Meat Market

Interviewed by Esme Carty

Styled by Jonathan Nguyen & Theodore Buehler

Creative Director - Esme Carty

Photographer - Eleanor Carty

Model - Mason Matthew

I: So fashion is an incredibly important medium for expressing oneself. At what age/time in your life did you discover that you could convey who you are through style?

J: Growing up I was always a mall kid, my mom would give me money to go to the mall and I just was so enamored by clothes. She was always a shopaholic, so I gravitated towards that. My mom's a bit of a fashionista, she's a bag lady, and she likes to dress herself really well. So I think seeing that at a young age–to understand being presentable when you go out was a big thing in my family. I got into thrifting at a young age because of my sister, she really put it on for me and I liked buying clothes already so when I found out that I could buy clothes for way cheaper, it kind of sparked a new world for me. I just like putting clothes on for myself or figuring out how I can find a cheaper alternative than something super expensive, and getting into different fashion trends growing up: from wearing sports stuff to getting into very niche things like Japanese fashion to trying to get into avant-garde things. Vintage was like a gateway and now it's our livelihood. It just makes sense. I don't know, everything is a reference to vintage, from music to food to obviously clothing.

L: Starting all the way back, me and my father used to collect toys. We used to go to different grocery store toy aisles to buy certain pieces of an action figure to hopefully assemble it and put it on eBay to make money. After my grandpa passed away, he left us a bunch of old clothes; we went through his old farmhouse, and we found all these old Levi's, old sweatshirts, lots of old work wear stuff. Someone was like, yeah, just go throw that away in the trash. Something in me and my dad's brain was like, no, there's no way. So we kept some of it. Later, I think, it started to convey the idea to me that all this stuff was kind of worthwhile to look into. Maybe if the super old stuff was worth something, the 80s and the 90s and the 70s stuff would also be worth something. It really started to dawn on me that I was into clothes and displaying my character through what I put on my body when I would do all my homies’ homework and essays in English class to get clothes off them. They didn't care about it anymore. So we were kind of bartering back in the day. As I got my license, with him [points to Johnny], we would go to Goodwills during lunch hour at high school. We would be selling in the parking lot during volleyball practice. Really stupid stuff, but it was really fun.

I: So your whole life, you guys have been doing this one way or another. That's pretty sick. When customers walk in, are you able to decipher their style at first glance and know what items they'll be drawn to? Or do people surprise you with what they choose?

J: I think at first glance, I can kind of understand what someone is into. I think that whatever they put on for the day represents kind of who they are, maybe. Sometimes you get a little surprised because someone's wearing something totally opposite but they'll come in asking if we have like this specific 70s flare or something like that, and then it's like, oh wow you know what this is? Let me go in the back and get it for you so we can get you the exact thing you're looking for. Like certain pants, if you want a certain shade we probably have like 10-20 different sizes of that exact same pair. It's kind of cool when someone comes in and they talk about items with you that you wouldn't think they like, it brings you kind of closer together. We do a lot of back-end research before we put stuff out. I think that's a fun part about the vintage side of things.

I: How do you research these products? Do you pull out the computer ready-to-go or do you source people?

L: Sometimes it's as simple as that. Realistically, just looking into the brand's history and into the specific details that would pin it to a certain decade or a certain part of the decade. There's a lot of books that we reference; we try to go to libraries and source denim books–that's easily the biggest mystery in our vintage world, denim. There were great fires in pretty much every city that ever existed and all these different denim companies had all these archives that burnt up. So their origin stories are all random. A lot of friends, a lot of mentors over the years who have really put us on to what things are. And sometimes you just pick it up on your own too. I don't know, being young when we're in the thrifts and the Goodwills, we started to pick up on what was what pretty quick. A lot of the dates are on shirts and stuff, you know? So it can be as easy as that, but if it's not, we're doing extensive research. Like eBay, sold comps, we look a lot on Japanese websites, too, because the Japanese people love our culture way more than we even cherish our own. They have done extensive research that we haven't. 

I: It's like a little superpower. You guys should put out a book.

J: Trust me.

I: Oh, ok.

J: It goes so deep. 

L: Even like a year ago there were things that we didn't know then that we know now. That's honestly even through messing up and selling something that we shouldn't have for too little. You know what I mean? Like, that's the biggest coach. That's the biggest mentor. That's the biggest teacher of them all.

: So what decade would you fill your closet with if you could only choose one?

L: Oh, dude, you're putting me on the spot. That's so difficult, truly. But if I had to really, really narrow it down, I would say the 1950s. Absolutely.

I: Interesting. Are there any influences as to why?

L: Yeah, definitely. I think it goes all the way back to being a kid and being into movies and stuff as a kid. You see the greats like Marlon Brando, you see James Dean, you see even like early work of–what's his name, bro? Yo, Santi.

[Santi, in another room]: Yo

L: It's McQueen. What's his name?

[Santi, in another room]: Steve.

L: Steve. Steve McQueen.

