Karen Ponzio Photos
Todd Lyon get a leg up on the big move.
Like the vintage wares it has been selling for over 15 years, Fashionista Vintage and Variety will be continuing on in a new way and space: 85 Willow St., to be exact.
The beloved shop closed its doors at the corner of Whitney and Trumbull last week. It will be moving its abundance of top hats, taffeta, and everything else to its new home in the MarlinWorks building in East Rock this week.
“We couldn’t be happier,” said Todd Lyon by phone, right before diving back into the packing and cleaning mode she and partner Nancy Shea have been in for the past two weeks. Lyon credits Adam Gregg of O,R&L Commercial for helping them with “this little miracle.”
“Our realtor did it in warp speed,” she said. “We were so on edge and he went for it.”
The new location on Willow Street.
Lyon described the 1,230-square-foot space, a former frame shop, as “a very simple layout” with wood floors, high ceilings and a “whole bank of windows that open” facing Willow Street. “We feel like we belong here. It feels like a loft space,” she added — quite the opposite of the Whitney Avenue location, which was known for its turns and twists into tight and often surprising spaces.
Windows, windows, windows.
That former home became the center of a whirlwind of activity over the past two weeks as the partners advertised a sale on social media, also asking friends and fans of Fash for help in packing up and cleaning out by the end of July. But up until Thursday of this past week, Lyon and Shea did not know exactly what was in store for them.
They did know that business proceeding through the time of quarantine would have to adapt. That included online sales, which they had already begun to operate through eBay and Etsy stores back in March, when they first shut down due to Covid-19 restrictions.
The new location “will not be a regular retail store,” said Lyon. She added that they will be focusing on “rehousing” their merchandise for the time being, eventually getting into more invitational and private shopping as well as elevating their online presence and delving into more vending.
“We can have booths at flea markets and do pop ups,” said Lyon. “We want to bring our goods to the people.”
And the people want their Fashionista, as was evident this past week when shoppers old and new descended upon the Whitney Avenue store in response to the social media announcement of its closing. That annoucement also brought out a cavalcade of well wishes and revisited Fash memories from fans near and far.
Local musician and longtime Fash supporter Brian Robinson — performing currently as Brian Ember and also of the band Tet Offensive — showed up there for the second time in a week last Sunday. We reminisced about our outfits for his video for the song “Our Friends Don’t Know” —filmed at Cafe Nine back in February — which we both procured at Fashionista, his on rental, mine from my own Fash-packed closet. Robinson also picked up a box of matching vests and ties he hoped to use with his band for a coordinated performance at some point in the future, though he lamented a pair of loafers previously owned by the legendary Kid Congo that did not fit him.
Nancy Shea and those loafers,
Shea showed those loafers to me this past Thursday as she packed up the footwear in the back room.
“They’re called Roman moccasins, but he bought them on tour in France,” Shea said. She noted that Kid Congo was one of the people who had reached out to her and Lyon to say thank you and wish them well in the future. She also spoke of her years in this business and the changes that had happened in that time.
“I never thought I’d be in the vintage business. For 30 years I was an environmental planner doing heavy duty government work. I loved it, but I feel like I’m doing way more for the environment now selling vintage clothing. I’ve been spewing this stuff for 40 years,” she said with a laugh. Then she noted in a more serious tone that secondary to oil, clothing is the most polluting industry there is.
“Wear used stuff, people!” she said.
Shea has been working toward increasing Fashionista’s online presence since the Covid-19 imposed closings back in March and is hopeful for the future changes she and Lyon are implementing. “We both believe retail as we know it has changed forever,” she said. “Shopping online and private shopping will be the way to go.”
Sace Moretti and those boots,
Soon after Shea said this, a shopper who saw a pair of boots that had been posted online and had gotten quite an enthusiastic response showed up in person to purchase them. Sace Moretti procured the “sparkly boots” decorated in a David Bowie theme as Lyon announced to him, “you may have been our very last sale,” high-fiving the happy customer.
But “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” she added, and she was correct. Soon after that sale, she and Shea received word that the lease for the new space was happening.
Todd Lyon Photo
Rose Martin helps with the windows facing Trumbull Street.
Friends and customers continued to reach out and assist them that day, including artist Seth Callander, Lyon’s old friend — “emphasis on the old,” he said with a laugh. He sat in the front window breaking down the displays. Over the next two days, more came through to assist in the cleaning and packing, including Rose Martin, who took to washing off the lettering painted on the windows facing Trumbull Street. Once the lease was signed on Saturday, they switched into overdrive to get it all packed up and ready to move to the new location on Monday.
This reporter did her part shopping over the course of two visits for an abundance of pieces, including a flowered slip I had coveted for years, and not one, but two caftans, one deep turquoise blue covered in dragonflies and another a tie-dyed mint green. Lingering among the soon to be emptied racks and and taking time to read the tags that accompanied each piece, with their lovingly written stories and descriptions, I found it easy to remain hopeful that Lyon and Shea, who had created a community as well as a place of commerce, would continue their own stories elsewhere.
Lyon noted that they would begin moving into the new space immediately, but wanted to be clear that “it will be a while before we’re open for visitors.” She promised that Fashionista would be keeping everyone posted of its goings on and the retooling of the business model on Facebook and Instagram.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us,” she said. “It’s been an ever-evolving action story. For us, we were hanging on pins and needles. It was a real cliffhanger.”
Follow Fashionista’s Facebook and Instagram pages for further information about future plans for their new space. Select merchandise will continue to be available via their eBay and Etsy pages.