We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kim Plasencia . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kim below.

Hi Kim, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

I was working full time for another small business owner driving back and forth from Fort Worth to Dallas everyday constantly feeling like I could be doing more with my time, effort, everything. I got pregnant with my son and everything changed for me. I decided to start curating collections with vintage pieces I’ve been collecting for years.
I worked for a little bit on my own side hustle while still working full time until I had a little money saved. I finally felt like I could take the risk and go full time with it and I did! It’s had its ups and downs over the last 10 years but I’m so glad I did take the risk. Totally worth the reward!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m Kim Plasencia owner of Wild Rose Vintage. My love for vintage started when I was pretty young I’d say.
My mom has always been a huge antique collector and I guess it just carried over to me naturally. I have always felt pretty passionate about shopping sustainability/ secondhand any chance I can. I had so many pieces of vintage I had collected over the years, I decided to downsize my collection and from there it just really took off and I found my calling.

I’m a mom to two beautiful kiddos and I want my kids to see my hard work and determination with my business. I take my kids thrifting, estate sales, antique malls, you name it. Being a working mom is hard work! I want my amazing customers to know how much all of their support helps my family more than they know. I have a lot of customers that are moms and I hope they find my shop relatable. I wish more shops with kiddos shared their working day by day. Shopping small is the future!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

For me social media has been a huge back and forth battle. I have to remind myself that my worth isn’t defined by likes, follows, engagement, etc.

Some days you have a post or reel that you spend hours photographing and editing..you post it and it gets barely any engagement on it?! I think it used to just make me feel so defeated and trust me I still have my days. I think I’ve just accepted the algorithm for what it is. I try my best and have my bubble of vintage loving folks that appreciate (and see my page) that keeps me going.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

Not only do we sell vintage clothing, we also have a curated selection of locally handmade small batch pieces available in the shop. I put an ad out on indeed about 5 years ago and found my seamstress Maria there. She’s out in Prosper TX so we meet up at her house and do pick up / drop offs of vintage materials for clothing. We’re super small , running things out of our homes. She is a professional seamstress with 20+ years of experience and I’m VERY lucky I get to work with her! She’s a small business owner/mom as well so getting to support her business as well makes it all so worth it.

I have had a lot of learning to do when it comes to sewing products, pattern making, buying materials. It’s just always evolving and I’ve finally learned how much time it takes to produce handmade items. The entire process is slow but very rewarding!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thewildrosevintage.com
• Instagram: @wildrose_vintage
• Other: Etsy:www.etsy.com/shop/wildrosevintagegoods

Image Credits

Taken / edited by me