about me

Hi hi!   My name’s Trish!

I’m a 28 year young Lady living the Vintage life in Melbourne, Australia.

My partner Gareth & I own a Vintage shop in Preston, Melbourne.

My blog is Trish Hunter Finds, which I have been posting for 5 years.

I post about the vintage things that I love, the vintage things I wear, vintage hairstyles, vintage events, friends, my dog Betty, and bits and pieces of treasure that I pickup along my travels.

I love to learn, teach and inspire which is why I surround myself in Vintage.
I have a great passion for blogging as I hope in each post, I can inspire my readers to love vintage too.
It’s the most amazing hobby and lifestyle to have!

I collect many things, from Vintage mannequins, Vintage clothing, Australian pottery by the company Ellis & McLaren, 1950′s Pixie figures, Vintage Hats, Cateye glasses, Vintage Interior & glamour books, and probably much much more.
It’s an addiction and I love it!

You can follow me on many forms of social media including my blog right here on this website!
But also on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Now, I of course want to tell you all a little about me and my vintage shops! (Yep, there’s two!!) And of course how I got to where I am now.

You may know me best as the owner of Melbourne’s travelling vintage caravan shop, however we’ve GROWN!! We now also have a huge bricks and mortar Vintage shop in Melbourne – We’re at 553 Plenty Road Preston! – Our shop is called ‘Hunter & Co. Vintage‘ And we’re open Fri-Sun 11-6pm! Come by some time!

It’s worth the visit as we’re at the end of a longggg strip of other vintage shops! And just past us is even a retro cafe! The perfect beginning or end to your vintage day!

But leave enough time to visit us, as our shop is deceptive! We look like a tiny shop front, however we actually have a huge 200sq meter two level shop filled with furniture, records, homewares, clothing, lights, art, collectables, pottery, glass, antiques, toys and gosh a bit of everything!

Find out more about us and where we’re located by clicking here.

I say ‘we’ as it’s not just myself that owns and runs the big ‘real life’ vintage shop!
My partner Gareth has been dealing in vintage for as long as I have, and moved over from Perth to open his own vintage shop!  It just so happens that he met me first which consequentially resulted in a fabulous mix of vintage tastes, and one amazing vintage shop!!

Here he is!

 

Here’s a little bit about my caravan shop!

The caravan shop is still available for hire for events of all kinds. And makes regular appearances at Hunter & Co. Vintage.

My caravan shop is a little bit different to most vintage shops we know and love!
See, the four walls surrounding my retro wares are not made of bricks and mortar, but the same plywood and aluminum that many of you have slept behind, snuggled up in sleeping bags, telling ghost stories and swatting mosquitoes.
Trish Hunter Finds, is located inside a converted retro Franklin Caravan – a vintage shop on wheels!

In May 2011, after a very long year in the making, I finally got to open my very own shop door, fold down it’s step, and open for business.
My travelling vintage shop would pop up at Camberwell Market every Sunday, but has now retired due to having our Melbourne Vintage shop! However it’s still available to be booked for events and functions.

 

If you can’t visit our vintage shop in Melbourne Australia, perhaps you’re in another state, or even overseas, NEVER FEAR!
You can still buy fabulous vintage clothing & collectables anywhere in the world at any time!
My online vintage shop is just a click away!  Right on this very webpage you can find a huge variety of vintag treasures that might be for sale in the shop.   And you don’t even need to get out of your pyjamas! Hooray!

Also keep in mind that we’re always buying and taking good quality items on consignment.
If you have something you’re ready to part with, contact Trish Hunter Finds!

 

The History of Trish Hunter Finds.

Since I was very young, I’ve always been playing shop, though I never treated it like a game.  I took it very very seriously.  It was business after all!
I remember reading a diary entry where I’d sold Dad a pet rock and I made a note saying “Reminder, get 25c from Dad” The next day’s entry was “Got my 25c from Dad”  So so serious.

I was doing anything and everything to create little businesses, from dog walking for $3 per hour, to holding market stalls selling beaded jewellery and doing wraps in other kids hair.

