Fresh threads Downtown vintage shop offers up sweet fashions piping hot, fresh from the dryer By: Ben Waldman Posted: 6:00 AM CDT Monday, Jun. 15, 2026

In a sartorial era defined by the destructive environmental impacts of cheaply made, microplastic-laden garments, two Winnipeg clothing entrepreneurs are taking fast-fashion competition to the cleaners one cycle at a time.

Every week, Cholo Barachina and Carj Delera pack several trash bags full of hand-picked, second-hand garments to wash, dry and fold before rebagging and tagging each piece to retail at Clothing Bakery, their Exchange District storefront at 70 Arthur St.

For the two Filipino businessmen, most Monday mornings — the shop’s one-day weekend — are spent at Blondies in the Maples: crisp clothing doesn’t happen without frequent visits to their old neighbourhood laundromat.

“It’s insane how interesting a Tide pod is to us,” jokes Barachina, whose family ran an industrial laundry in Cabuyao Laguna before moving to Winnipeg. “We just switched over to the XL and all we do is smell the clothes once they’re out of the laundry. That’s no lie.”

Since opening their bricks-and-mortar location in 2023, Clothing Bakery — along with West Broadway’s Chips Vintage, true-vintage neighbours Vantage Vintage on Albert Street and the 468 Main St. quartet of Archival Studios, Rewind Vintage, Aged & Faded and Eric’s Objects — has risen to the top of a new class of Winnipeg merchants dedicated to the slow fashion movement.

Clothing Bakery, which began in 2018 as an Instagram e-tail operation, is based out of the former Silpit Building. Since its first sales, the shop has expanded from nostalgia-core sportswear brands such as Starter and local favourites Woody Sports into outerwear staples such as L.L. Bean and motorwear brands such as Harley-Davidson.

After outgrowing a pair of rented racks at the Collab Shop on Albert Street, Clothing Bakery — whose name is a throwback to the Graham Avenue shop Urban Bakery — was connected to a 600-square-foot space on King Street by former Winnipeg denim seller Yehuda Tcherni.

That stint was short-lived, as increased post-pandemic demand for quality second-hand goods had kept pace with Delera and Barachina’s ballooning stockpile.

“Sourcing inventory was one thing I highly considered before opening this storefront, because I noticed the popularity of thrift shopping was growing at the time,” says Delera. “That’s great, right, but at the same time, the local sourcing became a challenge.

“We want to be a sustainable business, so we’re a buy-sell-trade. I would say that between 10 to 15 per cent is brought in by locals and maybe another five per cent comes from (our personal collections). For example, when I’m doing laundry, while the clothes are drying for an hour, I might go to Value Village, the Good Will or Salvation Army to round out our inventory.”

About 80 per cent of the business’s market inventory comes from a Toronto wholesaler, says Barachina; the bulk of that business’s stockpile is recycled into bedding and other textile-based products, with vintage retailers picking through the mounds to find resellable garments.

The pair has developed strong relationships with a national network of like-minded shops across Canada.

Delera and Barachina say they’ve noticed since opening that customers are becoming more intentional with their purchasing power.

“I remember in 2022, people tended to see vintage as buying a graphic tee,” says Delera, a member of the Filipino Business Council. “Something that’s loud and out there. But now we’ve noticed that more customers are buying vintage for their essentials. I feel like it’s more incorporated with their lifestyle now.”

As the business seeks to expand its brick-and-mortar footprint — the owners say they’re interested in opening a second location for warehousing and retail purposes — Delera and Barachina, who once ran an Instagram clothing page called Torn Patches, are also considering further investment into their e-commerce side.

Currently, about 95 per cent of the shop’s net sales are drawn from in-store transactions, which are made by a combination of regular customers and some high-profile pop-ins like Filipino recording artist Zack Tabudlo, Winnipeg Sea Bears athletes and Vancouver indie rockers Peach Pit.

But most customers don’t get a glimpse at Clothing Bakery’s buns before they come out of the oven. Every garment in the shop is pulled piping hot from a king-sized dryer, hand-folded like a babka and served up in the Exchange District in a brown bag to go.

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