T

he dimly lit secondhand clothes market on the second floor of Pasar Senen, Central Jakarta, was humid and warm, with only the occasional fan-generated breeze.

Sellers hawk their goods from their booths to passing customers by shouting their prices and verbally volleying with each other in staccato waves.

"Three for ten thousand *rupiah*! Three for ten thousand!" one seller shouted.

"One for ten thousand! One for ten thousand!" another yelled.

"Three!"

"One!"

"Threeee!"

"Oooone!"

The sellers rested after the climax of back-and-forth hawking, until another seller would trigger a new hawking match by shouting again.

Enduring the heat and the noise of the Senen market can be a rewarding experience for fans of vintage clothes.

For those who have an eye for picking out unique and stylish items from the plethora of clothes hanging or piled in the maze-like market, Senen's secondhand market is the place to be.

Around 500 vendors sell various items of secondhand clothing, including jeans, jackets, shirts, dresses, skirts, bags and even lingerie.

"I like shopping here because if I look around, I usually find something cute," university student Amanda Katarina said Tuesday last week.

"It's cheap here, and the quality of the clothes is still good," she said.

"Old clothes are simple and comfortable for Indonesia's weather. I like the floral patterns as well."

She bought a floral spaghetti strap dress Rp 25,000 (US$2.5).

The market on Tuesday last week was packed, with people walking from booth to booth, picking items from a pile of clothes, or haggling with vendors.

Collared-shirt vendor Anton said most his customers were women even though his items were meant for men.

"A lot of girls buy my shirts. They like the shirts with mixed patterns," he said, pointing to a shirt with a square pattern combined with dots.

Vendor Nita Eriani, who sells women's clothes, said that she had a regular customer whom she let sort out pieces the moment she bought the sack of imported secondhand clothes.

Her customers must buy at least 100 pieces for the special treatment.

"She laundered them and wrapped them in plastic and sells them at Pasar Baru," she said.

Pasar Baru also has a secondhand clothes market, but with higher prices as the clothes there have already have been sorted and cleaned.

The vendors buy clothes in sacks, which hold 400 items.

Anton said that the price of each sack varies from the contents. His was Rp 5 million per sack.

"I sell the clothes for around Rp 22,500," he said.

His first offer to customers though was Rp 35,000.

He said that the clothes were from Tanjung Balai, Riau.

"There are some people who sell the sacks in Senen as well, so we don't go there," he said.

Editor-in-chief of online fashion magazine fashionesedaily.com, Hanifa Ambadar, who owns vintage clothes shop Closet Quickies in Kemang, said vintage clothes were appealing as the pieces were likely to be one of a kind.

"There are clothes still in good condition from the 1940s and 1950s, which proves their quality and durability."

Mira Sirait, owner of the Heirloom vintage shop, agrees, adding some people liked a certain style from a particular era.

"And they can only get that with vintage clothes," she said.

Both Hanifa and Mira said that using vintage clothes prolongs the clothes' lifespan.

"It's more eco-friendly because you recycle clothes and you don't always buy new ones,' Hanifa said.

Mira said that to be able to put together the perfect outfit, one needs to be able to be creative in modifying the clothes afterwards.

"It's rare to find a perfect fit the first time from the market. One needs to have an eye in looking at clothes," she said.

"Sometimes, the length of the dress is too long, so we can shorten it. The sleeves are usually too long as well, we can cut them too."

Hanifa said that at her shop she provided a place for people to rid their closet from good-quality clothes that they no longer wore, as Closet Quickies also buys clothes.

"We would choose from a selection of prospective sellers' clothes, give them a price and then buy them," she said.

A customer once sold Rp 3 million-worth of clothing to Hanifa.