By: Ava C. Green, Editor-in-Chief
A woman stood at the corner of Elmwood and Auburn. She was dressed in a long, dark, velvety frock, red sport coat, and matching red cloche hat, like an ageless ingenue; but her pale skin and slight features grew softer and less clear with each step toward her. The faceless lady, with weak, limp limbs, I discovered, was a mannequin – a figurehead of Scoop Shop Consignment.
Behind her was a path of shoes tempting you into the store. One after another, they walk you up Auburn Ave in a trail of brown patent leather and suede fuschia that defied the weather, despite their vintage tininess. Hand-rolled cigarettes sit in the antique ashtrays in the front display case next to Ukrainian pocket astrology books. Jimi Hendrix and U2 blare from the speakers, and stickers saying, “BE COOL OR GET OUT, MAN” are hung up on the mirrors for dear life.
Before you cross the threshold of the Scoop Shop, two “$5” racks of miscellaneous clothes make a V shape out of the doorway that greet you like the outstretched arms of a hug from an old friend. Two gray-haired ladies were huddled at the point of the V locking the door. As they turned around, looking annoyed by my greeting, the Scoop’s owner, Wendie, immediately waved me off with her tiny, mittened hand.
“Ah, sorry. Closed,” she said with facetious disappointment. I explained that I was the writer she spoke with on the phone a few days prior. “Ohhhhh,” she chuckled, exchanging a nod with her friend, Clara, who stood next to her about six inches taller. “You should totally come with us,” she added.
Clara then led us down Auburn to multiple yard sales going on that they happened to scoped out earlier that morning. Just a few steps behind her, Wendie told me of her plans for the day – to see what the neighborhood had to offer her store.
Wendie opens up shop Wednesday through Saturday at noon, but on that October day, she insisted she just had to get outside. It was five ‘till 12 when I met them at the storefront, but Wendie seemed sure that a vendor, “volunteer helper” or friend of the store – someone like Clara – would likely be there in a few minutes to open on her behalf.
I asked how the two knew each other. “I found her by the $5 rack,” Wendie likes to tell people. Clara agreed, but added that she was also one of Wendie’s employees at the Scoop Shop: “well, not legally,” Clara added. Wendie’s “volunteer helpers” work out of their love of fashion, history, the store, and Wendie herself with the commission being a nice bonus.
The Scoop Shop garners a good amount of foot traffic being central to “the Elmwood strip”. It attracts various characters, iconic to them, like Bowtie Joe, whom Wendie constantly references and whose nickname is about as straightforward as it gets. And the Scoop Shop, specifically, has its own subset of characters that Wendie and Clara call “scoopinistas” – they speculate there to be about 10-20 of them still alive and well, still able to visit the store.
With the rubbing together of fabric and a quick peek of a tag, Wendie can tell what items she should toss and what she should buy, dirt cheap, off of some retired couple down the street who are unaware of the retail price of True Religion jeans. “C’mon! These are gonna go for at least 30 bucks!”, she whispered to me as we walked around a porch sale. Much of the Scoop’s merchandise is brought in by consignors, but one thing Wendie never discounts is the value of going out on the beat to scalp for styles.
Racks of crazy line three walls of the store. It’s cramped with decades worth of bold fashion choices: nylon, tweed, and velour, all reaching a sultry sleeve out to the customers, begging to be picked out. It takes a certain energy and focus to take the store in; it takes a good, keen, tireless eye and plenty of time to go through the store. Not many people come in on an actual mission. Wendie says many people treat it like a “touchable museum”.
Customers there for more of an experience may make their way through without a word. Lucky ones leave without Wendie and Clara making a kind of mean, mostly funny comment about them. The luckiest find their new favorite piece of clothing. they come to be immersed in whatever version of nostalgia they itch for. Sometimes, it’s a long, wrap coat made out of a thin, golden, papery material, embroidered with tiny glass beads and shimmering thread to make a zebra print pattern. Right as my fingers began to trace the lines, Wendie quickly recalled the story of the seller. A beautiful, older woman – “Belinda!”, she exclaimed upon remembering.
The Scoop Shop has been a part of Elmwood since 1937, “well, not legally,” Wendie would say. Florence - or Flossie, ran The Scoop Shop as a clothing swap until she got her DBA, or “doing business as” license in 1945. Flossie started it as a way to dip her toes into the clothing business in a broken, post-war economy, where buying clothes other than secondhand was quite frivolous. The store became a place to gather and exchange the stories and gossip that surrounded their choices to buy or donate certain clothes – hence, the name of the store.
Flossie would keep tabs on the proceedings of her clients, shooting someone like Jeanie, a loyal part of her wealthy divorcee clientele, a call about a dress that would be just perfect for her to wear at a wedding she knew she had coming up. Jeanie’s ex-husband was going to be there; knowing this, Flossie pulled a show-stopping, red, trench coat and giant brooch earrings for her. “Listen, you gotta come in,” Wendie said in a faint transatlantic accent, mimicking the voice she imagined for Flossie.
By 1965, Flossie felt that her volunteer helper, Mary White, got the scoop enough to take over the store when it was time to retire. Mary ran the shop for eleven years until Mimi took over in 1976. Her name was Gretchen, but was called Mimi by everyone she knew, and she cemented herself as the timeless beauty of the store during her ownership, which was years longer than Flossie’s. Most people associate Mimi with the shop; even Wendie, despite being the sole owner since 2012 after working with Mimi for over five years.
Wendie was scouted by Mimi similarly to the way past owners were. Wendie came into the Scoop Shop for the first time with the mom of an old boyfriend and had been a loyal customer since. When Mimi got word that the boutique where Wendie worked at the time had closed down, she asked Wendie if she’d like to work at the Scoop Shop instead. Later, when Mimi needed to take care of her sick husband full-time, Wendie took over the store.
“Wendie cares so much about her merchandise,” Clara said, getting worked up, adding to the usual breathiness about her voice. “And she cares about the people – I mean really does. If she didn't, people wouldn't keep coming back! They have their little sessions with Wendie like they did with Mimi or Flossie,” she said, smiling at Wendie, whose back was turned, avoiding our praise. Clara continued, “everybody just gets their little dose of therapy here.”
“One of the first vintage pieces I got was from this lady who came in. It was her prom gown in 1956,” Wendie told me. “The dress was incredibly small, an acquired taste; truly one-of-a-kind.” So it wore on a mannequin for decades, moving from spot to spot around the store and in the window, until one day.
“This lady comes in, and she’s talking about the dress already. She saw it from the window and ‘just had to try it on.’ It fit her like a glove!”, Wendie says, just as baffled as she was when this woman twirled out of the fitting room years ago. “And her husband loved it, of course.” she continued. “But, then he’s like, ‘Where are you gonna wear it?'” she said, doing an impression of the husband that sounded like a lousy Elvis. “So, I looked right at him and said, ‘With you. Tonight. At dinner.’ Well, ‘cause that's what drives me crazy: People coming in and saying, ‘Oh, I love this, but I don't have anywhere to wear it. So, they leave! I always tell them, ‘Screw it! Wear it to Wegmans!’”
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