Halloween isn’t quite here, but for Va-Va Vintage owner Megan Everett the fun already has begun.
Every day, customers are seeking out her store a 4121 Hixson Pike, looking for the perfect Halloween costume.
“Most of the time they don’t know exactly what they want,” she explains. “They just know they need a costume.”
Let the search begin.
As she and the customer begin looking around, she asks questions.
“Do you have any hobbies? What is your favorite movie? Your favorite musician? Writer? If you could be anybody in the world, who would you choose?”
Before long, the picture starts to come together.
Recently, for example, a baby boomer wandered into the store and began looking around. He loved the Elvis Presley lamp that adorns one shelf, and mentioned that he was a big fan of Buddy Holly. And, it turned out, he’s an amateur musician himself.
“Easy,” Mrs. Everett says. “I’d dress him up as one of the Beatles, or one of the early rockers . . . A costume is your fantasy, what you dream of being.”
That’s what she likes about vintage clothing, whether customers are buying it for a holiday like Halloween or adding it to their day-to-day wardrobes.
“You really get to know the people and what they like,” she explains. “It’s fun to watch people wander around and see what they are drawn to.”
Since she opened her store more than three years ago, many vintage clothing devotees have heard about the store and become regular customers, she says.
The business has expanded. In addition to retail sales, she and partner Anne Webb now offer vintage-themed birthday parties, fashion shows and private parties. Later this month, they will host their first children’s birthday party.
“We have the events right here in the store,” she says. “Usually the customers are teens or young adults, and they come in ready to have fun.”
There are still lots of people to whom the concept of wearing vintage clothing seems strange, she says.
“Really, the only time they’re comfortable going vintage is at Halloween.”
But often, once customers looking for costumes begin trying on outfits, they realize that what they’re wearing looks good, feels good – and is of much better quality than the new clothes they could buy for the same price.
Many people are especially drawn to vintage jewelry, Mrs. Everett says. “There’s nowhere else you can find jewelry like that anymore.”
But whether they’re dressing for Halloween or for the office or a special party, her customers don’t want to look like everybody else they meet, she explains. And going vintage offers every customer a chance to develop his or her own special style.
At Halloween, some customers already know the costume they want before they come to the store, she says. Lots of the women want to dress up like movie icon Marilyn Monroe, for example, or naughty 1950s model Betty Page.
They could go to costume stores and find thousands of Marilyn Monroe or Betty Page costumes – all exactly alike, she explains.
But they don’t want to wind up wearing exactly the same outfit as every other woman at the Halloween party who decided to dress as Marilyn Monroe or Betty Page.
“They’d rather come here and look around, see what see have, and put together a one-of-a-kind Marilyn Monroe or Betty Page costume,” she says.
So has Mrs. Everett – who wears vintage most days to work in her shop – decided what she will be this Halloween?
Not yet.
“I usually go along with whatever costume my husband decides to wear,” she says. “If he decides to dress up like John Lennon, for example, then I go as Yoko. It’s a lot of fun.”