Rina Chia is the founder and owner of Take 2 Markets, an indoor recycled and vintage ‘fashion event’ which tours around Melbourne.

Rina initially came from a very different background, working as PA to the director of physiotherapy at the Austin Hospital. After she had her two children, she wanted to get into a business where she could work around her family, and had always loved fashion.

Back when Rina was a “poor, impoverished student” she used to scour op shops and vintage sales, which is where her love of pre-loved and vintage fashion began.

“Also my passion for being environmentally aware and shopping a bit more consciously as well,” Rina says.

When she did her research she discovered someone had already opened the market, so she bought Take 2 Markets from the original founder, just six months into the business.

It was originally set up as a children’s clothing market, so she re-branded the business, concentrating on women’s fashion.

“It’s creating a space where women are comfortable, safe, there’s change rooms, great bargains and it has all the fun of a market without being in an outdoor trash n’ treasure environment,” she says.

Rina says they get a wide range of people selling there, “Women who have eBay stores, online stores, vintage collectors, small production designers, so it’s a great outlet without the expensive shop front.”

The business has grown quite a bit over the past few years. Rina has marketed the festival to two L’Oreal festivals, plus numerous other fashion events.

As the market isn’t held all the time, Rina sees it as more of a ‘fashion event’, attracting high profile fashion bloggers, celebrity visits and the inevitable media attention that goes along with it.

Take 2 Markets is now pushing into regional Victoria, like Geelong and Bendigo, which Rina says are “largely ignored”.

In 2010 Rina won the ‘City of Boroondara Business Innovation Award’, which she says, “was a defining moment for me”… “Acknowledging that I’d innovated and added something to the market”.