"I love telling a story and I love hearing a story and I love learning," professes Sean Wotherspoon with signature passion. "I feel like vintage and second-hand product has that depth to offer." The conviction of his words has long been mirrored in his actions. After thrifting a 1992 Polo Bear tee shortly after finishing high school, Wotherspoon developed a self-professed "obsession" with understanding the roots of his favorite clothing. He's since turned that studious zeal into a fervent livelihood, flourishing as a designer, curator, and collector. Central to all three roles, he is a fierce ambassador of vintage clothing's ability to communicate both where we've been and where we're going. In his role as co-founder of the pioneering vintage clothing company MNTGE, he is now unveiling the collective's most coveted drop to date. A museum-grade assembly of preeminent Japanese streetwear from the turn of the millennium, the archive exemplifies the inextricable link between fashion's rapid evolution and its past. As Wotherspoon states definitively, "Japanese streetwear started the fashion world as we know it today."
While Wotherspoon's design skills and authoritative insight has long been sought by everyone from Nike to GAP (he serves as Global Vintage Curator for the latter), his work with MNTGE represents a unique foothold in the vintage space. Co-founded alongside serial entrepreneurs Brennan Russo and Nick Adler, their work is pointedly tech-leaning for a community that Wotherspoon recognizes as being typified by "sellers at flea markets and guys who owned vintage stores like I did." Resellers clamor to feature in MNTGE's slickly produced social media content, their collections proudly embrace blockchain technology via scannable tags, and the founders' collective business acumen represents a singular opportunity. As Wotherspoon explains, "What's interesting about vintage is it's a huge market, we're talking billions of dollars in market cap, but nobody really owns that category at a high level of production. I've never seen such a valuable category where the market share is owned by so many smaller companies. What we're working towards with MNTGE is to say, 'Hey, we're going to bring you what you know about vintage clothing. We're going to bring you these markets, we're going to bring you these drops, but we're going to do it at the level of a company that's raised over a million dollars.”
