Lifestyle
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure's joyous debut proves it was time for stale Splash Mountain to go
As we dip into the bayou, the scene before us feels a tad mystical, all glowing fireflies with hues of blue and purple seeping through the trees. While there’s a comfortably paced current carrying our log-carved vessels through the fantasy wetlands, what’s ultimately propelling us forward is the sound of music. In the distance we hear trails of zydeco, and as we come around a bend we’re greeted by an outsize, gregarious alligator, his welcoming green arms swinging to the tune.
“This zydeco band … can play!” says the gator, adding an excitedly drawn-out “hallelujah” for emphasis.
This is Louis, the friendly trumpet-blasting gator from Walt Disney Animation’s 2009 film “The Princess and the Frog.” Joining him is Princess Tiana, the entrepreneur turned musical archaeologist, dressed here in a regal but loose adventurer’s outfit. We can marvel at how human Tiana looks, with a carefully sculpted warm face and natural hair, or join in the festivities and smile at the band of critters — pay close attention to the rabbit playing a license plate as a washboard — swaying before us as we float by. Humor and friendliness abound in this invitingly good-natured attraction.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, the Walt Disney Co.’s replacement for its Splash Mountain log flume ride that was first announced in 2020, is at last ready for its closeup.
Princess Tiana is joined by a band of critters as she sings a song on Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
(Olga Thompson / Disney)
The attraction opens here at Walt Disney World at the end of this month, but it’s currently in previews. A mostly exact replica is coming to Disneyland later this year. Consider it a drastic tonal shift from Splash Mountain, as the themes of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure center around the communal power of music and food, focusing on how a song can bring together people from all walks of life. If Splash Mountain had the illusion of peril and danger — a rabbit being hunted by a fox and a bear — Tiana’s argues that a thrill ride, one complete with a 50-foot, soak-inducing drop, can be a jovial, celebratory affair.
Like any ambitious creative agency, Walt Disney Imagineering, the highly secretive arm of the company responsible for its theme park attractions, doesn’t always get it 100% right. But the company has arguably never miscalculated as much as it did with the creation of Splash Mountain, which opened first at Disneyland in 1989. Though the ride focused on animal vignettes and became one of the park’s most popular destinations, it could never quite shake its association with the 1946 film “Song of the South,” a work long decried as racist for its idyllic and romanticized view of slavery.
In 2020, amid a moment of cultural reassessment and nationwide protests following the killing of George Floyd, Splash Mountain came to be seen as a blight. Disney, citing the need to embrace an “inclusive” concept, announced that the ride would be rethemed to “The Princess and the Frog,” a film that starred its first Black princess.
It took 35 years, but the Walt Disney Co. has at long last rid itself of an attraction that was anchored to an embarrassing part of its past. With the launch of Tiana’s, Disney has chosen to give us a princess-based ride not driven by a head-in-the-clouds fairy tale but one that is instead framed as an American success story, as Tiana, now a restaurant owner, is expanding her empire with a food co-op.
This is a ride for our times, an attraction that argues that Walt Disney World and Disneyland, two of the most visited places on the planet, can not just reflect our culture or parrot back what we’ve seen on film and television but show us better, more cooperative versions of ourselves. While based on “The Princess and the Frog” and featuring reinterpretations of a number of its jazzy songs, this ride doesn’t go the obvious route of repurposing known scenes or villains from the film. Tiana’s instead opts for a more abstract, uplifting perspective.
It was a creative risk, and one that has inspired a fiery social media debate, at least if the more than 8,000 comments on Disney’s YouTube page are to be believed. But it’s also one that largely works. I’ve ridden the attraction twice this week, and here are my three main takeaways.
The exterior of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at Florida’s Walt Disney World, which is designed to represent a salt mine as part of Tiana’s food co-op operation.
(Olga Thompson / Disney)
A thrill ride doesn’t need to be tense
The genius of Splash Mountain, in my mind, has always been the track layout. Its narrative, which followed Br’er Rabbit and his attempts to live a life of bliss while eluding Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear, never really emotionally connected with me.
