Old Rags Spawn New Stores Boutiques Spring Up To Market Hip Vintage Clothing

Are you in the market for some leopard-skin pants, a bowling shirt previously owned by a guy named “Vern” or some grey nail polish called Smog?

How about a handbag made from an Arizona license plate, an orange vinyl miniskirt or a brightly flowered ‘70s frock?

Increasing numbers of Spokane stores are ready to fill your order.

At least six used and vintage clothing and trinket shops have opened in the past six months in Spokane, several close to each other downtown and on the North Side. Similar stores that have marketed funky retro wares for years say business gets better every day.

“We’re all tired of going to Seattle to shop,” said Brenda Bryan, who with partner Kandi Heyenrath, owns Garb-Age at 212 S. Wall. “I really have felt that Spokane is ready for this. Perhaps we’re catching up with some of the cosmopolitan places. Maybe we’re becoming a little more diverse.”

Vintage clothing, differing from plain-old used clothing, is representative of a past era, such as go-go boots from the ‘60s and ‘70s or letterman sweaters from the ‘50s. Some vintage clothing stores draw the line at ‘80s garments, but others refuse to sell anything less than 20 years old.

Many of the store owners say they’re answering a call from a new generation of youth who, imitating styles worn by their favorite bands, are buying into the new fashion craze.

John Swanstrom, who with his wife Heather owns Twentieth Century Trash, 506 W. Indiana, said the same thing happened when popular bands spurred the “grunge” fashion trend in Seattle.

“The grunge thing hit hard and people started wanting old clothes. Instead of just music, it became fashion,” Swanstrom said.

Grunge clothing - characterized by ripped jeans, flannel shirts and army boots - is different from vintage fashion, but both genres trace recent popularity to music.

Jack Kendall, owner of Funky Groovy Threads on North Monroe, agreed that music has prompted a new generation of youth who want vintage clothing.

“It’s trendy with the kids,” Kendall said. “Before it was mostly college. Now, it’s kids and college.”

Retailers have targeted high school and college students for years, but the niche is becoming more lucrative and drawing more specialists.

In 1994, teenagers alone spent $63 billion of their own money, said Peter Zollo, president of Teenage Research Unlimited, in the November 1995 issue of American Demographics.

Southern California-based Hot Topic, which has a location at NorthTown Mall, carries “music-licensed and music-influenced fashion for the MTV generation.” The company recently ranked No. 38 on Inc. Magazine’s annual listing of America’s fastest growing companies.

Among the most popular vintage items with high school kids, said Kendall of Funky Groovy Threads, are suede jackets with white stitching, bell bottoms, Levi 501s, corduroys and “anything with patches on it.”

“The kids don’t care about quality,” Kendall said. “They just care about looks. They think ‘60s and ‘70s is vintage.”

Another appeal is price. Most vintage clothing is affordable but not cheap. An old pair of jeans at one store goes for between $8 and $16, depending on the age, condition and brand. At another store, a miniskirt goes for between $12 and $14 and dresses are sold for between $20 and $30.

Hot Topic’s Chief Executive Officer Orv Madden said the company chose to expand in Spokane because they believed the alternative music roots of Seattle naturally extend to the Spokane market.

Spokane’s proximity to Seattle helps drive the demand for vintage clothing in other ways as well. Counting stores that have been in Spokane for awhile, there’s a total of about 10 to 12 vintage clothing shops in Spokane. That’s a dribble compared to Seattle, where dealers can’t stock the many competing stores fast enough. Dealers come to Spokane from Seattle to pillage vintage clothing stores for the fashions that are quickly snatched up on the West Side.

Most of what’s sold at Spokane’s stores is vintage or used. But some new clothing fits the fashion trend as well, such as leopard and zebra skin pants, or any clothing made from vinyl.

Bryan and Heyenrath’s Garb-Age has a whole different take on the fashion craze. They buy used clothing then put their seamstress talents to work “re-inventing” it. They recreate 80 percent of the clothing by taking something old and boring and making it into something new and hip. A full-length bright red lace dress with long sleeves and a high collar, for example, became a tight-fitting minidress.

