siefke stood under a River Sports canopy offering quality outdoor wear “at highly negotiable prices.”

Hopkins, born in Charlotte, North Carolina, says he grew up shopping secondhand.

“My dad was in the military so we moved around a lot. I grew up all over. I was always collecting and shopping vintage. At first we had to; then as we got older I just liked doing it.

“Of course I bought new stuff also, but then as I got more earth-conscious, started looking into more of my history and myself and issues dealing with minorities, women, all that type of stuff, I was like, ‘Yo, I need to be more sustainable. I need to be eating better, all that stuff. All that became my ideal. I try. I’m not 100%. But I try.”

He gets his inventory “from anywhere, as long as it’s secondhand. If it has a brand new tag on it, it’ll still be from a secondhand or after-market store.” He’s been running the business “for six or seven years.”

The shop’s logo incorporates the infinity symbol, which Hopkins says he’s always wanted to include. “‘Past Around’ is basically a metaphor and it’s literal also. Clothes from the past that are around now. They’re passed around, too – secondhand, thirdhand.”

Fast fashion retailers such as H&M and Zara produce cheap, poor-quality trendy clothing at breakneck speed and have multitudes of fans. Hopkins says, “it’s in their face. I can’t really blame them for it. That’s why we put this out here – to put this in their face. Fast fashion is pushing hard – let’s have something else for them. I think they appreciate it a lot.”

Hopkins admires his mom, an assistant manager at Dillard’s, who has developed her own clothing consciousness. “She’s into stuff that’s made in the USA, with the earth in mind and people in mind.” It’s a fashion ethic that goes right along with her son’s.

“That’s our tag line for the Knoxville Vintage Market: for the people, for the planet.”

For more Knoxville Vintage Market dates, check out instagram.com/past_around.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Sustainable fashion Past Around at Knoxville Vintage Market