Cult. Circuit #006: New Market Value-Sydney’s Pop-Up Markets Have What You’re Looking For.
Earlier this week I helped friends of mine set up and manage a stall in Glebe Markets, the flea market at Glebe Public School. It was 5 of them selling clothes they didn’t wear anymore or had been wanting to get rid of for a while; they thought it could be easier and a lot more fun to sell them in-person than online.
The goal was to at least break even on the stall fee, then make some money to spend around the market. Talking to a few one-dayer shopkeepers, it’s a popular formula, and makes you both a buyer and seller. It was really cool, the cycle of money getting shared back into the micro-economy of the markets when you spend your earnings on new finds, basically trading your old clothes for new (old) ones. It was liberating, like everything we needed was right here.
My friends had been allocated a spot in the car park with the other one-day pop-up stalls; it was a shanty-town collage of white fold-out tables and standing Kmart clothes racks against black asphalt. It would’ve looked drab or even a little bleak if not for the colours of the clothes, jewellery and trinkets, overflowing from each stall like tropical birds perched on felled birch tree trunks.
Glebe Markets is held at Glebe Public School, where brick murals, evergreen trees and groomed hedges make it feel like you’re in a cottage town or plaza. Our shanty town adjoins the main market area, where you find the resident shopkeepers posted every week. It’s a crawl of mini-pavilions, sturdy racks, carpets, mirrors, selling vintage, designer, thrifted and handmade fashion; handmade jewellery and artworks, vintage cameras, woven between small staircases, bricked passageways. In the corner by the grounds’ fence, a town-square opening shaded by fig and jacaranda trees is guarded by the food market; tandoori chicken, churros, paella, fresh lemonade, gözleme. There’s even live music colouring the breeze in Glebe’s Eden.
The fact that it IS really at a school is always more comforting than I expect it to be. Some of the sitting benches are markedly under-sized and windows on the sides of the main buildings are a little lower than usual, but it doesn’t feel cramped, it feels cozy - A feeling you don’t get outdoors. It’s Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley; the Portobello Road in Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
Throughout the day (between shopping and snacking), I interviewed browsing guests for Base-Cast Street. Watching them back tonight, I love how different everyone is. There are PLENTY of jokes and stereotypes about the type of person who frequents flea markets (Glebe especially). This person probably collects vinyl records or CDs, wears thrifted clothes, and drinks way too much coffee. If you know me, I’ve described myself a little bit, BUT, if anything, this is the exception that proves the rule – Flea Markets like Glebe are for EVERYONE. You’ll meet people visiting for the 1st or 101st time, potentially even crossing state lines. At another visit, I met a shopkeeper selling handcrafted lamps, who’d made the drive up from Melbourne just for Glebe.
I could go without saying (but I won’t) that flea markets support small businesses as directly as you can possibly get. Whenever I buy something, I get to talk to the shopkeeper and hear about why they do what they do. The more I think about it, the more I think everyday commerce in general should get back to its peaceable roots.
THE CIRCUIT.
If you haven’t checked out a flea market yet, want to make a day of shopping that’s from your phone or looming department store, or looking for something to try with the special people in your life, trust me on this one – make it a market day. If you have a mountain of clothes ready for Depop or to shill to your friends, same tip – go direct-to-consumer and you won’t want to go back.
FIND WHAT’S IN STORE.
Paddington Markets – Saturdays 10 am - 4 pm.
A personal favourite, Paddo Markets has hosted shopkeepers, artisans, and DJs since 1973. Monthly pop-ups, large-scale vinyl record fairs, bakeries and stalls of all kinds can be explored across the grounds of Paddington’s historic, sublime Uniting Church. It’s easily accessible by the 333 city bus.
Manly Markets – Saturdays & Sundays, 9 am - 5 pm.
Your weekend market haul and beach-view scenic stroll are waiting at Manly Markets. Sydney’s premier seaside bazaar is open on Saturdays AND Sundays (I guess it’s just that good). It’s a perfect beach day out to warm you and your calendar. Accessible by car, bus or ferry.
Glebe Markets – Saturdays 10 am - 4 pm.
Our headliner of sorts. A locally canonised cultural hub, come for handmade apparel, fashion, jewellery, bric-a-brac, stay because you realise it does actually live up to all the hype, and leave with new friends and a primal desire to come back soon. Bus-accessible, or a stroll away from Broadway Shopping Centre, near Central Station.
Inner West’s living music organism, Lazy Thinking, will return. In this issue of CULT. CIRCUIT, Joseph shares his clinical one-on-one with CEO Jim Flanagan on the mechanisms behind Sydney’s independent music scene.