It happens at least once a year, sometimes more frequently. It starts with you looking for your Horrorpops t-shirt. You go through your closet, pulling out piles of jeans, t-shirts and long johns. You know it's in there somewhere, but you can't find it. Instead you find your ex-boyfriend's socks, a ridiculous torn top proclaiming you're on a pub crawl, and a pink-and-silver striped cardigan you haven't seen in six years (and wish you hadn't come across now). By the end of this useless scavenger hunt, you know it's time. You call your friends (who, curiously enough, often have coinciding cases of losing favorite clothes into the seething black hole that is one's wardrobe), and set a date. And before you know it, you're hauling numerous blue Ikea bags of stuff into a tram at a ridiculously early hour on a Saturday.
This is what i found myself doing not too long ago. Bleary-eyed, tired as hell, i got off the tram at Valtsun kirppis, looking like a deranged bag lady suffering the after effects of a previous night's drinking. Which was more or less the truth. I blow on my fingers, which, in fingerless gloves, are already blue. Hoisting the bags higher on my shoulder, i venture into the building and find our table.
Valtsu flea market, at Vallilan Makasiinit, is the biggest flea market in Finland that's open all year round. On the weekends, it's a hub for peddling grannies, vintage-hunting fashion-aficionados, thrift-store-favoring students and seedy old men on the lookout for back issues of porn mags (okay, maybe i made the last one up. maybe not. whatever). The premise is to get there as early as possible, with as much stuff in tow as you can manage, and leave in the afternoon with as little stuff and as much cash as possible. For some reason, what frequently happens in my case is that i end up going home with no money, but just as much stuff. (new stuff, tho. or other people's old stuff, but still.) Which is pretty much what happened this time, too.
This time, i managed to get rid of some of the ugliest shoes i've ever owned (with the added bonus of the lady who bought them being over the moon with her purchase), some really awful clothes (a black top, curiously rubber-looking from afar. And up close, too, actually.) and some jewelry circa 1999. What i managed to find for myself was way cooler: a black tie and pearls, a very Kurt Cobainy grunge dress, and the perfect smoothie glasses.
I think i went home with about a tenner in my pocket, while my good-spirited, amicable and easily-approachable friends sold item after item, pocketing some serious coinage. So on my part the money-making goal wasn't quite realized. Neither were my well-rehearsed, fool-proof sales skills and marketing techniques or pleasant demeanor. Ladies, the boozy, blue-fingered, haggard-looking bag lady would like to offer an apology. Next time we do this, it'll be a sunny summer day and we'll be by the seaside, at Hietsun kirppis instead. Where bag ladies (and other folk) can counter last night's drinking with ice cold pints from the restaurant terrace just meters away. Ah.
Valtsun kirppis at Vallilan Makasiinit on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 9-15.
Book a space online here. Prices about 26 euros per day.
