A Cardiff-based online vintage shop, Christossi Vintage, has secured office space in Curran Embankment.
Owners Christy Llewellyn and Ross Lewis, both 29-years-old and from Cardiff, started the online vintage store in January 2020 through a passion for sustainable clothing.
Both went to school together and were often found in their high school drama costume department at Whitchurch High School, creating and sourcing pieces for productions.
Christossi Vintage brings handpicked styles from across Europe and beyond to help make sustainable fashion more accessible and remove the stigma around pre-loved clothing. The brand was founded in Berlin with the idea to city hop across europe whilst sourcing new collections. However the pandemic hit and both were forced to return.
During lockdown they created their first line of reusable face masks, then once they were able to travel again they headed to Belfast to source the next collection before moving on to Paris.
The office is situated in Cardiff Containers, a collection of shipping containers transformed into workshops and offices on Curran Embankment, just outside the city centre.
Ms Llewelyn said:
“As a small local business, the location couldn’t be more perfect for us. We love how it’s catered to small businesses and creatives and in the heart of the city.”
The 320 square feet unit will store Christossi’s stock and provide natural lighting to photograph the carefully selected pieces. It will also allow the duo to carry out general administration tasks for running the business.
Mr Lewis added:
“Since we started, we’ve been relying on friends and family generously lending their spare rooms or garages for us to keep the stock while we travel to various locations across Europe and photograph in all weather. While travel will remain an important aspect of how we source our collections, the unit means that we save a significant amount of time managing the stock and can instead use that time to focus on finding the next collections. Most importantly, it will make the process of photographing and uploading the products to the website much quicker, so our customers will be able to browse more clothes, more often.”