J: Shout out Santi.

L: Yeah, man. That really makes you want to be there during that time. We're cooped up in this day and age. I mean, the 60s were cool too, but you start to see the hippie movement and stuff. You have prime examples of who we are as a country that had just gotten out of war. We're really putting everything on the gas pedal. We're just doing cool shit. I don't know. Cool cars, cool clothes, cool hairstyles. 

J: I'm in the same boat. I'm always back and forth from the 40s to the 60s, like such prominent decades of clothing. So much came out during this time. People were dressing very uniformly back then, everything was intentional. You only have one jacket, there's so much wear and time put into it. There's cowboys back in the day, their denim was so raw from being brand new that they would literally strike matches on their denim. Older denim specifically, especially during the 40s to the 60s, it's such great quality, and you can't get the exact same thing now. It's not made the same, it's not made with the same kind of love. I think he and I over the years have just built our personal collection so well, and it's so to the T what we love. There's always gonna be something that we want, there's so many clothes out there. There's such an abundance, but there's, like, very specific items that we just love and cherish. You know?

L: Two of our coolest items from our closets are actually from the 50s. So it definitely checks out, you know? The things that we gawk over, we're like, oh my god, this is 1950-something. 

J: And it's not like I'm wearing a fucking full  50s outfit. We mix it up. Wearing like a 90s trucker hat because I think it just fits me well. During those decades, those are the items that I value and appreciate more. I like the cuts. I like most stitching patterns back then, the silhouettes are just really pretty. You have to understand your silhouette. He can wear the exact same pants as me, but it might not look good on him. His body dimension is just way off compared to mine. So it just depends on how to know what stuff to put on you.

I: That's definitely been lost over the years, so that makes sense that you guys choose the fifties. Is there a piece of clothing that each of you have geeked out over that you've gotten? Is there a specific standout item that you guys can remember or even have?

L: There's like three things in my brain right now.

J: There's a few things. I have a late 50s Levi's type 2 jacket. It's so beautiful, the wash is almost muddy, but like a good mid-wash blue. The way it was found was my buddy found it in this lost property out in Montana.

I: Whoa.

J: This abandoned property out on the plains, he opened a window sill, and he found it sitting on the edge of this table or something. He found it, took it out, left the house, and washed it in the river. They showed us, posted it online, and then I remember just having to have it because that item would have still been there if no one were to go get it. So it's so crazy when people ask us, where do we get our clothes? It's like, oh, my buddy found this in a house in Montana in the middle of nowhere. Something like that I cherish a lot. And it has such good characters. It's one of the 50s items that fits me, that doesn't come around often. So I'm going to love it and wear it. Trousers from like the 40s that I love that are super patched up. I have these certain moleskin. I love jackets and outerwear and it sucks because we live in such a hot state. During the winter you're really putting it on. I made these pants. So I wear these pants religiously. Yeah, I've been wearing a lot of stuff that I've been making, making stuff that fits me.

L: Kind of going off of what his first thing was, was a type 2 Levi's jacket, which was made from the years of, I think, 1953 to 1962. I have probably around the same year that his is, but his has so much wear in it and sun fades on it because it was in an abandoned house. Mine was pulled out of an estate sale by a lady. It's funny because she had one already and I had been pestering her for it for like a whole year. And she was like, well, if I ever find one and I’m like, okay, that's not going to happen. But she found one at another estate sale. I bought it for $1,000 at the time. Because it's so dark. Which means it just doesn't have any washes on it–or at least not too many. You know what I mean? People were a lot more delicate with the way they washed clothes back then.

J: So that way it looks like it's barely ever worn.

L: That means it literally didn't get worn. Which for the last 75 years, is a huge deal. So that's one of my prized possessions. I won't ever get rid of it. I have a 50s hoodie, but it's like a red two-tone double face lock hoodie, which means there's two different tones of color going throughout it. One of them's red and then the cuffs are pink. It has this specific type of lock hood: the fabric towards the bottom locks over, so it keeps it tight to your chin. It's got double the fabric on the inside, that's what they call double face. That's probably like my top two picks.

I: You do in-house repairs at the shop. Did the shop prompt you to learn how to sew and work with clothes or had that always been in your repertoire?

J: I've been sewing for like four years, roughly. Really getting into it within like the past two years. I remember being young and all the ladies in my family would sew and hand me crochet. I remember being young and being at my grandma's house and all my aunties would sit around a table and they would make homemade beanies for all of us out of yarn. They had these moulds that they would crochet through. Fast forward, I stole my grandma's sewing machine from her house, it was collecting dust and I was like, I'm gonna use this grandma. She was okay with it. That was my segue into that. Then on top of always liking clothes, I'm like, okay, I wanna make that, I wanna make a bag out of denim or something. I don't know, I was always enamored by silhouettes. I had a sewing machine when we moved in here, I had a sewing machine at our old spot. So then I was like, it'd be really cool for our establishment to offer a service. Where are you gonna go into a place that does all this and still be able to shop? Especially within vintage recollect, everything is made in the USA here, and it's kind of cool to say all of our repairs are done in-house, technically in America. It has a ring to it. I snuck my way into fashion school before I graduated my last semester at ASU. So I got a traditional sense of learning how to pattern cut, pattern design, creating garments and stuff. That was what led me into wanting to do more. I've had a basic understanding before from YouTube University, so going into a school where I'm getting taught and using the facility was like okay, there's more to this than just the stuff I'm doing at home. I just bought a 40s chain stitch machine over here so I can do a little script font. It's just like another type of thing I'm learning and teaching myself but sewing is so fun if you can get into it.