It’s relatively loose, as Br’er Rabbit was hunted simply for being a rabbit, and his attempts at adventure and exploration eventually resulted in him being bullied back home, albeit via a rousing finale that appeared to recenter Br’er Rabbit’s priorities around friends and family. And while there could be critters on all sides of us to distract our attention, what brought me back was the design of the flume, which took unexpected turns that seemed to hide its drops from view.
But in the moments leading to Splash Mountain’s five-story drop, Br’er Rabbit appeared to be in danger. Ominous vultures warned us of what was ahead and the soundtrack turned foreboding. It created a taut moment before we were launched into the briar patch below and Br’er Rabbit could hop to safety.
Tiana’s opts for a significantly different vibe. Mama Odie, the magic-wielding swampland elder from “The Princess and the Frog,” appears to whisk us to a Mardi Gras celebration as the upbeat and bouncy “Dig a Little Deeper,” a song about learning to be true to one’s self, plays around us. We go up the lift swaying, and the hope is that we go down it swinging, in the musical sense of the word. In theme and amusement park design, it’s generally been believed that such thrill-inducing moments need to instill a sense of fear. See, even, the skeleton pirate warning us before a dip in Pirates of the Caribbean.
But Disney in recent years has been attempting to reinterpret how a ride system can be used. When reimagining the fraught elevator drops of The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror into Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout at Disney California Adventure, for instance, the sudden lifts and nosedives were played more for laughs to match the zaniness of the franchise. Likewise here, Tiana’s tale is framed as a story of strength, positivity and perseverance, and Imagineers, even in this ride’s most thrilling moment, aim to heighten those traits rather than interject any more trauma into Tiana’s life.
Charita Carter and Carmen Smith, the two core Imagineers who led the project, spoke with me about toying with people’s ride expectations and opting to avoid any sense of danger in the attraction, which is set about one year after the events of the film.
“One of the things that we thought about was that this particular flume configuration has always been a rite-of-passage type attraction for young kids,” Carter says. “And when you think about Tiana and everything that she brings to the table, when she’s inviting and welcoming and wanting everyone to participate, we thought by celebrating [the drop] and making it a fun challenge, we were opening it up to a wider audience.”
Adds Smith, “When I think about the dip drop, with most people there’s a lot of apprehension, and we wanted people to feel a sense of celebration. When you’re on the ride and you’re greeted by all these incredible musicians, you’re in a very different state. What this dip drop does is say, ‘We’re on our way to this party, and we’re going to get there as fast as we can.’ It is a rite of passage, but you’re going to this moment, to this place, to be at a party.”
Emotionally, after riding through a cavern featuring a frog-led band with a firefly chorus, all creating a rousing, sing-along take on “Dig a Little Deeper,” the mood is one of pure uplift. If you’re taken with the music, the drop is one to be greeted with open arms.
All new critters were designed for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, including this musical frog.
(Olga Thompson / Disney)
Atmosphere matters more than plot
Splash Mountain, to be sure, was beloved, in large part due to its bevy of animatronic animals — a tally said to have topped 100 at Disneyland, many of which were rescued from the 1970s-era America Sings attraction. At the time, it was noble and efficient, a way to preserve Disneyland’s history while giving many of its historic audio-animatronics a new home.
In turn, Splash Mountain had plenty of details — possums, bees, turtles, owls and more, many of them caught in mischief — to entice us. Once inside the mountain, there was action on nearly all sides of us, including above. Animals sang, played instruments and avoided the rain by sitting under psychedelic mushrooms. Splash Mountain had a dedication to old-fashioned Disney craft, one that put an emphasis on feeding us dioramas rather than a plot.
Tiana’s takes an even lighter touch to theme park narrative design, as the story push is simply going on a journey in search of bayou musicians. Tiana’s features all new animatronics — 19 original critters and 48 animatronics in total, according to Disney. That figure includes multiple renditions of Tiana and her friends, including, in the finale, Charlotte La Bouff, Prince Naveen and others. They are all a joy. Louis, for instance, is striking, a technological creation that looks cartoonishly plump and pillowy rather than reptilian and scaly, a hand-drawn design now a tactile, real-world presence.
