Chapel Hill Vintage Market offers unique game-day shopping experience

On Friday, 140 W. Franklin St. hosted the Chapel Hill Vintage Market, featuring  food, music, a beer truck and 15 vintage clothing vendors.

Market founder and UNC alumna Haylee Frazier was a rising senior at UNC when she discovered her love for vintage clothing. As her passion grew, she decided that Chapel Hill deserved its own vintage market, where people with the same interest in fashion could find unique pieces. 

“There's a couple that take place in Durham and cater toward Duke students,” she said. “There's a couple that take place in Raleigh, there's one on State's campus — and I was like ‘Chapel Hill is cool enough. It has cool-ass students. We need to make this happen.’” 

She said that the Chapel Hill Vintage Market is a one-woman show, with Frazier acting as the founder and organizer of each event. She hosted the first Chapel Hill Vintage Market in March of this year, placing roughly 20 vendors on the quad between Carolina Square and Granville Towers. 

The market later moved to its current location, and over the summer Downtown Chapel Hill approached Frazier about hosting Fridays on Franklin, a Friday market before every home football game. 

Last Friday's event was the first of many Fridays on Franklin set to occur between Sept. 6 and the last home football game day on Nov. 30. After this date, Chapel Hill Vintage Market will return once each month. 

Frazier said that throughout the coming weeks, Chapel Hill Vintage Market will rotate vendors, aiming to have something for everyone throughout the season. She said customers will not have the same experience twice. 

UNC medical student Benjamin Silver, who was at Friday's market, praised the selection of local vendors. 

“I think it's just really cool to have a community of local vendors selling, especially with a lot of UNC-themed stuff right before game day,” he said. 

This week's market featured vendors like SabyThreads, a store selling pieces from the 1980s-2000s, and 704 Thrift, featuring Y2K and vintage items alongside shirts with cartoon graphic designs. 

Jane Tomlin, a seller at Nifty Thrifty, said that she has been selling vintage clothing for about four years, since she started her business during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Tomlin said that the market started to get crowded over an hour before its official opening and continued to be busy for the majority of the day. She said that her store has a little bit of everything.  

“If it's cool, I pick it up,” she said. “I don't really try to get into a niche, because if I don’t like it, someone else might.” 

The variety at the market appealed to students like Joslyn Bakion, who said she visited Chapel Hill Vintage Market in March and bought a red purse that got many compliments. 

“I love it,” she said. “Everyone showing each other their cool finds, and the prices aren't horrible. And it's nice to get stuff you can only get in one place." 

Frazier said that Chapel Hill Vintage Market is a great option for buying UNC gear before game day, especially uncommon pieces that nobody else is going to have. 

“I love Shrunken Head, but everybody has the same Shrunken Head T-Shirt, everybody has the argyle game day bibs, me included,” she said. “Be a little different, be a little special. Get something fun. Get something funky.” 

She also said that part of the market's appeal caters specifically to the next wave of UNC students, who seem increasingly interested in sustainable fashion and shopping second-hand. 

Frazier said that the current student body is creative and self-expressive, and that the Chapel Hill Vintage Market is a celebration of these characteristics that can continue the upward trajectory of creativity among students. 

140 W. Franklin St. will host the next Chapel Hill Vintage Market on Sept. 13 from 3-8 p.m. 

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