Also this issue: boxscore Rating the week in TV -Sam Adams, Debra Auspitz and Lori Hill Icepack -A.D. Amorosi

May 29-June 4, 2003

naked city

Rethink, Reuse

The new vintage: Greasywaitress Vintage shop's got old stuff, like these skates, but also new items made from vintage materials like record album journals and pop culture-inspired resin jewelry. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Hands-on fashion artists give new steam to old trash.

by Debra Auspitz

Take a good look at the old stuff lying around your house: boxes, magazines, records that have long been unplayable. One person’s trash is another person’s treasure, and your trash may be the start of a fashion trend. At places like the new Greasywaitress Vintage shop at Third and Bainbridge, local and national artisans are making a living selling kitschy junk made into trendy accessories. And a mother-daughter pair of locals have a thriving side business selling purses made from, of all things, cigar boxes.

Greasywaitress' owner, Bridget Pizzo, often surfs the Web looking to augment her impressive vintage collection. Pizzo says she discovered "a network of girls who make things, and everybody links to each other. It's this little neighborhood online." Pizzo asked some of these artists to sell their work in her store. One of them, Jasmine Deatherage of Olympia, Wash., takes old book covers and rebinds them as journals. After seeing Deatherage's site, Pizzo contacted her to ask if she could make some journals out of album covers for Pizzo to give out as Christmas gifts.

Pizzo loved the look of the journals and wanted them for her shop, but she and Deatherage both saw a problem: The thin cardboard album covers didn't provide a hard enough surface to make the journals useful. Deatherage says that Pizzo "had the brilliant idea of cutting up the record and putting it in the back." Deatherage discovered that her book-binding machine could indeed punch through the vinyl to create a hard surface -- and a fashionable touch. The records used are mostly '80s hits like Linda Ronstadt and Neil Diamond, and Deatherage says that's not just to be cute. "The records made in the '80s were so poor quality that they're softer and easier to punch through than when I try to make [a journal] from [a record] from the '50s. It's kind of fitting."

The album journals are time-consuming for Deatherage, so she offers them exclusively through Pizzo's Philly shop, where they've been very popular. Selling for about 20 bucks, "They speak to a certain scene," Deatherage says. "Everybody thinks the notebooks are an awesome idea," Pizzo says. "Except for some DJs, who were a little pissed off."

Jennifer Perkins of Austin, Texas, also has her work, resin jewelry, featured in Pizzo's store. Perkins takes "kitschy vintage images that I just get from all over from old books or wallpaper or postcards or anything I can get my hands on," and creates chunky necklaces, bracelets and rings. "Resin is kind of a liquid, so it's really almost over a 24-hour period that you have to pour it, put your image in there and let it sit." A day later, when the resin has hardened around the image, Perkins sands and polishes the block, drills a hole in it, and then strings the resin beads together. Perkins' work, which ranges in price from $15 to about $50, is available in 50 stores in the U.S. and Canada; Pizzo's shop is the only place to get it in Philly.

There are also local artists creating unique accessories from unlikely sources, like Maureen Acchione. On a family trip to the Caribbean, Acchione and her daughter, Lisa, saw a purse made from a cigar box in a gift shop. "It was falling apart," Acchione says, "and I said, ŒI can make this. Dad has these in the basement.'" Acchione made one for her daughter, marketing director for Q102, and the response was so big that Acchione launched her own purse-making business (with Lisa as her partner). The bags are an excellent conversation starter, especially with men, according to Acchione. "I had taken one a few weeks ago to a dinner and I was waiting for my husband and two men started talking to me about it, and then there were four men, and then there were six men, and then my husband came out and, lo and behold, I'm surrounded by eight men talking about my purse."

Acchione gets her supply of boxes from local cigar shops, on the Internet and, she says, "I can't tell you how many old men call offering me their collections." For the purses, which range from $50 to $100, she leaves some of the ornate boxes as they are, and hand-paints others or adds decorative silk flowers. Acchione recognizes that cigar boxes may fall out of the fickle graces of fashion, and she's working on new designs. But for now, it's all about the cigars. "I realize it's a fad," she says, "but I can't believe that the fad is still going on."

Album journals and resin jewelry available at Greasywaitress Vintage, 701 S. Third St., 215-627-5464; cigar-box purses available at Inside & Outside, 29 W. Lancaster Ave., Ardmore, 610-642-8988 and Zephyr Gallery, 500 Route 73 South, Marlton, N.J., 856-396-0737. For more work by Jasmine Deatherage, go to www.exlibrisanonymous.com; for more of Jennifer Perkins’ work, see www.naughtysecretaryclub.com.