Ardent defenders of Splash Mountain will argue the animatronic number is significantly lower, and therefore the spacious show building feels less populated. That wasn’t my sense, in large part because the new critters are framed as relatively big set pieces. As we traverse the flume, any stretches without a major show scene become a chance to luxuriate in the wilderness atmosphere, watch the digital fireflies sway as they lead us on the journey or take in the joyous, jazz-leaning pop. The twilight nature of the lighting creates a fantastical atmosphere that makes this water ride feel somewhat cozy.
Additionally, the advancement in animatronic technology ensures that Tiana’s requires multiple rides before you spot all the details. The zydeco band is a delight, with details in not just what instrument an animal plays but how they play it. A beaver’s tail creates a rhythm on the deck and an opossum has a bass fashioned out of a gourd.
Things get weirder and more delightful with a bobcat and bear band, where instruments are fashioned out of logs and vegetation, and later some Afro-Cuban frogs jamming out with acorns. Here, story-wise, we’ve been shrunk down to the size of a frog by Mama Odie, and while placing guests in oversize environments to make them feel small is a bit of a theme park cliché, I’ll let it slide because the human-sized flowers and mushrooms enclose us as if we’re in a snug nightclub.
There are hidden tales throughout, including nods to how humans are affecting the natural environment. See, for instance, an otter whose fiddle looks composed of a paint thinner can and bottle caps. And that says nothing of the in-story radio in the ride’s queue, which features new, vintage-style arrangements of music from New Orleans.
Tiana’s is completely vibrant in its approach to sound. “That’s what New Orleans brings to the world,” Carter says. As various musical styles ebb and flow into one another, this fictional bayou feels fully alive.
The magic-wielding Mama Odie sends guests off to experience a 50-foot drop on Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
(Olga Thompson / Disney)
Theme park stories matter
Any change to a Disney theme park brings with it complaints. These spaces represent American myths and stories, shared among generations. A Disney park is not just a collection of intellectual property, even if it is sometimes treated as such by its corporate handlers. There’s simply too much history in these spaces, and lands such as New Orleans Square at Disneyland, the bulk of Epcot’s internationally focused World Showcase or Animal Kingdom’s representations of Africa and Asia help connect these tales to our lives outside the park gates.
Individual attractions, too, are representative of the era in which they were born, but unlike a film or a television series, a theme park is a living space. To expect the narratives of an attraction to remain fixed in time is to be wedded to a form of sentimentality. We visit theme parks to share and partake in stories, because stories are how we make sense of the day and our lives, and those stories should adapt to our changing culture.
Splash Mountain, of course, isn’t the first time Disney has tinkered with an attraction due to outdated cultural representations. Pirates of the Caribbean has received multiple updates, most recently one that removed a bridal auction scene in which women were relegated to property. Disneyland, which soon will turn 70, ultimately serves as a reflection of American pop culture, referencing our history with nostalgia while consistently challenging itself to reflect modern views.
And the culture eventually would catch up to Splash Mountain.
Times articles from the late 1980s cited Disney representatives already trying to justify the attraction, noting that it would skirt controversy by focusing solely on animated scenes and would avoid any references to the Reconstruction-era South. But even at the time of the ride’s opening, “Song of the South” was in the Disney vault, kept out of movie theaters and, eventually, off of streaming platforms.
But what was once a tale of a bullied cartoon rabbit is now a ride that serves as an ode to community, to a culture and to a region. Smith says she had long dreamed of bringing Tiana into Disney’s theme parks via a ride, and in 2019 began to fine-tune a potential story with then-Imagineering creative executive Bob Weis.
“I looked at it as an opportunity to tell a story that I think every young girl, young boy, mom and dad, and their parents could enjoy,” Smith says.
“For us,” Smith continues, “it is a love letter to all of our audiences. We see you. We hear you. We want you to be with us. This character is so worldly. Tiana is a princess, but yet she’s an entrepreneur. She’s a doer. She’s a dreamer. She’s all these things. We just felt what a great opportunity this was to give people a celebration.”
It is, essentially, the first thrill ride designed to feel entirely like a party. One could call it a splashing success.
