The Hungover Empire concept began in the tiny city of Halifax, Nova Scotia during my two year stint there but has now become a reality in my home town of Winnipeg, Manitoba. The idea started off as an aspiration to re-administer pieces of my own giant wardrobe into the economy so I could keep buying new things to wear and ameliorate my personal clothing and accessory collection.

  The vast majority of items have been personally handpicked by me and are in essence, of my actual style which can be defined as anywhere between eccentric business woman and goth princess to tshirt&jeans lazyass and over-the-top barstar. The main concept is taking all the hard work out of buying second hand clothing. In other words, no clothing riddled in holes, stains or just pure ugliness (well, that last one really IS a matter of opinion), as well as the ever-important fact that everything in the store is fully laundered and absolutely does not emanate any type of musty vintage store smell, so everything is pretty much like new and can be worn right out of here.

  The exact style of clothing and target market can only be defined with much difficulty. For example, an eclectic array of 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and 00’s fashions from one extreme to the other, within the broad scope of alternative culture all the way to plainesque mall-wear. There is oldschool vintage straight out of 1970 right up to last season’s styles according to the fashion world, but according to which I do not allow dictatorship of what is in or out. Fashion according to me, is supposed to be a unique matter of opinion for everyone, not something which is declared and followed word for word like an ever-changing religion. We should be collecting and keeping the best we can find, rather than buying and throwing away the mediocre.

  In the spirit of vintage stores everywhere, no one is really going to ever get a real idea of what Hungover Clothing is going to be like unless they just come in and look for themselves. Also in the spirit of all things used, it’s recommended to keep coming back to see what is “new”. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say, and with new things coming in almost every day there is much to behold ;)

Diversity rules us all,

Melanie Regnier
The Empress
Hungover Empire Clothing and Publications