I: Oh my God, I wish. I mean, I could. What about you? Do you do it or do you guys kind of split up the– 

L: Yeah, I'll say, he's really the man for the job. He's all hands on deck over there. That's kind of his thing. You know what I mean? I've been kind of bouncing around on different things from forming the company to start, and then we're just here. We're both hands on deck for everything. But I leave that stuff to him, I think it's just so cool; that's his thing. I don't know. He's making cool stuff. I'm really just like a Swiss Army knife. I'll do whatever. I want to learn, of course. But I think there's something special about the fact that John is the repair guy. There's a nice ring to it.

I: Lastly, what is the major message you want people to take away when in Meat Market or attending one of your markets? What do you want to put out there of who you guys are and what this is?

J: I feel like we try to differentiate ourselves from any other store here in the valley.

I think it's important to us that we're not blasting a bunch of, like, 90s antique.

We don't want to make it look like an antique shop. We want to make it almost an elegant experience. When you walk in, it smells minty fresh here. The music's moderately low tempo, and you browse. There's the ambient background noise of a sewing machine or casual conversation, there's magazines. You can come in here and be in a chill space but also look at really cool items, I just really value our customer service. To me, every time we open, it feels like we're throwing a house party. I don't know who's going to walk in, but whoever comes into our house, you're going to be welcomed. You're going to feel appreciated. So I love the fact that someone can come into our establishment and feel like they got their most sought after favorite item and they can feel happy about purchasing it. Clothes are an investment and they’re expensive. It's nice that people can come in and cherish this thing, but also feel like they had a great time. We get to know our customers. All I care about is someone took the time out of their day to come here, like we made their day.

I: I love that so much.

L: I think that whenever, no matter who it is, steps foot in here, it doesn't matter where they came from, what they are, you know, what type of stuff they're into; everyone's taking away a completely different experience no matter what. And, you know, hopefully they're all positive, right? Ideally, right? But it's cool because we're trying to allow people a glimpse into what it looks like to potentially shop, not just something that they were coming in to see. They're seeing things that they didn't know existed. They're seeing things that, you know, what's a better word? They're seeing things that are different, ideas than what was already laid out as a format in their brain. Obviously, there's like this specific decade that we love the most, but we really are bringing people in here and they're walking away thinking that there's so much more than what they already knew before. I think another thing about the age thing is we have so many young kids coming in here and we have so many middle-aged, even older people. It's something that every generation can come in and see and check out and have a great time. I love seeing different people come in here. On the daily, we have old ladies in here literally tripping about some of the stuff that's in here. Our parents' age being like, oh, I remember I had that, or I remember I had this. Then we have kids coming in here being like, I didn't even know this stuff was a thing. It's completely different every single time someone comes in. I guess it's our job to just evoke in them that there are other things out there. There is more than just a specific decade. There's always going to be someone that knows a little bit more than you, and there's definitely a ton of people that know more than us. But it's our job to kind of reiterate that; we're playing a long form of like, what's that? What's that game called?

J: Telephone.

L: Yeah, we're playing a long game of telephone with people that are our mentors or people that are our homies. We're just passing it down the line. Hopefully, it rings a bell in someone's head that this is some cool stuff. 

J: I really love that we curate a lot of the older things and stuff that you really don't see on an everyday basis. I'm very fortunate enough to be able to source those and bring them to our store and then present them in a way where it's like, whoa, what is that? It's kind of cool to, like you said, change people's perspective on things because people usually come in to get things that they're familiar with. Mainly it's 90s and early 2000s stuff. It's like, why, why should I care about these 50s pants? We're playing the telephone game, we're telling them stories about these things and where we got them and the history behind these items. A lot of the times older stuff is very unique and one of one, you can't really find them again. Like, I'm wearing a bowling shirt, and he's wearing a mechanic shirt, these existed for a specific person working or in this bowling league, there's no multiples of it. It's cool to understand that you can find something from the 60s or 40s or whatever and it's one-of-one, that's even more special. I can't get this anywhere else besides right now; there's so many little intricacies about certain things that you can only see in the flesh when you're here and I think that's what differentiates us from everyone else for sure.

Visit Meat Market Vintage in person at 158 W Main St, Mesa, AZ 85201 or online via their Instagram @meatmarket.vtg