Correspondents of CBS’ 60 Minutes pose for a portrait in 2023. From left to right, they are Sharyn Alfonsi, L. Jon Wertheim, Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley, Cecilia Vega, and Anderson Cooper. Former Executive Producer Bill Owens sits on the far right. Only Wertheim, Whitaker and Stahl remain at the program.
CBS Photo Archive/CBS via Getty Images/CBS
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CBS Photo Archive/CBS via Getty Images/CBS
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When CBS fired Scott Pelley on Tuesday night, the new 60 Minutes executive producer, Nick Bilton, told Pelley it was for insubordination at a staff meeting the day before.
The veteran correspondent argues he was defending the DNA of 60 Minutes and the integrity of its journalism.
The battle royale over the network’s most prestigious and profitable news program is part of a broader fight over the direction of CBS News.
And given CBS’s acquisition by a billionaire family whose business interests have become intertwined with the political interests of President Trump, it reflects a larger war over control of the media in the current moment.
That father and son, Larry and David Ellison, bought CBS’ parent company, Paramount, last summer. In January, they became co-owners of TikTok’s U.S. operations. Now they’re seeking approval from Trump’s regulators to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN.
A glamorous show shorn, for now, of most its stars
CBS fired Cecilia Vega, a correspondent, and Tanya Simon, the executive producer, from 60 Minutes last week. They are shown in this photo at the 2026 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on April 25, 2026 in Washington, D.C.
Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images/Variety
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Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images/Variety
But the specifics of this individual episode matter — for 60 Minutes, CBS, its audience of millions, and even the news business itself.
The program has been the most glamorous post in broadcast news. The correspondents are the stars of the show. And now, there are just three of them.
Anderson Cooper left last month, concerned over the direction of the network’s coverage. Last week was a virtual bloodbath: correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi were fired. So were a producer and two show executives — including Tanya Simon, a longtime staffer who had stepped up as executive producer when her predecessor resigned in protest before the Ellisons’ takeover.
With Pelley’s ouster, only correspondents Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and Jon Wertheim remain. Now they are considering whether to resign, according to two associates with knowledge.
Their brand-new boss, Bilton, was previously a tech reporter for The New York Times and an investigative reporter for Vanity Fair. He executive-produced a documentary for Netflix about a couple accused of laundering Bitcoin and has been a producer on several other films.
Notably, he has no experience in television news.
Neither does Bari Weiss, whom David Ellison installed as the network’s editor in chief last October. The Ellisons also bought her center-right views-and-news site, The Free Press.
She has maintained that the network of Walter Cronkite needs a makeover for the digital moment. She has also contended for years that CBS, along with the rest of mainstream media, is too reflexively anti-Trump, anti-Israel, and too woke.
A rejection of CBS News executives’ overtures
The new executive producer of 60 Minutes, Nick Bilton, has been a tech journalist and documentary filmmaker, but lacks experience in broadcast news.
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
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Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
Bilton attempted to set a conciliatory tone at Monday’s meeting — his first with the show. Pelley, a formidable veteran correspondent and former CBS Evening News anchor, wasn’t having it.
Pelley called Bilton unwelcome and unqualified. And Pelley said that Weiss was attempting to “murder” the program.
In firing Pelley on Tuesday, Bilton said the journalist had hijacked the meeting and rejected overtures to work constructively through their differences. (NPR obtained a copy of the firing notice.) Bilton wrote that Pelley’s “antipathy to the future of the show came through loud and clear.”
In his own statement late Tuesday evening, shared with NPR, Pelley accused CBS’s new news leadership of killing 60 Minutes‘ DNA and pushing him “to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story” and “to include assertions that are unverified.”
The accusations, to which CBS has not yet responded, echo those made by Alfonsi and Vega, the two correspondents fired last week.
Earlier this year, Alfonsi publicly complained after Weiss held one of her stories at the last minute, and kept it frozen for weeks, demanding an on-camera interview with a Trump White House official that never played out. It ran, unchanged from the intended version, with additional statements from the administration tacked on to the end.
After being fired, Vega said in a statement obtained by NPR that her team had “experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories.”
“Let’s call this what it is: censorship, both censorship and self-driven” Vega continued. “It is dangerous for the show and dangerous for democracy.”
