Moda vintage exclusiva en Murcia

A Burberry tailored blazer, sold at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York more than 20 years ago, as its label indicates, can now be found in Cartagena. Garments from Dior, Fendi, and other luxury brands, carefully selected by Oana Dimitriu, can be found in her shop, Odra. This small boutique, located at number 40 Carmen Conde Street in the Ciudad Jardín neighborhood, sells vintage clothing and accessories.

Her space, with its distinctly Baroque style, is like stepping back in time to a 19th-century Parisian salon, where books also play a central role. The decor changes with the seasons. Each garment is carefully placed and cleaned. "Even if it's secondhand, it's well cared for because these are pieces that someone once owned, and now you're marking their journey. I clean them, disinfect them, and pamper them."

Oana, who has worked in the luxury sector for brands like Yves Saint Laurent, has spent 25 years acquiring the garments she now sells, collecting stories in the form of textiles. Those displayed in her shop are just a fraction of the more than 20,000 pieces she keeps in two warehouses, which she uses to supply her business.

In addition, Oana knows each one of them, she knows what brand they are and where she acquired them, like the Charleston-style bejeweled dresses from the 1920s that she has on a rack in the shop window: "I bought this Audrey Hepburn in Paris," she says while showing a short dress covered in navy blue and silver beading.

There are other garments to which she has added her personal touch, such as a white leather jacket that "has a story, because it's half made by the brand and half made by me," having added more studs to the back and arms, following the original design. She also makes custom choker-style necklaces with pearls, cameos, and velvet.

However, her passion for vintage clothing stems from her childhood. "I grew up without clothes," she summarizes. Oana explains that during her childhood in Romania, she began by cutting her mother's curtains to make her own clothes. Then, "trucks would come from abroad with secondhand clothes, and poor children would give them to us. At the time, it wasn't well-regarded, but I got used to those clothes and continued that routine because it made me unique."

It was at that moment that she realized that "even though I was the poor girl, nobody had what I had because all the clothes came from abroad," and she understood that each of those garments was special. "From the age of 16, when I earned my first salary, I said, 'Now I'm going to collect vintage clothes, I'm going to make myself unique because of that.' I started working and everyone else went out for beers or to parties, but I always had an excuse to look for where things were being auctioned or where there was a second-hand market in cities like Madrid or Barcelona."

Now, he plans to expand his business and also sell men's pieces that "my cousin is sending me from Japan; I'm going to make a very nice men's clothing rack before summer, with very special garments like t-shirts from the 80s and 90s."

To start his business, he initially relied on the help of his brothers, but they eventually withdrew from the project, and he decided to go it alone. "They discouraged me; they didn't understand the project and that I had everything ready. For me, this has been my greatest achievement." To get his initiative off the ground and everything up and running, he locked himself in the shop for two months until everything was ready to open.

Vintage clothing and accessories boutique in Cartagena

“The Opinion of Murcia”

Vintage luxury arrives in Cartagena