Hey Gals, in case you didn’t know, this past weekend Aline was so happy to have hosted the LOCAL Preloved Market, our first secondhand fashion pop up shop! Our goal with this event was to showcase secondhand vendors and local businesses in the Fayetteville area by helping the environment and furthering our passion for extending the life cycle of our clothes. We wanted to bring an event like this to our area to cultivate the secondhand shopping community and give an opportunity to shop from multiple preloved clothing companies all in one place! Aline’s first summer interns, Allie, Breann, and Sydney came up with the idea for a collaborative pop up shop at the beginning of the summer. It was sort of an end of the year team project because it tied all of their different intern positions together. From Sydney's focus on sustainability, Allie’s social media marketing strategies, and Breann’s creative touches, the LOCAL Preloved Market made for a great end of the summer event not only for Aline, but also for local non-profit Beautiful Lives and thrift-stagram @RetroReina. The culmination of several projects found success and were highlighted at the pop up shop event. The #AlineArches mural made for a fabulous background for photos and created a colorful aesthetic for the tent. Visual Display intern Breann and Store Manager Sara incorporated several eye-catching decorations to create the perfect outdoor setting with a streamlined brand image. Allie contributed to social media marketing, which raised awareness for the event. Sydney took charge and communicated with vendors to create a cohesive group of businesses with a passion for secondhand fashion. She also took point in brainstorming and planning small details that came together for a smooth and fun day at the LOCAL Preloved Market. With all of the Aline girls’ strong suits working together as one unit, we were able to pull off an event that we are all proud of and met the goals of cultivating more community within secondhand fashion in Fayetteville.
Sydney’s Experience
“For me this is something I always wanted in my community. I truly have a passion for secondhand clothing, and I believe things like this really do help our environment for the better. To see all of this come together was a highlight of my summer and made all the work we’ve done all feel worth it. Throughout this internship I have learned the value of community and seeing what small events like this can do for it. Being that I’m not originally from Fayetteville, it was hard for me to see the true sense of community that this place has. This event helped me see how important that is to this city. In my short time at Aline, I have gotten to know the familiar faces of our regular customers and I’ve had the pleasure of seeing the friendships they have built with the employees. Not only was this a shopping event but it was a networking event as well. I feel as though we formed a strong relationship with the vendors who joined us, leaving the door open to do further collaborations in the future. This further ties the community together and really helps share awareness for shopping preloved. I am proud of all of the things me and my fellow interns were able to accomplish this summer, and I hope to see Aline continue this event in years to come.”
Breann’s Experience
“I worked on making the decorations for the pre-loved market! In order to create the banner first I measured out and cut up the strips used in it before tying each strip onto a small rope in a slip knot. For the balloon arch I had a lot of help blowing up the balloons and then attached them in a similar order as the banner. It was a lot of hard work but it was worth it to see how beautiful it turned out and to hear everyone’s compliments!”
