A bigger girl in a vintage world.

“Why are all vintage clothes so small?”

“I wish I could wear vintage clothes but nothing fits me.”

“They were so small back then.”

If you frequent the social spider web of Insta and Tik Tok, you may have been affected by, listening to, speaking out on, or even ignoring the big conversations happening right now about the decline of body positivity. While trends these days change as often as we change our undergarments, the desire to be thin seems to be a persistent push in the world of fashion. I am a firm believer beauty comes from confidence. And confidence comes from security in self. Well…it’s awful hard to be confident when you’re constantly being berated for your looks — and that goes for people of all shapes and sizes. A thin person can face awful critism; “eat a sandwich”, they might hear. And a bigger person may be surrounded with images and ads of smaller people with captions like “ready to look this good?”. It’s no wonder we all feel less than. Speaking from experience, walking in to a store to see a million clothing items you love but nothing in your size is a feeling akin to being yelled at in front of all your friends at a party; in simpler terms, humiliating.

How does vintage play in to the mix?

Mid-size and plus size people have always existed. Keep in mind, we live in a world where sharing information is instant. Obviously, that was not the case prior to 1997. I have been in possession of hundreds of vintage/antique photographs ranging from 1850-2002 and I can tell you, people have always come in all shapes and sizes. So why are so many vintage clothes a size small? I’ve got several theories but one that I feel the strongest about. A good amount of people at some point in their life wore a size small. I wore a size small when I was 21 (but a large from 17-20) and now I wear 2xl. I’ve got friends that wear a size small now in their 30s but for most of their life wore a large. Some people stop wearing a size small in middle-school. Point being: most people are not a size small for the majority of their life. So which of my clothes will I wear the most? Of course the clothes that fit me for more of my life will have more wear and tear. And of course that is most likely the case for vintage clothing. The small sizes survived because more likely than not, they were worn less.

How do I hold myself accountable?

Being in clothing retail means I am a part of the narrative. I contribute to the “trends” whether I want to or not. I certainly do my best to find vintage in all sizes and keep prices fair. But a big reason I got so interested in creating new pieces from vintage and antique textiles is because there was never anything in my size. I want every human to feel confidant in my clothing. No matter what a tag says, they deserve to feel the way I see them: beautiful. I always aim to make a range of sizes and my favorite look is what I like to call “House-Elf Chic” — in other words, super baggy. I know it’s not everyone’s favorite and some beauty influencers interested in maintaining an anti-body-positive status quo will say baggy clothing on a bigger body is not flattering but I really don’t care. I love when an oversized piece can work for a size 2 or a size 18. I will be working this fall on many more pieces so be sure to be on the lookout for something that speaks to you. And if you don’t see your size, you can always reach out to us with custom measurements.

Moving Out & Moving On

Floating in the center of Turner lake on a paddle board my mom got us the previous Christmas, I sighed deeply as it had been the first time in months I felt relaxed. My husband, Elijah, could see the signs more clearly than I. For months, my days were filled with stress — waking up stressed, going to bed stressed; unable to hold a conversation without trailing off in thought of all the work I had waiting for me on Monday morning. While the sun beat down on us, no doubt giving Elijah a sunburn, he made his business proposal:

“What if you quit your job and opened your own store?”

Not more than four months later we opened our little shop in Salem, Oregon. Despite being relatively new to Salem ourselves, we were able to build a community of friends and felt successful in our new endeavor. As with everything in life, there were highs and lows and the lows were infinitely more stressful than any job I’d ever had but the highs were equally rewarding. 8 months in, our numbers were headed in the right direction; we were out of of the red, in to the black and on our way to the green. And then in June of 2023, our key demographic got bad news and everyone was forced to tighten the purse strings. Along with the bad news of student loan forgiveness being rejected, prices everywhere for everything started to go up even more and I was being stretched thin financially and emotionally.

After two and half wonderful years of ups, downs, new friends, beautiful finds, one broken wrist, and many hours of work, we made the decision to close the brick and mortar. Moving the store online meant a larger customer base, a third less work, and two thirds less cost. The night of April 14th, we laid in bed, tears streaming down our faces as we announced to the world, well, the world of Instagram, of our decision.

We spent the next month giving the best damn sale the vintage world had ever seen. After the sale, we spent three days packing up what was left and all my work materials which included six large boxes of all my fabric! Of course, I had broken my wrist the week before so poor Elijah had to do all of the heavy lifting all on his own. And then the real work began! Well…it began for Elijah…

We had talked about setting up the guest room to be a work space but I knew if I didn’t actually walk outside of our house each day, I would most likely slip in to a dangerous state of mind. With the help of one of our best friends (that we met through the store of course), Elijah built a beautiful studio in our backyard for me to work. (Shout out to Valley Carpentry LLC!) Here’s what Elijah has to say about the building process:

“I initially thought it was going to be a two week process because of all the projects we had done at the store and growing up with a dad who was a contractor, but as soon as I started the foundation, I quickly realized that part alone was going to take two weeks. But that didn’t keep me down! I had to work around the rain, or just be fine with having soaking wet shoes while trying to work. Unfortunately, I had to choose the wet shoes more often than not so I could get it built sooner. I went with a lean-to style because I knew it would look good and allow for more storage (we all know Allie NEEDS that storage). We wanted to use reclaimed windows and an antique door that had been part of the backdrop in our wedding so I constructed two walls without any windows and that was definitely the easiest part of the whole process. The other two walls took two weeks to construct to accommodate for the old windows and door. When you’re not a professional, it’s really easy to get quarter inch and three-quarter inch mixed up, so be careful. I made sure to use an insane amount of nails so that bad boy ain’t going anywhere. All in all, I am so happy I was able to provide this for Allie despite being so intimidated by such a big project. I think I did a pretty damn good job.”

So now I am all moved in to the studio and I’ve already made a huge mess with my current project. We are excited for what the future holds. We are thankful for the amount of support we have received. We hope you’ll continue to follow along as we navigate this new adventure.