My grandmother’s home is rife with character. Entering her house as a child elicited a feeling akin to that of stepping into a visual Candyland; crafted by her tenured eye, she has dedicated her life to filling every corner of her home with trinkets. Ranging from globes and old clocks to antique decoys, every space in her house–from sitting room to basement and back–is an optic feast. For me, going to my grandmother’s house was a primarily cerebral activity.
Helmed by Danny Colon, the Electrix Vintage studio is a Gen Z answer to my grandmother’s living room (sans digestive biscuit and Earl Grey). Stepping into the studio, I’m reminded of the same sensation of awe–suddenly, I’m age five, studying my meticulously decorated surroundings. “I always say this studio is like a grandma’s attic of random stuff”, Danny muses as he navigates me inside. Tacked to the wall is a clock with a goldish at the center and clothes with lace collars, while stacks of magazines dot the table Danny and I sit down at.
Doubling as a gathering space, “a workspace, storage space, and fulfillment space”, the all-purpose studio is a materialized reflection of Electrix Vintage owner, Danny Colon–literally.
The final decision maker behind every item Electrix sources, each piece in the studio has been handpicked by Danny. While “eclectic” is the word he first uses to describe Electrix’s curation (ie; goldfish clock), Danny emphasizes that the avant-garde is not the only focus: “Our shopper is someone who appreciates vintage clothing and can kind of blend that [with new pieces]. It’s an approachable design, but it’s still vintage–you can wear our items to school, to go out, to get coffee or to see your grandparents.” The Electrix stock summed up? Put simply: “It’s honestly stuff that I like–but you're paying for my developed taste after four-plus years of looking at this shit every day.”
I drape my jacket over my shoulders in true nonna fashion. As evidenced by our conversation, comfort and approachability are core tenets of Electrix. “I find that a lot of the time, I will be the only vintage store that someone shops at. They’ll say, ‘I’m not a secondhand or vintage shopper, but I like your curation because it’s approachable vintage’.” But what makes a vintage brand, vintage? “We go off of the Google term, which defines vintage as [items that are] twenty years or older,” Danny flags. “So almost everything in here is older than me.”
Sitting in the center of his studio, surrounded by pieces that all pre-date himself (sourced in only one of two ways: either through estate sales or private sourcing), Danny Colon is enveloped by pockets of history. Gesturing to a jacket on the rack closest to us, Danny says: “That jacket had a whole life before I even [saw] it…storytelling is the main aspect in vintage and there’s a story in everything.”
In chronicling Danny’s timeline, our story begins in 2020. Danny, a Manasquan, New Jersey high schooler, first found success selling vintage on Depop during the height of quarantine. “My first drop, everything sold out in twenty-four hours.” Though not necessarily his first business venture–a brief stint during the seventh grade involving sweatshirts and poorly sewn butterfly decals claim that title–the origins of Electrix hinged on the internet. “I think a lot of the luck in Electrix’s beginning success was because of the circumstances. It was the perfect time for people to become niche-ly obsessed with things, and vintage worked online at the time–and obviously still does.”
However, the initial vision for Electrix was always to expand beyond Depop and into the world of New York retail. Reminiscing on his early mantras, Danny remembers telling himself: “No matter what, I’m going to New York.” And while that dream has not necessarily manifested itself through a traditional brick-and-mortar location, Electrix Vintage has certainly made its mark within the city’s vintage zeitgeist.
As closely followed by vintage lovers on TikTok, Electrix’s most recent pop-up retail experience (in collaboration with The Bachelor’s Sydney Gordon’s Rhode Island-based Folk Vintage brand), brought together shoppers from across the city for a ten-dollar fill-a-bag sale. “Temporary retail works really well for my audience because [many of them] are in school and don’t always have the opportunity–or don’t want to–go into a retail store all the time.” This sense of ephemerality is core to the Electrix Vintage brand. “Vintage is already a fleeting thing. If you see something you love and it’s antique and it’s perfectly preserved, you’ll probably never find it again–or you’ll be scouring the web for something that’s half the quality. There’s a sense of urgency that shoppers have, because of the vintage aspect alone, then combined with a pop-up, which is temporary as well.” With over 3,500 pounds of vintage sold in two days alone during his most recent pop-up, this impermanence feels like a marked part of Electrix’s success.
Whether it be through a pop-up experience, a party, or a runway show, aggregating like-minded people together to celebrate fashion has always been a passion point for Danny. Not only does Electrix place value on the idea of togetherness, but it’s an integral piece of how shoppers are interacting with the brand, too: “When [we had our retail store in New Jersey], we really tracked foot traffic. We realized that a lot of people were coming in once, looking around, and leaving…but we then realized that this same person would come back into the store with ten friends…Gen Z and Gen Alpha are congregating demographics. They love a pop-up shop and an event.”