“You can get a dress and a skirt out of an old muu-muu,” Bryan said. “We try to make a lot of things we would want to wear. Mostly, it’s kind of trendy and modern with a flare of vintage.”

Though Bryan and Heyenrath’s method keeps their expenses low in terms of fabric cost, it gobbles up their time. Their prices - about $15 for a miniskirt and about $25 for a dress - are based both on the cost of the fabric and the labor involved in transforming the garment.

But Garb-Age, like other vintage-clothing stores, doesn’t use a textbook to develop pricing or marketing plans. This is a seat-of-your-pants business.

Bryan and Heyenrath tag-team in running the store so one can wait tables at night and the other can do upholstery work in the mornings.

Few of the new merchants have been able to survive on their stores alone. Some new store owners say they’re just breaking even; others have begun to make a profit. Few are ready to quit their part-time jobs. Tera Bailey, owner of A Taste of Funk, 168 S. Madison, also works as a hairstylist and Josh Scott, co-owner of Time Bomb on East Sprague, also works at David’s Pizza in downtown Spokane.

When they’re not at their stores, or at their other jobs, they’re scouring the Spokane area, searching for vintage gems.

The search, in itself, can be almost a full-time job.

Store owners scout garage sales, yard sales and estate sales for quality garments. They comb the classifieds, looking for the right sales. They make the rounds of the used clothing stores and buy old clothes from people who bring it in. One of the most sought-after items: Levi 501 jeans.

Most stores also have regular “pickers” - people who scout the yard and garage sales looking for items on a list supplied by the store. They come in weekly and sell what they’ve found.

Many of the stores also sell jewelry on consignment or items made by friends. Some stores offer body piercings from time to time. Others sell aromatherapy oils or belts and necklaces made from hemp.

The owners of Garb-Age just discovered a line of makeup called Urban Decay from a Southern California company. Among the lip and nail colors they plan to stock are: mildew (green), ozone (white) and oil slick (black).

Despite the increasing number of stores competing for the same funky young consumers, store merchants are hopeful that they’ll all survive by honing in on a niche in the market. For example, A Taste of Funk carries more vinyl clothing than the other stores. Time Bomb, on East Sprague, carries vintage toys in addition to clothing.

“There’s definitely money to be made,” said Time Bomb co-owner Laurie Scott, 21.

A Taste of Funk’s Bailey, 23, recently discovered a company in Pennsylvania that creates items made from used car parts. License plates from California, Washington and Arizona are bent and hinged to form photo albums, journals and handbags. An old tire tube is used for the handbag strap. Old GTE seat belts studded with bottle tops become new belts, which buckle and tighten just like a seat belt.

“It seems like everybody’s got their own little niche,” John Swanstrom said. “Everybody’s kind of doing their own little thing. Nobody’s going to get rich off it.”

On the side, the Swanstroms also operate an export business, selling vintage clothing to five stores in Japan, where the style is booming.

Though Spokane’s stores compete with each other, they work together as well. A Taste of Funk, Garb-Age and Twentieth Century Trash held a three-way vintage fashion show at a North Side bar in December. Another is planned for February.

“The more stores like ours that open, the more people will be open to shop at them,” Bryan said. “I think Spokane is on the conservative side because cool fashion hasn’t really been available to them.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: VINTAGE CLOTHES CAN PAY DIVIDENDS Scouting for vintage clothing can be immensely profitable, says Doug MacKenzie, one of three owners of Drop Yer Drawers, which has two Spokane-area stores specializing in used jeans. MacKenzie tells a story of a woman who found an old pair of purple Levi 501s at a yard sale, in perfect condition. She bought them for 50 cents, and brought them to Drop Yer Drawers. Co-owner David Robinson was perplexed at first because although the label clearly said 501, there were only two buttons in the fly, instead of five. Robinson told the woman he’d pay her either $100 or half of the jean’s selling price. The woman shrewdly took the latter. In a book on vintage clothes, Robinson discovered that during World War II, Levi 501s were made with only two buttons to conserve metal. The jeans, made in 1942, were rare and valuable. They eventually sold to a vintage clothing dealer in Seattle for $800, half of which went back to the woman, who ended up with a $399.50 profit over her initial 50 cent expense. -Alison Boggs