sugar town

ONE STOP VINTAGE SHOP

You’ve heard of Flavor Town...now get ready for Sugar Town! Sugar Town Vintage, that is. “We had probably 20-30 names picked out before we settled on Sugar Town,” says co-owner, Blessing Selby. “I’m a huge Nancy Sinatra fan— she was a fashion icon— and the name Sugar Town just has a nice ring to it.”

Sugar Town is your one-stop-shop to create the perfect vintage ‘fit. And as if their sparkly selection of vintage clothing wasn’t already cool enough, they also carry jewelry made by women, non-binary, and queer artists! “Our mission at Sugar Town is to provide a fun, inclusive and affordable place to shop for hand-selected vintage and secondhand clothing, while also providing a place for local artists to sell their creations,” Blessing says. “We like to say we have clothing for hers, hims and thems!”

FROM DEPOP TO BRICK + MORTAR

Blessing and her co-owner Lily Carothers opened the Sugar Town storefront in March 2021, but they’ve been running their shop out of Depop since 2019 and selling at flea markets as well. “We loved working the Fleas, but then the pandemic hit and we were forced to only sell from our Depop account,” Blessing says. “We started looking for a studio space in December 2020 to store all of our merchandise, and then we were offered the storefront in Nulu. We never imagined we would be able to open our own legitimate business, especially in the middle of a pandemic, but we decided to take that leap of faith! In a way, Sugar Town Vintage was a happy accident. Our fun hobby turned into our full time jobs, which still feels unbelievable.”

MONETIZING A HOBBY

When Blessing says Sugar Town was born from a hobby between two friends, she’s not kidding! “My friendship with Lily started with our shared love for vintage clothing,” Blessing says. “We both consider ourselves thrifting addicts, and we’re constantly shopping for unique secondhand finds. We kind of got to a point where our closets were overflowing with clothing that we loved, but rarely or never wore, so we decided we could actually make some money off our favorite hobby!”

Turning that hobby into a full-time career is one of the things Blessing and Lily are most proud of, (as they should be!) “Lily and I were both 24 years old when we opened our storefront,” Blessing says. “We both had a vision for what we wanted our futures to look like, and we worked our butts off to get here. We are not pros; we learn new things about our business, and about ourselves, every day. We don’t fully know what the future of Sugar Town holds, but we are excited for the journey we embarked on.”

ALWAYS UNIQUE + FUNKY

With new inventory added to the shop daily, there’s always a reason to stop by Sugar Town. “Our repeat customers come back because they know we will always have unique and funky items,” Blessing says. “We spend hours every week searching for and hand-picking every single item we sell. Our focus is on having a selection different from every other store in town. Everything we sell is a conversation starter!”

Visit the Sugar Town Instagram here.