Weiss previously rejected Alfonsi’s and Vega’s allegations. (CBS said Vega’s claims, for example, were “not based in reality” while expressing appreciation for her work.)
Weiss and Bilton say digital threat requires a 60 Minutes overhaul now
In a meeting this morning, Weiss said that Pelley chose his own path — that is, to be fired rather than to find a way to work through his concerns, according to attendees. The network and Weiss have not yet publicly addressed Pelley’s accusations of interference.
Bilton and Weiss say they respect the show’s traditions, its accomplishments and its legacy of enterprise reporting, extended interviews and visual storytelling. It rose in the ratings 9% over the past season under Simon.
The two news leaders say, however, 60 Minutes needs to be overhauled before it becomes increasingly irrelevant in the era of streamers and other sources of news, information and entertainment in the digital age.
Interviews with 12 current and former CBS News staffers, from producers to executives, suggest great reservations and suspicions remain about Weiss’ judgment and her ability to handle the prominent and even famous journalists on whom her division relies.
Weiss had initially sought to reinvent the CBS Evening News, dropping a two-anchor format that had sagged in the ratings. Cooper turned down Weiss’ overtures to anchor it and left the network altogether, concerned about her approach, according to associates. (They spoke on condition of anonymity because Cooper has not chosen to speak publicly on the matter.)
David Ellison became chairman and CEO of CBS’ parent company, Paramount, after buying it last year.
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Noam Galai/Getty Images for Paramount/Getty Images North America
The ratings have continued to sag under new anchor Tony Dokoupil. And some CBS journalists, including producers who have left the Evening News, have publicly accused Weiss of making editorial decisions driven by politics. She has rejected those claims.
The decision to take on overhauling two key shows — one listing, one highly profitable, both high profile — carries significant risks for Weiss and the network, even apart from other considerations.
But the Ellisons’ presence cannot be ignored.
When Shari Redstone was negotiating the sale of CBS’s parent company, Paramount, to the Ellisons’ Skydance Media last year, the network announced the end of Stephen Colbert’s late night show. He had been one of the president’s most biting and acerbic critics.
David Ellison also made a series of concessions directly to Trump’s chief broadcast regulator, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, gutting CBS’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and appointing a conservative ombudsman to field complaints of bias against its news reporting.
Carr and other regulators approved the Paramount deal last summer.
The accommodations echo those made by other media titans.
Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos remade the editorial pages of the Washington Post, which he owns, into a far more hospitable zone for Trump at the outset of his second term. So did Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a noted medical device inventor. Amazon and Blue Origin have multi-billion dollar contracts with the federal government. Soon-Shiong’s medical research firm routinely has patent applications up for review with federal regulators. One was approved Tuesday.
The Ellisons are hoping to win approval from federal regulators next month for their purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery in a deal valued at more than $110 billion. It would include Warner Bros. Studio, HBO and CNN, among other properties.
As Weiss routs CBS News’ old guard, the question of what role she might play at CNN — and what changes that portends at CBS — hangs over journalists at the two networks. The fate of 60 Minutes serves as a high-stakes case study for both.
Lifestyle
Vintage-obsessed millennial parents are driving L.A.’s booming kids’ clothing resale market
Kids’ vintage clothing sales are experiencing a remarkable boom at in-person markets and online, where prices for clothes for little ones have shot up on websites including Depop and Poshmark. Millennial parents are looking to outfit their kids in the clothes and TV and film characters they loved (or coveted) when they were kids.
The result? There’s a new generation of kiddos hitting the playground looking incredibly cool. Take Amari Case, a SoCal toddler who spent a Sunday afternoon this spring ambling around a vintage market in a West Hollywood warehouse clad in baggy jeans and a ’90s-era tee emblazoned with the “Dragon Ball Z” character Son Goku.
When she wasn’t scribbling on a Lorax coloring sheet, she’d been cruising around the market with her dad, Aaron Munoz Case, snapping up new pieces destined to make her the flyest kid at the preschool playground.
Neil Wright, from left, Kristine Nite Scalzo and Brandon Rosenblatt, co-founders of Elemeno Kids Vintage Market.
