Saturday’s Totally Rad Vintage Fest promises a blast from the past

Totally Rad Vintage Fest is taking Baton Rouge back in time with retro wardrobes and classic collectibles.

This Saturday, Totally Rad Vintage Fest will host a pop-up vintage market at the Raising Cane’s River Center, where customers can browse through decades of clothing, accessories, records, DVDs, toys, video games and more from local vendors and out-of-state sellers.

“We are a vintage festival that celebrates the raddest decades—the ‘80s, ‘90s and early 2000s. We like to say it’s the decades before the internet really took over. I think we’re all nostalgic for that right now,” says Sarah Emerson, co-founder of Totally Rad.

The event is based in Minneapolis but travels to over 40 cities every year. Emerson co-founded Totally Rad with her husband Andy and their friend Vinny in 2020 after all three were furloughed from their jobs. Founding the business gave Emerson the chance to not only explore her love of sustainable shopping, but also to share that experience with shoppers across the country.

“My love of vintage started through clothing and shopping more sustainably,” Emerson says. “That’s how I got into it, and we find that a lot of people find that as a great value at the show as well.”

Emerson says that, by far, clothing is the biggest seller at the show. Many vendors at Totally Rad specialize in vintage clothing, including ‘80s, ‘90s and Y2K styles.  

Louisiana brands including Crescent City Closet, Mecha Vintage and Mid City Racks will deliver on the classic graphic tee while vintage boutiques like Good Choices Co. and The Gilded Garden will feature more specialty items like denim, dresses and accessories. 

In addition to these Louisiana-based businesses, the show will also feature vendors from across the U.S. Emerson says that Totally Rad has a database of thousands of vendors from different states, with about a dozen who travel with Totally Rad to participate in the shows from city to city. “It’s a really great, eclectic mix,” she says. 

For Emerson, making sure that these vendors have a successful show is one of her top priorities. She says that seeing these sellers have a successful day is the most rewarding part of her job. 

“Watching a vendor who maybe took a risk on us, is just thinking about starting their small business, or their small business was maybe struggling before—when they come to us, do our show and then start to build a really successful business through the lens of our show, that is incredibly rewarding,” Emerson says. 

She also measures the success of a show through the customer experience. Part of what makes Totally Rad Vintage Fest so special is that it encourages people to explore their interests with collectible items and express themselves through unique fashion.

“They’ll come in, and they’ll see maybe something from a fashion era that they’ve always really liked when they were younger or saw people wear in the past and they’ve always wanted to try,” Emerson says, “and they’ll maybe experiment with fashion a little bit more and start to express themselves through vintage.”

Totally Rad Vintage Fest is also responding to people’s fatigue of the modern digital age with a celebration of what makes past decades so nostalgic. “I think with the culture of modern times right now—with computers in our pockets in the form of cell phones, [artificial intelligence] really starting to be a provocative thing online, and the internet being so intense for us all—I think we’re all craving in-person experiences, and we’re all nostalgic for a time before the internet was so prevalent in our lives,” says Emerson.

Totally Rad fully immerses guests in this nostalgia with the Rad Rewind Museum, which features relics from the past 40 years, including a display of notable cell phones ranging from the early brick phone to the modern iPhone.

No matter what era you’re after at the Totally Rad Vintage Fest, Emerson believes the best way to have a rad time is to come into the event ready to have fun. “If you’re planning on going to the show, my biggest recommendation is to dress up and to bring a big bag.”

Totally Rad Vintage Fest will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 29, at the Raising Cane’s River Center. Get tickets here, or for more information, visit the Totally Rad Vintage Fest website.