The sun shone on a lawn full of tents, clothes and dozens of customers. Music blared throughout the market as one woman quickly filed through racks of graphic T-shirts, hoodies and jeans. Another waited for her turn to get her teeth bejeweled, and a third gazed at vintage watches.
For two Saturdays this October, over 40 vendors, diverse in skill, trade and style, came together at Time Out Market to sell their goods. At the heart of these vintage markets, one main focus among the vendors was to build and foster community.
Select Markets, the group that hosted the events in Fenway this past month was founded by students Joaquin Crosby-Lizarde and Josh Maizes. Crosby-Lizarde grew up in upstate New York before attending Northeastern University. In Boston, he and Maizes noticed a business opportunity.
“I spent a lot of my high school years going to New York City, and there were events like this [one] going on all the time, [and] just a more thriving, vibrant fashion scene,” Crosby-Lizarde said. “I really didn’t think there was much of a fashion scene or community here.”
Crosby-Lizarde organized a small market two years ago for fun. Later, he and Maizes decided to host more events and put more effort into their idea, creating Select Markets. They ramped up their promotional advertising, and they now have over 21,000 followers on Instagram.
“The main idea is we want to give young people a place to sell clothes, meet like-minded fashion-interested individuals and just develop the fashion scene in a sustainable way,” Crosby-Lizarde said.
The development and strengths of the market’s community were noticed by vendors. Vendor and caricature artist Victoria Chanthaseng creates stylized five to seven-minute drawings at the market.
“My favorite part about participating in the markets is meeting the new people and actually interacting with them,” Chanthaseng said. “I feel like [you hear] many people’s different walks of life and it’s just fun to know their experiences and connecting with them.”
At the market on Saturday, Oct. 12, nanny and vendor Bruna Barbalho stood behind a table nestled between racks of clothes and covered in vintage watches., helping interested customers.
“It’s nice to see that something you picked out, that you personally liked, someone else likes it too,” She said. “You get new customers face to face, right away.”
As Select Markets nears its official one-year anniversary market, they’ve received over 1,200 applications from vendors like Chanthaseng and Barbalho, allowing them to be selective. According to Assistant General Manager of Time Out Markets Meghan Murphy, these carefully chosen vendors, the diverse perspectives they bring and the kinds of interactions the markets enable them to have, make working with Select Markets so fantastic.
“We have people who come from LGBTQ and all sorts of different backgrounds and areas. They’re all local. They get to set up and sell their things and speak to people,” Murphy said. “I think being able to provide that space and support them, they can support us, support each other.”
According to Crosby-Lizarde, Select Markets has been able to extend feelings of support beyond the events it organizes. Since that first small market opened almost two years ago, Select Markets has seen the growth of a tight-knit community.
“From when we first started until now, there’s so many people who we’ve seen develop friendships outside of the markets, and we’ll see them posting together or doing stuff together,” Crosby-Lizarde said. “I think that has been the best part of it, just seeing how people engage with the market themselves and really create these friendships and these bonds that travel outside of the market.”
