Instead of laying around watching Netflix all summer like I did, some of my peers like freshman Faryn Brown were busy starting businesses. Brown was sitting around, bored one hot summer day and thought it would be fun to dabble in fashion design. The brand blossomed into what Brown refers to today as Nearly Vintage.
It was Brown’s extremely creative high school friend, Lindsey Barnett who began to take old shirts and cut them and then soak them in a base solution and then take acid with a secret method to soak shirts in and make a cool design. She brought the shirts to Brown’s house where she had an idea. They decided that they were going to make a lot more of the shirts so the two could wear them around.
Then the shirts became a symbol around their town of Harrison, New York. The girls were wearing them all over and everyone wanted one. They would take college logo t-shirts that friends would give them and completely distress them. She is known to cut sweatshirts into tank tops and even completely redoing a pair of Toms. Brown goes through a process and uses acid to make cool and unconventional designs on the different shirts. This included cutting a lot of them into different styled and tank tops. Everyone at their school wanted shirts from the college they got into so the pair obliged.
“Our friends would give us their old clothes and we would make them look cool and new,” Brown said.
Then they began to make these completely tie-dyed shorts that were so popular more people around school wanted them and the brand was expanding from the original idea of just t-shirts.
Brown is currently an intended business major at the University of Maryland and loves to be creative by hand altering every piece of clothing that comes her way. Their facebook page says that Nearly Vintage is about “taking old or new clothes and turning it into a vintage look you’ll be sure to love.”
Undecided freshman Carli Levitt loves everything that Brown has been making.
“I love wearing Nearly Vintage shirts,” Levitt said. “The shirts are so different than what everyone else is wearing to things like tailgates and other school events that require your best terrapin clothes.”
Levitt’s friends have followed her trend and the brand is currently being spread by word of mouth. Brown hopes to make it much more of a business plan and is going to the Digman Center on Friday the 29th of March to present the expansion of Nearly Vintage.
This summer Brown plans to work more with the online site and she and Bernett are hoping to expand the brand so it reaches beyond their individual schools. If you are currently interested in purchasing a shirt from Brown all you have to do is like Nearly Vintage on facebook and message them your purchase.
“Nearly Vintage is so comfortable and also completely cool, which is a great combination,” freshman communications major Jodi Zingler said. “She can make an everyday shirt you found at the student union look awesome.”