While Electrix now benefits from the robust community surrounding vintage retail in New York, establishing roots in New Jersey was a much more nuanced experience for Danny. “When I would first tell people about the brand, they would ask where the store was. People didn’t always see online retail as a real form of business.” The consequence of leveraging e-commerce and social media as Electrix gained its footing early on was that “there were no [tangible] markers of success for the public.” Beyond Electrix’s initial retail space in New Jersey, it wasn’t until their first New York City pop-up that Danny was able to introduce his friends to the full scope of the brand. “[Our first pop-up in the city] was a representation of the chaos I’m always talking about–they got to touch it and try it on. It was very meditative.”
What the Electrix Vintage brand offers now stretches so far past the traditional bounds of retail. Having hosted innumerous pop-ups across both Manhattan and Brooklyn, several runway shows, and a handful of parties, Electrix has cemented itself as not only a local vintage brand but as a unique experience. “We really are a network of people. We do model casting, we do creative direction, and I do consulting for vintage fashion brands.” But the interpersonal aspect of Electrix spans beyond that of a career focus: “I genuinely have become friends with ninety percent of the people who walk through the door, and have met so many friends from our parties. At the bare minimum, the people who attend our events [are seeking] a fashion community.”
Tracing the outline of Danny’s roots in fashion, Danny was raised by parents with expertise in both fashion merchandising and entrepreneurship. “The entrepreneurial side of my dad and the fashion [side] of my mom combined into me. I didn’t see a lot of people doing [similar things] in my small town, but that wasn’t on my mind. I wasn't looking for a role model or anything to aspire to–but I was seeing New York City vintage stores and I knew that was what I wanted to do…I grew up coming into the city every single weekend. When we got to Penn Station, we always went downtown to do vintage shopping…I loved the fantasy of pretending I lived here.”
Danny's days spent downtown were not only influential in the formation of Electrix but also had a heavy influence on Electrix’s most recent merch line. A map of the subway lines in lower Manhattan, the items within the collection read: “NYC Runs on Electrix”.
Which in a sense, feels apt. Not only a multi-hyphenate brand in itself, Electrix has seeped into many areas outside of vintage retail. “We’re currently involved in two separate documentaries. The first is focused on young people in business. The second will focus on our runway show in May and our party in September.” Beyond runway, Danny and Electrix have styled innumerous photoshoots, both for the Electrix brand and outside. “There are always stories in clothing. When you put them into a whole new environment and have a full photoshoot about something completely different, there’s so much intertwined in that…vintage clothing curation is such an art form.”
And like art, sometimes stellar vintage finds crop up in unexpected ways. When asked about one of the most interesting stories tied to one of his pieces, Danny recalls: “I was seventeen doing a flea market in Asbury Park, and a random man came up to me and asked, ‘Do you like leather coats?’. I said yes, and he told me, ‘Wait right here, I'll be back’. As I’m breaking down my tent, he comes back with twelve magnificent leather coats with vintage suede in perfect condition. I’ve never seen anything like it. He was like, “I looked up your stuff, and I love what you’re doing’, and he gave me the jackets and I never saw him again.” But that’s just one example. “I’ve been to magnificent castles in New Jersey or Pennsylvania or Rhode Island– beautiful gilded age mansions that you would have no idea existed. I went to my professor’s storage unit in North Jersey before. The story and the environment add so much more to it, and I get so invested in everything.”
The historical aspect of vintage is visible in the way shoppers approach Electrix Vintage, too. While young adults comprise a fair fraction of Electrix shoppers, its reach extends far beyond Danny’s Gen Z cohort. “We could have a seventy-year-old buying a bag for nostalgic purposes, or a kid buying a similar bag–and that person is completely different from an influencer that I’m sending a PR package to. I think that’s one of the best things about vintage.”
In the spirit of end-of-year reflection, I ask Danny to muse on a highlight of Electrix’s. “I had a friend in vintage who used to have a store in Belmar called Nostalgic Nonsense. We became really good friends [before she passed away]...I recently did a photoshoot specifically with items from her shop that I purchased, and that was really special. The shoot was beautiful, but it was more than that–everything there was something she would've loved. It was all about her business, and that’s what I wanted it to be.”
Before we end our conversation, Danny and I rifle through the collection of magazines on his desk. What we see pictured is not unlike the items that cover the studio walls (nor the passion and love for the craft that Danny has touched on throughout our time together); between the blouses, bomber jackets, and heels (...and goldfish clock), each item emulates a timelessness that transcends generations. Picky with those she surrounds herself with–and an even stricter policy of the items she keeps in her company–my grandmother would love the Electrix Vintage studio, whether she saw it twenty years ago or today. And, with Danny’s embrace of the entire vintage experience as art and his commitment to welcoming all people into Electrix Vintage’s universe–I feel confident that she would love Danny, too.
Written and Interviewed by Kayleigh S.
Photography and Production by Mark Bluemle
Casting: Jazzi Almestica
PA, Movement: Mickayla Davis
Styling by Danny Colon
PA, Styling Asst: Gabriel Pereyra
Talent: Luis Betancourt, Astrid Marroquin, Kiersten Cordon, Davie Osborne