Sammy Vaillancourt, a second-year studying corporate innovation and entrepreneurship and psychology, views fashion as more than a way to express yourself, but a means to leave a positive impact on the world.
When asked to pinpoint the beginning of her love for fashion, Vaillancourt recalled a memory of when she began dressing herself around the age of five, accessorizing with her dad’s ties and loving the freedom and creativity it allowed. However, like many young teenagers she lost touch with her artist self and relinquished her bold, unique look for a trendier one she believed would help her fit in.
In high school, Vaillancourt began developing her own sense of style inspired by other’s closets and the unique stories behind them — and just like that, her love of secondhand clothing was born. Deeply contrasting her style from elementary and middle school, she became exclusively interested in wearing things others were not. Finding pieces that she had never seen before inspired her to keep thrifting and striving to be different.
The biggest part of coming into my personal style and revisiting art was putting myself above my limiting beliefs. You must believe in your work and give it the benefit of the doubt. I instead tuned into what made me feel inspired — creating art and expressing myself through fashion.
While many felt trapped during the COVID-19 quarantine, Vaillancourt flourished, finally having time to explore and better understand her wants and needs aside from those around her. As she found happiness in creativity once again through modes such as painting and graphic design, she decided to launch her own business, Von Vintage, focused on secondhand clothing and promoting sustainability.
Von Vintage sells sourced clothing from various places — her favorite being from people willing to open their closets and donate their old clothes they would otherwise dispose of. Valliancourt searches up and down the East coast for unique, vintage pieces and revamps basics people would usually look past.
Von Vintage is Vaillancourt’s passion project and she donates the majority of her profits to charity. She looks at the store as the perfect opportunity to do what she can to give back as a typical “broke college student,” and searches for various humanitarian causes to donate to such as those in Ukraine and The Trevor Project. The whole purpose of Von Vintage is rooted in the same humanitarian spirit as Vaillancourt’s passion: to raise awareness about the vast amount of clothing waste in landfills and poor working conditions for those in factories of fast fashion companies.
There are currently twenty tons of clothing waste every year with eleven tons ending up in landfills. I strive to make an impact even in a small way to hopefully lead to making a major impact overall. Barely any clothing is recycled or reused and it is so important to me to end the negative stigma around doing so.
While Vaillancourt’s main passion is for fashion, she keeps herself busy with various hobbies and organizations from leading meditation hikes for the Penn State Outing Club, serving as THON Chair for Women in Business and letting her creativity shine through painting and photography. She is currently in the process of creating Smeal Queer Business Innovators, a club meant to create a space within the Smeal community for LGBTQ+ students to come together and discuss humanitarian and environmental issues — this would be the first type of organization of its kind. She also enjoys traveling, meditating and spending time outdoors, finding it important to prioritize balance among her many responsibilities.
After Penn State, Vaillancourt plans to continue promoting secondhand clothing use and sustainability, whether it be through Von Vintage or other ways, especially in the high fashion world. She wants to show people you can look just as good in secondhand clothing and how easy and accessible it is to find these sustainable pieces. Whether she is an employee or business owner, she hopes to never stop creating change and encouraging those around her to do the same in being more aware of humanitarian and environmental issues.
In three words, I would describe my fashion style as bold, original and me.
Thank you for this article! There are a lot of cool images to update your wardrobe!
Thank you Sammy, I really liked your article!