Max Murray is the founder of a clothing start-up called Dream Vintage. He has recently graduated from the University of Birmingham with a degree in Criminology and is also part of the UoB Elevate incubator programme in Birmingham city centre.
Bob: I caught up with Max over zoom to find out more about his business which has seen great success since he started it during the pandemic in Spring 2020.
I was curious to find out how an initial idea had grown from a clothing rail in a student bedroom into something much bigger so quickly. With two hour queues at their first ever pop up shop, tours around UK universities and even an approach from Chelsea and England footballer Mason Mount, there was a lot to find out.
Max: What is Dream Vintage? It's basically a group of young people who really like clothing and care about the environment who are trying to grow something. I would call it an on-trend clothing business.
Birmingham is very good for second hand recycling and textiles so it's good to be close to the city. Our team have different skill sets and it has really helped us to grow. I love coming to work with these guys, it is just so much fun.
There's constantly new things going on, we did six weeks travelling the whole of the UK together doing pop ups at different universities. There's always new ideas for income streams, creating retail shops, wholesale opportunities and finding new suppliers. Everything is growing.
How did it all start
So I was experimenting by buying and selling online and had a Depop account. It's funny looking back actually. I was meant to go travelling and I worked really hard to save £2,500 in a month by working every hour possible. Because of the uncertainty with the pandemic I was waiting to buy my flights at the very last minute but a day before I was meant to go, the first lockdown kicked in and everything came to a stop. I couldn't go anywhere but I had this massive pot of money so decided to try something a bit different and buy loads of stock and it developed from there.
I really [annoyed] all my housemates - in a good way - because I had constant deliveries of clothes coming to the house and visits to wholesalers. We had a games room so that's where the operations started from. We were piling clothes up to the ceiling in the room, and sometimes I worked from 6pm - 4am just literally uploading clothes online.
I eventually took over the whole house with clothes rails in every room and at that point i thought this is serious so lets scale the business and get a member of staff to help out. I remember in that time we made 1000 sales in 3 months!Soon after, I explored using international suppliers which gave me more variety. I remember sourcing Carharrt Workwear from the US which was really popular at the time and North Face puffer jackets from Japan. Everyone was going crazy for puffer jackets and in December 2020 we did a brown puffer giveaway where you have to 'like, follow, comment' and I got 8000 followers in two weeks, 25,000 comments and it just blew up.
The constant milestones we were making were surprising everyone. People we knew couldn't believe how well we were doing and I started to make links with people in the fashion industry, learning so much and making connections with new suppliers so I felt Dream Vintage was moving forward really quickly. It was also hard for me, I was missing out on student experiences and still wanted to find time to enjoy myself and party.
We organised our first ever pop up shop at the Guild of Students at UoB for local vintage clothing brands like ours. The whole thing was crazy! It was so popular and there were two hour queues outside, I had never seen anything like it. Ironically I had never been to a pop up shop before this and had no experience of running one but we had this f*** it mentality which got us through and it worked.
That mentality got us through a number of things actually and we just experimented with different trends. Sometimes it worked and we would do really well, sometimes things didn't go to plan. I remember we tried a promotion selling Coogi rework sweatshirts and you could only buy them in bales of 50. The job completely flopped and we were left with a high cost... but that was always going to happen as we had done so well previously.
I couldn't believe it. One day I saw a message on Instagram with a verified tick next to it. I opened it up and it was a message from Mason Mount who had reached out to invite us to get involved with a great charity called Together for Short Lives.
The charity supports children with life limiting conditions and Mason is a patron of the charity.
The charity was reaching out to fashion brands and they asked for 200 sweatshirts and although it wasn't something I could do because of the retail value, it started a chain reaction which led to my supplier donating clothing. I worked with them to wash, prepare and steam the clothes before attending the charity event.
Somehow I managed to finesse getting involved with this great cause and I even got to give Mason a retro England shirt with his name on the back. Over £36,000 was raised over two days at the event which was amazing. For me, it was also an added opportunity to network and connect with people in the fashion industry. I am going to Thailand at the end of July to scope out new suppliers and check the quality. It's also a great excuse to do a bit of travelling too!
What are the best and worst aspects of running a business.
I think the best aspect is that we are growing stuff together. I can't put that feeling into words. When I was on holiday I was desperate to get back into the office. I love that there's a million and one things I could be doing, not just day to day work but development stuff too.
The bad thing? Stress. It can be stressful running your own business but for me it is manageable because that's the way my brain works. One thing I have learned is that no matter the problems things seem to work out. The problems that come can sometimes be the fun parts of the journey. You might be lower than you were before in progression but you always come through eventually.
How have you found working with Elevate businesses?
It's always nice to develop business relationships and friendships in one. I have some brilliant friends from some of the other businesses based there, we meet up a lot and I think we will be friends for life. The programme helped me with friendships, business advice and everything in-between.
What's next?
New ventures interest me and it will be interesting to see what opportunities come next. In the near future I can see Dream Vintage doing so much more with wholesale and I expect to do more university pop ups. I am still only 22 and I don't have a lot of work experience but I feel I have learnt so much from people. At my age I feel I have little risk which helps me make decisions.
I am always looking to connect with people especially anyone in the fashion industry so if you are reading this and would like to connect then get in touch with me. Find out more by visiting the Dream Vintage website
With thanks to Max Murray
Introduced by Bob Lee
Introduced by Bob Lee
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