Showing off Amari’s new vintage satin L.A. Raiders jacket and tiny teal Grant Hill Detroit Pistons jersey, Munoz Case, who was also impeccably dressed, noted that while Amari went through a phase at about 18 months where she wanted to dress herself, eventually she gave up and went back to letting her dripped-out dad dictate her wardrobe.
Munoz Case found Amari’s first vintage piece at the Rose Bowl Flea Market and got the bug, going back every month to pick up something to add to his little’s wardrobe.
Trendspotters and researchers say Munoz Case isn’t alone in his quest. The market for kids’ vintage clothing has heated up precipitously over the last few years, perhaps hitting a boiling point in January when an Eeyore romper from the ’90s sold for over $3,000 on EBay. (It was new with tags, but one without tags still went for almost a grand about a month later.)
The thirst for tiny throwbacks is so popular that first-ever, all-kids market Elemeno — named after the “L-M-N-O” bit of “The Alphabet Song” and where Amari was toddling and shopping — drew 17 vendors and over 2,000 attendees over a single weekend in March. (There are plans for another Elemeno Kids Vintage Market pop-up later this year in New York, as well as plans to bring the event back to L.A. sometime next year.)
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1. Cameron Scalzo, wearing a vintage McDonald’s T-shirt from the ‘90s, and mom Kristine Nite Scalzo. 2. Cameron Scalzo rocks an Avirex jacket from the ‘90s.
Eye Speak Vintage’s Kristine Nite Scalzo, who co-organized the event and is opening an all-kids vintage store in Pasadena this month, says she fell under the kids vintage spell in 2020 when she was pregnant with her son. She’d always been a vintage shopper for herself, so she knew she wanted to pass the passion down to the next generation. She started filling up her son’s closet, and soon enough, she found herself selling her other finds out of a bodega in her garage.
She has a by-appointment space in Pasadena now, where she draws everyone from Rihanna’s stylist to out-of-town moms who make a point to stop by on their way to Disneyland. “The community around kids vintage has really skyrocketed on Instagram over the past six years,” Scalzo says. “We want to know who we’re buying from. We want to know that we’re doing good with buying secondhand. And it’s a hobby for people that can turn into a possible business on the side. Because knowing there’s a big group that’s interested in vintage kids clothes, you can always pass an item [your kid outgrows] to someone else or resell it.”
Scalzo says some parents are out digging through bins at the Goodwill Outlet looking for the perfect piece, while others are content to pay up for, say, a ’90s Simpsons T-shirt or a mini-size Harley-Davidson jacket. Scouring the racks at the Elemeno market, most pieces cost $15 to $40, though there were special pieces pulled to the side in some booths with price tags that could make a parent’s eyes pop. (Think $275 for a set of well-worn Spider-Man overalls from the ’00s or $150 for a pair of Cross Colours denim shorts from the ’90s.)
In kids and adult vintage alike, mint condition is highly valued. No matter the era in which they were raised, kids tend to be messy. They get strawberry juice on their shirts or scuff up the knees on their Bugle Boy jeans. Vintage kids clothes that look pristine are more expensive, and while plain kids clothes do sell, items with characters on them or cool prints tend to draw more attention and dollars.
Brandon Rosenblatt, another of the Elemeno organizers, says he’s had his eye on a specific kids “Back to the Future” shirt for some time, but notes that it typically sells for about $1,000. He’s partial to McKids clothes for his daughter, from McDonald’s short-lived kids clothing brand, noting that he’s even snagged her a vintage official McDonald’s-themed aloha shirt from Hawaii, something he says he’s never seen anywhere else.
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1. Siblings Amora and Milo Castilo wear vintage cowboy hats, jackets and chaps. 2. Thalia Castilo and her kids Amora and Milo.
Other collectors, he says, might be a little less obscure, leaning into mainstream characters such as Strawberry Shortcake or from ’80s and ’90s properties including “The Land Before Time” and “Rugrats.”
“A lot of millennials are having kids — like everyone who’s in their 30s and 40s — and they all want to put their kids in the same IP they grew up in,” Rosenblatt says.
