Yalies FOCUS On Noir Vintage

Whether she was out in the city or inside her house, you couldn’t catch Evelyn Massey’s late great-grandmother Virgina Adams without a black dress.

“She just loved black dresses with everything,” Massey told a group of Yale freshmen visiting her downtown vintage clothing shop as part of a crash course in understanding what makes one local small business tick. ​“She would have on a sharp looking dress, some would have ribbons, some would have rhinestones, some would have pearls.”

Growing up alongside the influence of Adams, her grandmother Mallie, and aunt Patrica Adams, Massey said her interest in vintage fashion grew and led to the birth of Noir Vintage & Co last summer, as well as a special fondness for black clothes and accessories. 

She told this story to that group of Yale freshmen last Saturday at her storefront on 111 Court St. The students were a part of the FOCUS on New Haven, an orientation program aimed at directing first-year students around New Haven attractions and businesses, FOCUS leader Arielle Alouidor said. The program is organized by Dwight Hall at Yale Center for Public Service and Social Justice.

Lined up along Massey’s store’s brick walls are black and white photos, some of Massey’s family members and others depicting old movies and bygone eras. With ​“noir” being the French word for black, the name ​“Noir Vintage” is a subtle homage to her great-grandmother’s love for black dresses and her grandmother’s and her aunt’s love for vintage fashion. It also alludes to Massey’s own love for everything black, from black apparel to black and white films. 

Massey said that support from the Yale community has been a huge help for Noir Vintage over the course of its first year of being open for business. She said she’s been able to meet people from all over the country and world who come to New Haven to attend college. 

This marks Massey’s second year participating as a stop on the FOCUS program. After participating in FOCUS last year, Massey knew that she wanted to host more students a second time around. 

It was through last year’s FOCUS visit that she met Johan Zongo and Katelyn Wang, who are now Yale sophomores. Zongo painted a mural in Massey’s shop inspired by Harlem Renaissance performances, while Katie painted the skylight, following Massey’s instructions of ​“psychedelics” and a ​“1960s” theme. The result? Colorful walls filled with vibrant hues of orange, yellow, red, and, of course, black. 

Being a creative her entire life, Massey said the hardest part of entrepreneurship was learning the logistics and effectively delegating tasks, an obstacle she spoke candidly about with the students. 

“It’s been very challenging for a year trying to run the business, but it’s so freeing,” she said. ​“I love what I do. When you’re passionate, [when] you love what you do, it’s not that bad.”

The expansion and growth of Noir Vintage hasn’t gone unnoticed, with Alouidor, a senior humanities major, remarking on the changes throughout the tour.

“We stopped at Noir Vintage just last year, and that was one of the parts of the program that students have absolutely adored, so we definitely wanted to, if we had the opportunity, to come in and let everyone have a look around it,” she said. 

FOCUS leader Christina Norberg, a junior cognitive science major at Yale, also described having a great experience in the FOCUS program as a freshman. She decided that she wanted to give that experience to others and is now in her second year as a FOCUS leader.

“I’m from Florida and so coming up north and coming to New Haven, I didn’t really know anything about the area,” Norberg said, ​“and I felt like FOCUS was a really good orienting to what New Haven is like…It’s often described that FOCUS is the first course you take at Yale, and I really like that you’re able to teach the incoming first years about the histories [of New Haven] and about everything.” 

As they walked to the back of the store, the students were transported in time from the 1920s to the 1990s and 2000s, at least in terms of the design and vintage clothing on display.

Throughout the tour, Yale first-year Abyssinia ​“Aby” Haile, 18, stopped to flip through the apparel and offerings that caught her eye. A prospective major in global affairs, Haile said that she wanted to get more into thrifting and appreciated the FOCUS program for introducing her to thrifting locations. 

“I think a big aspect that I really like about FOCUS is that it touches upon the impact that Yale has on the gentrification of New Haven,” she said. ​“Once you move out of the Yale bubble, as they’ve been teaching us, I feel like it’s really important just to be able to see different parts of New Haven, and that knowing that New Haven is not just Yale, but it’s made up of so many different kinds of people and communities.”