Carol Stream, Ill. — When Julian Ajroja and Jorge Loza met at different vintage festivals throughout the area, they quickly decided to become friends. They messaged each other about upcoming events in the area to attend and eventually began splitting booths at vintage fests. In the summer of last year, Ajroja and Loza started talking about opening a store together.
About one year later, their shared dream became a reality. Extinct Vintage opened on May 31 in Carol Stream on Gary Avenue. The location is already home to many of their previous customers from vintage fest booths.
Ajroja explained that the time leading up to opening day was stressful because he and Loza were set on opening before the start of summer. They leased the space just one month before their proposed opening date and hurried to have it flipped and ready before then.
“I thought I would be more in shock,” Ajroja said about their first week open. “I was just in business mode.” Ajroja wanted to make sure everything was running smoothly for their grand opening.
Because the turnaround was so fast, Extinct Vintage only sold clothes at opening. Now, they’ve added shelves for hats, shoes and collectibles, and they are working on adding more bookshelves for video games and CDs. Ajroja and Loza source their clothes online, buying bales from overseas or using resources in the community like from thrift stores or friends. They are also buy-sell-trade, which means people can donate their clothes or accessories in exchange for something new from the store. Environmental sustainability is one reason thrifting and shopping for vintage items is so popular.
“The whole basis of vintage is recycling and reusing and not letting clothes get into those dumps that basically just waste those clothes,” Ajroja said. “So it’s a very resourceful community.”
In the store, Ajroja and Loza try to restock items every week to keep their items new and rotate out older items. On their website, they plan to drop monthly curated collections.
Ajroja shared how some older customers will come in finding items that they owned or heard about when they were younger, and Ajroja enjoys reconnecting them with an item they may have given away or missed out on.
“That’s honestly my favorite part, is just meeting people, talking to people, talking about clothes,” Ajroja said.
