Shop ‘til You Drop at Vintage POP

Vintage POP is POP Montreal’s newest addition to the festival. Graphic David Barlow-Krelina

Montreal’s favourite festival, POP Montreal, is just around the corner. The festival is in its ninth year and has, over the years, distinguised itself as much more than a music festival

Every year, one of the many veins of POP Montreal—Puces POP—hosts a flea market-type event devoted to local designers and hand-made goods.

It is Montreal’s biggest and best do-it-yourself arts and crafts fair, but this year, they’re taking things to a whole new level and adding a new POP-related event.

Puces POP have pooled resources with vintage collectors Sunday Adventure Club to create, for the first time ever, Vintage POP.

The best part about hunting through vintage clothing is you never know what you’re going to find. The thing about Vintage POP is that someone has already done the dirty work for you.

“We’d been toying with the idea of doing something with all the great vintage sellers in Montreal for a while,” explained Amy Johnson, co-director and curator for Puces POP.

Vintage POP will bring together a dozen of the city’s finest vintage collectors to flaunt their masses of carefully selected second-hand treasures for sale. Among the collectors is Chloe Wise, co-creator of Naughty Mess Vintage, which is steadily gaining recognition through both their online Etsy store and blog.

“I have insane amounts of gorgeous, costume-like pieces from the 1940s to 1960s,” Wise gushed. “Lots of nautical stuff!”

The event will take place at Le POP Up Shop, a temporary POP Montreal storefront located on St. Laurent Boulevard. “It will be a space for sellers to have a boutique for five days that they might not otherwise have,” said Johnson.

The official Facebook event shows that over 1,000 people plan to attend. Johnson expressed mild concern for the potential lack of space in the venue, but was nonetheless delighted with the evident popularity.

“We’ve had a great deal of interest in [this event] and it looks like [POP Montreal] might turn it into a recurring event,” Johnson said.

“It’s going to be super, super amazing,” said Wise—and it’s hard to imagine otherwise, considering that Montreal’s greatest vintage collections will be brought into one space for you to pillage. It is truly thrifting made easy.

Vintage POP will take place from Sept. 22 to Sept. 26 from 1:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Le POP Up Shop (5330 St. Laurent Blvd.)

This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 06, published September 21, 2010.