“It’s the thrill of the hunt that gets everyone so excited,” Scalzo says. “Once you find that perfect nostalgic piece, you’re like ‘Holy s—,’ and you just want to chase that feeling again and again.”
Mia De La Rosa, a reseller who was at the Elemeno market, says that like Scalzo, she started buying kids vintage clothes when she was pregnant with her daughter, Liv, who’s 6 now, very into everything on PBS Kids and has a closet full of thrifted vintage garb covered in characters such as D.W., the annoying little sister from the ’90s show “Arthur.”
Everything Liv wears is “completely her style,” De La Rosa says. “She dresses herself every day and she gets compliments on what she’s wearing at school all the time.”
Other vintage-wearing kids — and in particular younger ones — might simply be sporting what their parents like or might just like the look of the shirt even if they don’t know what it’s advertising. (An 8-year-old boy at the Elemeno market, for instance, chose to wear a pristine T-shirt highlighting the ’90s Jim Carrey movie “The Mask” because it featured his favorite color: green.)
Derrick Broaster, a vintage enthusiast turned full-time reseller, says that while he chooses to put himself in clothes from the ’60s and ’70s, he outfits his two sons in clothes from the 2000s. (“How Bow Wow used to dress when he was a kid,” he says.)
Although his younger son tends to rebel against Broaster’s vintage picks, opting for whatever Spider-Man shoes happen to be in his eyeline, his older son has leaned in, letting his dad advise him on what vintage pieces could work and what would be the most stylish.
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1. Julian, left, and Javier Gutierrez show off their vintage clothing. Javier says his mom always tells him to keep his vintage outfits clean. 2. Mom Priscilla Guzman, clockwise, Dad Javier Gutierrez and sons Julian and Javier Gutierrez enjoy the vibe of vintage clothing. Guzman says she’s been buying and selling kids’ vintage since her oldest son was born eight years ago.
Rosenblatt says a good portion of what vintage finds he sees in the market now has returned to the U.S. from places in Central America and South America or Asia where those pieces were likely sent decades ago after they were donated or given away.
“There’s a real underbelly of this vintage game with rag houses getting access to bulk product overseas and letting people sort through it,” he says. “There are companies now that rip through 20, 30 or 40,000 pieces of vintage clothing a week. It’s a really interesting ecosystem.”
For many kids vintage sellers, finding their stock is just as fun and interesting as getting it back into consumers’ hands. “Anywhere we can find clothes, we’re there,” says Matthew Carlos, owner of Long Gone Youth. He started selling vintage clothes 11 years ago, when he was 15, switched to kids vintage at 20 and has spent the last six years scouring flea markets, websites and swap meets.
“The kids market is definitely growing,” he says, “but I still feel like we haven’t even gotten close to where we can go. It’s just getting popular now, but the more events [like Elemeno] we can do, the more it’ll go mainstream.” Even now, some major brands like Gap and OshKosh B’gosh have recognized the interest in some of their styles from the ’80s and ’90s, moving to re-release the looks in limited runs.
Jackie and Frank Oropeza with daughter Rumi Mae shop at Elemeno Kids Vintage Market.
Kids resale is also leaning into streetwear culture. Rosenblatt, who worked in the streetwear industry, says that he’s noticed that a good portion of those interested in kids vintage — particularly, male shoppers — tend to be fans of streetwear brands like Supreme, Fear of God Essentials and Bape. At Elemeno, for instance, a good portion of the parents we saw pushing strollers were well-dressed dads seemingly on solo missions, something you don’t always see at kid-centric events.
“I just want my son to feel like I did as a kid,” said Justin Nguyen, while watching his toddler, Jayden, play with bubbles. “I want him to be happy, carefree and joyful, and I want to be able to spend time with him. My mom and dad were always working, even on the weekends. Now that I’m a dad, taking my son out on weekends to do stuff like this just seems like a blessing.”
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Miami, FL2 hours agoPatients left scrambling for care after Miami-Dade woman accused of operating an unlicensed surgery recovery center
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Boston, MA2 hours agoClover plans to reopen some locations after sudden closure, thanks to an anonymous investor
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Denver, CO2 hours agoNew report finds Denver metro home buyers and sellers experiencing ‘unattainability fatigue’
