Retro Revival at Girl Coded Vintage

Illustration by Jennix Bien-Walker

Six large windows with bubblegum pink trim cover the front of the store, displaying six personally styled mannequins. Metal clothing-filled racks, organized by item and color, line the perimeter of the store. It’s a far cry from her mom’s garage, where Chelsey López first began selling vintage clothes.

López opened Girl Coded Vintage, a Latina-owned clothing store that specializes in late 1990s and early 2000’s fashion, in January 2024. She first began her business in 2020, at the height of COVID-19, while she was just a junior in high school.

As classes moved online, López realized how much free time she had on her hands and needed something to occupy it. López and her mother decided to clean out their garage one day and realized the large amount of clothing that had accumulated there over time.

“My mom had suggested selling them online, and there were a lot of cute pieces in there,” said López. “I had found a bunch of her old clothes from the 90’s and decided, yeah, let’s try it out.”

López decided to make an Instagram account specifically for thrifting. From there, with the support of her family and close friends, Girl Coded Vintage was born.

“The girlies loved it!” said López while wearing one of her own curations: a long black, beaded skirt. “We ran out of things from the garage; it was completely cleared out.”

López’s thrifting account now has about 9,000 followers and supporters solely from the clothing she was reselling from her family’s garage. She decided to continue the upward momentum of her small business and began looking at different sources for clothing.

She visited different thrift stores around Long Beach and surrounding cities for unique pieces that fit her late 1990s to early 2000s aesthetic and eventually expanded her business from e-commerce to flea markets. Some of her pieces include velvet tank tops with lace straps, maxi skirts with beads and sequins, mini skirts of all different colors and flared low-rise jeans.

With the encouragement of colleagues she had met online, López started attending flea markets as a vendor and completely fell in love with it.

“You meet a lot of different vendors, and from there you all enter this kind of community, and you all grow together,” López said. “You see your supporters in real life; when you’re online it’s kind of hard. Like yes, they’ll message you and stuff, but it is not the same as seeing their live reaction.”

Wendy Rodríguez, a close friend of López for about six years, was a big part of her emotional support system through the growth and opening of Girl Coded Vintage. Rodríguez was there to offer words of encouragement through thoughts of doubt and lend a helping hand during flea markets.

“Her work ethic is very genuine,” said Rodríguez. “She is very outgoing and outspoken with her customers. She is willing to do anything if she knows it's going to help them.”

Through the flea markets, López began making personal connections with other small businesses. As demand increased, she had to start branching out to different vendors and wholesalers to curate items for her brand. López didn’t limit herself to just Long Beach; she has expanded to Southern California and even out of state.

“Recently, I went to Arizona to pick up some shoes because they were all vintage,” said López. “It’s everywhere; you really have to branch out; if not, you won’t be able to find enough stuff, especially for the store.”

Genesis Mata has been a customer of Girl Coded Vintage since López was selling clothes out of her family’s garage. Mata emphasized that she feels there is no other clothing store as unique and genuine as López’s.

“Chelsey does a really good job of finding things that are ethically sourced. They’re going to last you forever and are in style,” said Mata. “A lot of her pieces are super unique. They’re staples, but I’m not going to be able to find them, like at the mall or something. They stand out and are timeless.”

After nearly three years of saving up from every flea market she has ever attended, López signed a lease in December 2023 for her storefront located at 5470 Long Beach Blvd. While still attending flea markets and maintaining the store, López still has bigger plans for her business in the future.

“I didn’t want to work for someone else, pushing me to meet their standards,” said López. “I wanted to rely on myself and create my own schedule.”