I remember in perhaps year 7, buying two garbage bags of books from the local opshop which cost me a whole $2, and lugging them up to the second hand book shop selling them for $40.
It was always all about business.
I always wanted to be a shop owner.

I began to take the idea seriously about 8 years ago.
I wanted to start a shop selling vintage band t-shirts with a cheap recording studio out the back.
It was about the same time that I began seriously trawling the Opshops finding cool things for myself.
It quickly got to the stage where I’d bought so much that I couldn’t move in my house.
The vintage band tshirt shop idea morphed into a vintage shop, and there the dream began to unfold.

Dreaming of owning a shop for my whole life, gave me a narrow view.
Every shop is in a building! That’s what you do, and that’s what I was aiming for.
I didn’t consider that there could be a different way to do things, which was very unlike me – I was always one to think outside the square.

So about five years ago, I finally had a lease for the shop I’d always dreamed about, in my hand and ready to sign, however in the end it fell through.
Being denied the shop of my dreams, though completely devastating at the time, opened my mind up to new things.
My narrow view widened.

I remember before I even had my drivers license, bringing up with a friend the idea of  selling out of a caravan, taking the shop with me everywhere.  That was kind of laughed off at the time, and forgotten about until…

I began to have regular market stalls, to clear out some of the vintage collectables and clothing that I’d accumulated over the years.
I did quite well.  So I had more stalls, and more!

It almost became a little shop!
I had regular customers, and I got to continue to do what I love which was to buy and sell, however there were flaws.
I was constantly being rained on, blown over and having stock get ruined.
I couldn’t do marvelous displays that I’d always dreamed of placing in shop windows, or dress mannequins in stunning evening gowns & fur stoles.

Then, that idea I briefly raised those years ago about the shop in a caravan was brought back and not laughed off.
See, I was trying to come up with ways to further my stall, and also still had the dream of having the shop in the back of mind, it became clear what I had to do – The shop in a caravan! Ding!

It’d literally be like a mini shop! It’d be lit up, I’d have display windows, people could walk in and browse my wares.
I’d have a cash drawer, tote bags, swing tags, mannequins to dress, It would really be a real shop!
It was genius!  But was it even possible?
I mean, it was laughed off for a reason last time.
Was it really that silly? Or was this another of my lunatic inventions that I would have dreamed up back in my childhood days.
After some research and forum chatting about the construction of caravans, I found out it could really possibly work!

From then on the Trish Hunter Finds caravan shop project was underway.
There were plenty of disasters along the way, dragging out the project for a whole year. (And I mean plennnnty of disasters.)
My Dad became the hero of the story.  He helped me create my travelling vintage caravan shop!

When I finally found the perfect caravan for the shop, (The third caravan in the story mind you,) we towed it back to Dad’s carport and began the conversion.

However it wasn’t like building something from scratch, we were dealing with a 40 year caravan that had lived outside and suffered all weather conditions.
There was a lot of restoration we had to do to the van before we could even begin the renovation, from treating & pulling out wood-rot, to rewiring, to replacing full side panels & floor.

We could then begin to plan, and start constructing the exciting bit: What was going back inside! HOORAY!
I loved sitting on the floor of a completely sad looking empty vintage caravan with Dad after a massive days work, looking around and imagining the dream.
I didn’t see rotten walls, I saw glamorous bright lit up shelves, I didn’t see holes in the floor, I saw checkerboard lino.

Then finally, in May 2011, I got to show off all of our hard work.
It was truly the best day of my life.
I was close to tears throughout the whole day.
It was completely overwhelming.
Seeing peoples mouths mime the word ‘Wow’ as they approached, meeting lovely people who were filled with compliments, but mostly watching people enjoy what I enjoy, and realise that something I’d been working towards since back when I was walking dogs for $3 an hour had come true.

I am a shop owner! Yeeee.

 

The Future of Trish Hunter Finds

I’m so very excited about what the future holds for Trish Hunter Finds.  There are a lot of ideas in the works and this is just the very beginning!
The online store is forever building, the real life bricks and mortar vintage shop of Melbourne is huge and ideas for that is still growing every day! Who knows where we’ll go next or what we’ll be up to but I certainly can’t wait!

Thanks for reading this novel of an about me!