The Best Vintage Shops in Sydney, Australia

This place is as much a museum as it is an antiques store. Mitchell Road Antiques is just a short stroll from Green Square Station (and actually on Bourke Road, despite its name). Stepping into the warehouse easily feels like walking head-first into a Narnia-like world celebrating the quirky and nostalgic. “We try very hard to be quite diverse when it comes to what we have on offer, covering many eras and styles including antiques, industrial, mid-century and retro,” Lyn, the manager, says. It’s worth dedicating an hour or two to exploring as much of the (very Instagram-worthy) space as possible; among the array of antique furnishings and brilliant neon lights and signs it can be easy to overlook the hidden treasures and oddities buried among them, be it vintage bags, antique medicine bottles, tin toys and more.

Enter a time machine back to the 1970s and ’80s at this quirky Campbell St favourite, brimming with two floors of affordable fashion that your mum would’ve worn back in the day. Scour the shelves of retro handbags, second-hand heels, kitschy-chic accessories, and dresses that glitter with sequins – lots and lots of sequins. Shopping for a disco dress-up party? You’ll be sorted.

With its surf scene and laidback living, Manly isn’t where you’d expect to find a designer vintage store, but that’s exactly where Sammy & Sid has been operating for almost a decade. Owner Doriana has a background in fashion, and believes her love for beautifully made things harks back to watching her seamstress mother growing up. “I’ve always been around beautiful fabrics – it’s more the fabrics, rather than the labels or cuts, that catch my eye,” she says. “I appreciate the finer details and the time that goes into something really well made.” Sammy & Sid is a consignment store with items from acclaimed local and international labels. Each piece is carefully sourced by Doriana herself. “I do focus on designer stuff, but pieces that are a little bit different and that you wouldn’t normally find in Australia, that’s why I feature international labels too.”

It’s unusual for a second-hand store to be a franchise, but such is the popularity of UTurn. This haven to vintage wares can be found in Surry Hills, Bondi, Newtown, Marrickville and Rozelle. Here, the aim of the game is promoting sustainable shopping, so prices are reasonable for those shopping for a new wardrobe on a budget. Clothes and accessories are carefully sourced from local and international suppliers, so the quality is guaranteed to be good. Whether it’s something fun and fabulous (hello, ’80s windbreaker) or something more subtle and timeless on the cards, UTurn is bound to have it.

Located just off Oxford St, this is one of Sydney’s most eccentric second-hand stores. Storeroom buys, sells and trades clothes to cultivate a colourful collection of old-school kit that looks like it’s been lifted straight out of the 1990s. The huge range of oversized graphic tees channel every corner of ’90s pop culture from hip-hop and rock’n’roll to sportswear and surf style.

There are several things Newtown does well: tattoo parlours, vegetarian restaurants and bookstores. For bibliophiles after a souvenir they can read on the plane ride home, Elizabeth’s Bookshop is the place to go. This staple of King Street is a haven of pre-loved literature – and visitors are welcome to spend as much time as they like checking it all out. Find it hard to decide on a title? Try a ‘Blind Date with a Book’ – books wrapped in brown paper lie in wait on a shelf just at the entrance to the shop, their storylines revealed by a series of simple clues written on the outside.