22 Year Old Flavia Minenza Is Pioneering A Radical New Trend In Fashion Shopping With Her Start-up ‘Thrifts By Flav’!
22 Year Old Flavia Minenza Is Pioneering A Radical New Trend In Fashion Shopping With Her Start-up ‘Thrifts By Flav’! A twenty-two-year-old Johannesburg woman overcame a personal tragedy and, partnered by Mall of Africa, is pioneering a radical new trend in fashion shopping – Thrift Retailing.
In 2018, Flavia Minenza, a resident of Kyalami north of Johannesburg and at that stage only 19, became interested in thrifting after finding a thrift store on Instagram. She then started her own thrift store, also on Instagram, sourced 10 jackets and sold them immediately. In this way, Thrifts By Flav was born. With a growing following, she expanded her range of products, adding items such as retro button-ups, corduroy jackets and reworked denim accessories.
Flavia says, “Sustainable purchasing is a significant worldwide movement where a new wave of environmentally-conscious consumers are looking to minimise textile and garment waste. In the local context, it’s also an opportunity to create employment in communities.”
Everything changes
In 2019, her mother fell ill while Flavia was a second-year commerce student at the University of Pretoria. For months, the close-knit family endured not only the agonising decline in the mother’s health, but also an unexpected cascade of subsequent financial difficulties. Then 2020 arrived and with it the Covid pandemic. Soon afterwards, Flavia’s perfect storm of challenges was complete when her mother passed away.
She explains, “In the middle of all this chaos in 2020 I had to decide whether or not to carry on studying. My sister Cara was already studying actuarial science and the financial pressure on our family was huge. Knowing that I would have to study online, I decided to put my studies on hold, allowing Cara to continue with her degree and in this way taking pressure off the family’s finances.”
It was a decision that would transform her life. “From my Instagram store I knew that high-end clothing items are effectively out of reach for many people. I also discovered that there are reliable sources of second-hand items in excellent condition lying unused in cupboards. Items like these, selling way below normal retail prices, are highly sought after by consumers, even though they may be second-hand. If I can reduce the price of a jacket from two or three thousand rand down to maybe five or six hundred, people will jump in. Apart from cost, this method reduces fabric waste and reduces its environmental impact,” says Flavia.
Exploring the retail option
As the online business grew in 2020, the idea of a retail store started to gain traction. “One of my mentors during this time was Rene Styber, a director of Rosh Pinah Properties and the mother of one of my friends. We looked at the idea of going retail in addition to online and Rene approached Atterbury and Attacq, asset managers of Mall of Africa, one of the biggest shopping malls in the southern hemisphere. Rosh Pinah also injected a small amount of seed capital.”
Director of Rosh Pinah Properties Rene Styber explains: “We are extremely grateful to Atterbury, Attaq and the Mall of Africa for being inspired to take on the Thrifts by Flav venture as part of their corporate social investment. As an entrepreneurial business ourselves, we believe we need to assist and support young entrepreneurs. This is our way of creating jobs – sometimes all a young person needs is for someone to believe in you and the sky is the limit.”
What followed is a story of self-belief, hard work and determination, underpinned by a remarkably mature sense of how to run a successful retail operation with little experience. With the support of Rosh Pinah Properties which supplied a small amount of seed capital, Flavia, her family and friends spent a frantic few weeks setting up the first Thrifts By Flav retail store in the Mall of Africa and its doors opened in late January, 2021.
In this way, Flavia’s Thrifts By Flav made history by becoming the first thrift store to open in a super-regional mall in South Africa.
Immediate success
“It has been beyond anything I imagined and I am amazed by how well we’ve done in the first few weeks,” Flavia reports. “Sales have been way better than expected. But I simply cannot do everything myself and some of my friends pitched in and helped out in the store.”
What next?
The young entrepreneur is not just sitting back and enjoying the fruits of her success. “Key to this business is sourcing quality items that can sell at discounted prices and I am expanding my reach to obtain appropriate stock. My objective is to continue offering quality garments at reduced prices while also minimizing the environmental impact of textile and garment waste.”
One source of product is right on Flavia’s doorstep in Kyalami. “I have discovered that there are women in the communities nearby with good skills in design and the ability to create fine clothing items from discarded materials. I plan to work with them to build a new range of locally made products that complement my existing range without reducing quality. This will ultimately provide much-needed economic upliftment in these communities.”
One thing remains clear. “I could never have done this without the support of my family and partners such as Rene. And the management of Mall of Africa has been brilliant, believing in this new little business and its inexperienced owner. I owe everything to these people.”
Well, yes. But small miracles also require inspiration, risk-taking and self-belief. Flavia’s story, birthed during the sadness of a personal tragedy and nurtured in a chaotic pandemic, says much about the quality of the human spirit and the ability of young South Africans such as Flavia Minenza to create radical new environmentally-friendly businesses, build wealth and create jobs in a challenging economic environment.
