Business Description
Rags Vintage Clothing started its journey as of May 2020. Many of you may recall that was the start of the first lockdown here in the UK. We started off as a sole trader when I (Rithvik Gidwani) first began selling clothes from my own wardrobe on Depop! During this time, I was still a student studying at Queens University Belfast, but thanks to COVID-19 my academic year was cut short! I was able to spend all my time selling clothes to you guys and spend very little time towards my degree!In the following months, I began to take over my parent’s house (who supported me throughout my madness) and soon I set up a comfy little HQ in our garage. We were fit to receive new stock every week and I worked throughout the day to wash, iron, shoot and upload new garms to Depop daily! By the time lockdown ended we were able to achieve top seller status (as of September that year)!
Sales were on the rise but I had to go back to university, so it was about time I called for back-up! To my parents’ relief I relocated the business to Belfast and rented out a top floor studio office to continue the business alongside my education. Further down the line a new face joined the company, Rory, who now shares the workload alongside me! The company has recently gained incorporation under ’private limited’ status as of July 2022.
I am now in my final year of university, and we have managed to open a NEW vintage store in Belfast at my own University’s Student Union building. We now have several employees helping us out with day-to-day shop work and we continue to grow online on our own website and on Depop with new clothes being uploaded every few days!
Today we aim to become one of the leading vintage retailers in Northern Ireland/Ireland and in the future, the rest of the UK. We want to thank everyone who has bought an item, sent us a message, visited our website, visited any of our events, referred our company to a friend and most of all anyone reading this today. It has been a difficult journey so far, but we still have so much longer to go.
Thanks for reading,
Yours sincerely,
Rithvik Gidwani CEO.
