Our history and mission!

2009-07-25T04:10:00.000-07:00

Although Barnardos Vintage store in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket has been open since 2006, our beginnings stem back many years to the mid 1990s when Marie, then a young art student, began her lifelong passion for vintage clothing. A keen (bordering on the obsessive!) charity shopper for many years, when Marie began working for Barnardos as a store manager in Stockbridge, Edinburgh in 2004, she noticed how many wonderful vintage clothes were among her donations. She began a small vintage rail in her branch of Barnardos and it became a huge success and boosted her takings greatly. The Stockbridge branch of the charity became known for its quirky décor and unique quality of vintage and retro clothing.

Marie’s area manager at the time noticed the income generated from this small rail and offered Marie her very own vintage boutique to manage alongside the Stockbridge Barnardos. Marie, of course, jumped for joy and began to squirrel away bags and bags of goodies in anticipation of the opening. A tiny but character-filled unit was found in the established vintage mecca of the Grassmarket and Marie set about decorating the shop and filling it with unique and wonderful things. With the help of her sales assistant at the time, Eira, the pair worked hard over two weeks and were allowed free reign to create the quirky, retro interior.

What emerged is a charity boutique that not only generates great revenue to fund the work Barnardos does with children and young adults, but is also a statement of one person’s love and fascination for all things vintage.

At first glance, you would not know you were entering a charity shop when you step through the door: there is no Barnardos branding. This results in only a small handful of donations through the door but does mean that many people visit us who would never consider going into a charity shop. We blend in nicely alongside all the privately owned vintage shops in the area, safe in the knowledge that our profits all go towards helping a good cause and not to line the pockets of a faceless individual. Besides the fact that everyone working and volunteering here has a passion for vintage, our motivation is purely altruistic.

We do not hide the source of our stock, every single thing we sell has been donated to Barnardos, mostly to one of the shops in central Edinburgh and the surrounding area. Other Barnardos managers send their vintage and retro items to us and we also send staff to go through their back rooms in search of our treasure. Most of these wonderful items would have surely hit the recycling bin and been shredded. We rescue them and give them a new lease of life!

We have two paid members of staff, Marie and also a full time Sales Assistant: Kerri (curator of this blog!) but we also have an ever changing and varied array of lovely volunteers who help us out both in the shop and sourcing for stock.
We are open 7 days and work hard to ensure that our shop is always clean, friendly and well stocked with good quality items.
We were recently nominated as the ‘Best Charity Shop outside London’ by the Sunday Times Style Magazine (Feb ’09) and are frequently mentioned in local tourist guides and periodicals.

We remain the only Barnardos Vintage in existence.

So that’s enough about Barnardos Vintage, now all you need to do is come along to see us in the flesh! See you very soon!!

Marie

barnardo's vintage

Our history and mission!