Reware

Nostalgia Meets Fashion

By Lisa Howard

IN HIGH SCHOOL, SHE WROTE A BUSINESS PLAN ABOUT OPENING A RETAIL STORE. LAST OCTOBER, THAT PLAN CAME TO FRUITION WHEN BETHANY NIXON OPENED REWARE VINTAGE, A SHOP FEATURING CASUAL VINTAGE CLOTHING FROM THE ‘70S, ‘80S AND ‘90S.

“Every day is an adventure – you never know what’s going to come in,” says Bethany. “That’s why I love doing this.” She’d been selling vintage items online for 17 years before making the leap to a brick-and-mortar location, so she’s well steeped in the world of vintage clothing, accessories and memorabilia. (Look up in Reware, and you’ll see Care Bears peering down at you.)

She’s also an artist and used to sell her jewelry made from vintage records at Art Bash. Now the festival happens right outside her front door and she sells her jewelry inside the store.

“It’s fun to watch people’s sense of nostalgia be evoked when they walk in,” Bethany says. “People start telling me stories and we experience these items together.” While many of the items in the store were previously worn, Reware also specializes in dead stock, i.e., items that have never been worn or washed and often still have their original tags. Essentially, dead stock is a textile time capsule. Such items are mostly bought by collectors who are looking for t-shirts and hats from their favorite sports teams or from limited-run concert tours.

BUT MOST ITEMS IN THE STORE ARE $40 OR LESS, and Bethany also has a $10 T-shirt rack of donated shirts. Every penny of those sales goes to support climate change organizations, and 5 percent of her overall profits go to 350.org, a nonprofit dedicated to ending the age of fossil fuels.

Bethany and her husband started casually looking for a storefront when they moved to Berkley ten years ago, but the events of the past few years spurred them to find their ideal location. “People have realized that what they want to do is what they should be doing,” Bethany says. In her case, that’s creating a space for people to rediscover old favorites, find new ones and even come in for live bands and movie nights. On VHS, obviously.

2965 Twelve Mile Rd Suite 200, Berkley MI 48072 | 248.439.0007 https://rewarevintage.com | www.facebook.com/RewareVintage