First of all, I just noticed that this is my 100th blog entry!! Whoo!! I’m really loving the entire experience and can’t wait to see where it all takes me. Thanks to all the other stylin’ girls who inspire me, and an extra-special thanks to all my readers, without you guys it would just be a diary!!
In reading back through some old entries I had a horrifying realization: I’ve never done a single post about the store! I’ve mentioned it here and there, but never done an entire entry about it. So here it is!
Chicken Lays An Egg started as a business venture with just Dana and a small but AWESOME store front. Dana has been in the vintage game for a long time – if you’re a Cincinnati reader, you may remember Daughter Judy from years ago. That was one of Dana’s earlier ventures in the business with SEVEN business partners! I can’t even imagine trying to work stuff out with that many people. But look how cute her shop was! I thought I had died and gone to heaven the first time I went there.
Maya, Dana’s sister and my best friend and roommate, had been working at the shop for Dana once in a while when she called me one day with the best news I’d ever gotten. Dana was looking to relocate to an area with more foot traffic, and wanted to know if Maya and I would be interested in being her partners. Well, I basically lost my mind with excitement. As long as I can remember, it has been my dream to own a vintage store. I just assumed with my extremely low income and very little retail experience that I wouldn’t be able to do it for a very long time. And since we loved her store so much, we kept it pretty much the same as far as colors and such when we got our storefront.
I couldn’t be more happy with the location we picked- it had been a church before we got it, and boy did we have to do a LOT of work to get it ready. For reference, this is what it looked like when we rented it.
Needless to say we had some long hot nights in August painting and getting everything ready, but I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud or motivated to do work. And damn has it paid off! We opened on October 29, and did a bang-up business for Halloween. The neighborhood is perfect, everyone is so friendly and supportive and there are LOTS of other small businesses around to collaborate with! Speaking of which, if you’re around on this Saturday, March 10 we’ll be having a sidewalk/alley sale from 1-8 with some food on the grill (both meat and vegetarian) and DJ Whocares spinning for us! And after that, Fabricate, a store and art gallery featuring locally handmade and upcycled items is having another of their art openings! They’re right around the corner on Hamilton Avenue, so there’s no excuse not to check us both out!
Maya and I re-did the window last night, and I think it’s one of our best ones yet! I always really love dressing the mannequins, but I had an especially good time doing it this time around. What do you think?
This is my absolute favorite outfit. Her necklace is actually a belt!
The green bow is actually a fannypack with six pockets!!
Check out the Fancypack Etsy page for one of your very own! They’re super cool, I can’t wait to get mine! You’ll see lots of it when I do.
And I love playing with new looks on the mannequins, so I finally tried out something I’ve seen on a lot of style bloggers, the wrapped men’s shirt.
Men's shirt into a blouse!
I think it came out pretty well!
I was going for the brightest and most clashing things on this one.
Obviously, bright was the only theme I had going this time around. I hope you enjoyed the view into our shop! Check out our website – we don’t currently do online sales, but we’re working on changing that!
Edit: I cannot BELIEVE that I forgot to include this amazing panoramic picture of the store that Marqui Watling took for us!
Click on it to see the huge version! I'm in there, see if you can find me.
