About

Behind The Mall Vault is one person with a long retail résumé, an extensive mental catalog of obsolete mall brands, and a refusal to accept that the best era of shopping is over.

 

Kady Volpe, owner

 

My fixation with mall brands and culture started even before I got my first job at dELiA*s (RIP), during a time when actually shopping at the mall was secondary to socializing.

In the early 2000s, the mall was an ecosystem of social dynamics that were demonstrated by embroidered logos and pocket designs, by stud belts and band tees. Just like the scene in Mean Girls when Janice is mapping each clique’s table in the cafeteria, such was the role of each store to the respective social circles that shopped there. 

My retail career continued on after dELiA*s closing, with assistant management positions at Zumiez and then Garage. During my ten years at the mall, I witnessed a change not only in fashion trends, but in consumerism. E-commerce grew rapidly. Online shopping was suddenly at everyone’s fingertips. Convenience trumped customer service, and everything changed. 

Now, I think we’re realizing that we’re no better off for it. Skeletons of defunct malls bring forth feelings of guilt and longing, as we mourn an era that we lost before we even realized we were complicit in its ending. We’re nostalgic not only for the fashion, but for the living, breathing social environment that reinforced that fashion’s importance. Even the younger generation is successfully bringing back Y2K styles and technology. We are all pining for a time and a place that we will truly never see again. 

As a hobby thrifter, I felt that very ache every time I passed a familiar label or pattern. Each item had a story or a life that mine ran adjacent to. I began collecting what felt like relics for a museum or an archive, pieces that literally spoke to me because I already knew and understood them. Clothing that wasn’t my size or even my style, but it was definitely somebody’s, and I was meant to find them, like some weird clothing foster parent. 

The Mall Vault was born of that collection. It’s a very personal thing for me, which I think is evident in these several paragraphs that were supposed to be a very short About-Me section (the same thing happens when I try to write a short item description. I literally can’t).

But the truth is, when I source clothing, it really does feel like I’m finding pieces that already belong to somebody. Sometimes it’s someone my age, who was there to see the item’s rise and fall. Sometimes it’s a Gen Z-er who prefers the older styles and cuts. When I find that person, and they are just as excited as I am, it confirms what I know to be true: I’m not the only one.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. I knew I wasn’t alone in my yearning for the Mall Era. I’m finding clothing for those like me, those who still search for the specific, iconic items that represented our place in the world - our world.

The Mall. 

Thank you for reading this far, all 2 of you. 

And thank you for visiting The Mall Vault. 

-Kady