Goblin Market, in the years between 2006 and 2008

If you’ve come upon here, it is likely you (still) love vintage.

It is likely you have become a hoarder too, like us.

Bridget wears vintage. Hwee Yee appreciates vintage, knowing when to laugh or fart when Bridget holds up a find, nay or aye?

- Background -

Goblin Market started in 2006. In a shophouse along East Coast Road, sandwiched by fighting laksa stalls, five-star chicken rice and more Peranakan than Peranakan eateries, we were a hidden ingredient in this sea of sin. No one knew of us, except the wife of an Aussie doctor, a few mothers who needed to wait for their children to come off drama/tuition/mandarin classes, and the food vendors whom we regularly gotten food from. Actually, they knew Bridget was a salesgirl and Hwee Yee the bigger and gummier one and that we walked a lot and biked a lot, and we bought cut fruits on hot days.

Nothing has changed. Vintage is still the way in which we throw off cares of the world and just be. While INPYARG is forever an ongoing destination, Goblin Market is the now. Isn’t this funny?

- Why Goblin Market? -

It is also here we should tell you why Goblin Market. We are Rossetti fans and not just for her long fantasy poem of the same name. In fact, we always thought we would be a secret, an operation so tucked away and undisturbed we would stay open only for those few who know what we are doing.

At 2009, that remains.

***

Perhaps some day, who knows?
But not today; it froze, and blows and snows,
And you’re too curious: fie!
You want to hear it? well:
Only, my secret’s mine, and I won’t tell.

Or, after all, perhaps there’s none:
Suppose there is no secret after all,
But only just my fun.
Today’s a nipping day, a biting day;
In which one wants a shawl,
A veil, a cloak, and other wraps:
I cannot ope to everyone who taps,
And let the draughts come whistling thro’ my hall;
Come bounding and surrounding me,
Come buffeting, astounding me,
Nipping and clipping thro’ my wraps and all.
I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows
His nose to Russian snows
To be pecked at by every wind that blows?
You would not peck? I thank you for good will,
Believe, but leave the truth untested still.

Spring’s an expansive time: yet I don’t trust
March with its peck of dust,
Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers,
Nor even May, whose flowers
One frost may wither thro’ the sunless hours.

Perhaps some languid summer day,
WHen drowsy birds sing less and less,
And golden fruit is ripening to excess,
If there’s not too much sun nor too much cloud,
And the warm wind is neither still nor loud,
Perhaps my secret I may say,
Or you may guess.

Winter: My Secret
Christina Georgina Rossetti

Will I ever forget painting the poem on the walls of our first store? Beginning the road that will prove so long?

Hell no.

Thank you to those who know.

- On Vintage -

Vintage is not thrifted. It is mint.

We hunt for loose, beautiful pieces and alter them for fit as well as rework their scrapes for add-ons (ruffle, belt, sleeve, lapel, waist, trimmings, lining, etc.).

Our selection is not thrifted. It is reconstructed from original vint mint to fit today’s bodies and mindsets. That way most of you will not have to alter for fit.

The piece you buy will reflect our added touch (and “puff & blow” in the process). I suppose these are reasons that spell our difference from most vintage traders and stores.

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