On A Busy Route In Craryville, Sideshow Clothing Co. Takes Center Stage
The used clothing store has moved around a lot but has settled in a sunny space befitting a high-end vintage collection.
Meri Avratin
Meri Avratin’s Sideshow Clothing Co. could be called Traveling Sideshow. Over about 13 years, the collector and seller of high-end vintage clothing and accessories has moved her store from Sheffield to Hudson, to Hillsdale, and now, to the former legendary Elm Tree Restaurant building on busy Route 23 in Craryville, New York. Along the way, she has also collected a following of vintage clothing fans who know they can find the real deal — highly curated goods from the 1880s to the 1990s — all in good, if not great condition. Through it all, Avratin has also maintained a busy, five-star Etsy site filled with a stylish trip to the past and rave reviews.
Considering the welcoming ambience and the amount of work she’s put into the new location, it looks like she’s finally found her forever place. She left her legendary Hudson Sideshow Vintage Clothing due to landlord issues and the pandemic, but never expected that she’d be able to buy her own place. In Craryville, she could, transforming the former plaza by gutting the mid-century building and taking it down to the studs. She had a new slab poured for the large adjoining space and installed (by herself) some astonishingly beautiful and still fragrant pine board floors (shoutout to New Britain Log and Lumber in East Chatham). Light streams in from the side and storefront windows; vintage couches flank the nonworking but atmospheric fireplace, which Avratin hopes to fill with a (working) wood stove.
But, of course, it’s the racks of antique and mod clothing — in a clean, bright, organized space that feels unusual for a vintage store — buyers are seeking. Buyers, we might add, who include wardrobe pros from HBO and a costumer from the Amazon Prime Video series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
“She bought a lot of clothing throughout the pandemic,” Avratin says. The costumer, who lives in Columbia County, took away lots of dresses and undergarments, but she also “bought stuff people don’t usually buy, like gloves and cloche hats. I have those things here.”
Costumers aren’t the only ones looking for vintage, she says. Many of her customers know exactly what they want, so she stocks plenty of denim, military-inspired garb, hippie clothing and western shirts, along with everything else, including a men’s section she’s particularly proud of. But high-end vintage doesn’t come cheap. On her Etsy shop, a “super rare” designer pantsuit from the 70s goes for $2,800, but items start in the $20s.
Avratin buys much of her inventory from the public; in fact, she buys a lot right at the store when people bring their own collections in to sell. Other pieces come from flea markets or online. And then there’s the occasional jackpot. A friend of hers told her about a hoarding situation that was being cleared out. Hunting through a hoarder’s house wasn’t the most pleasant experience, she says, but she found “the best stuff” there.
“Meri has such an eye and her own style that shines,” says Joanna Virello, an events producer and Hillsdale town council member. And Avratin obviously knows her fashion: Each item is labeled with a brief description of the item that includes the decade and, if relevant, the designer. But it’s more than a love for styles of the past that keeps her in retail. It’s about leaving a small environmental footprint, about recycling and eschewing the exploitative nature of mass-produced clothing, which uses so much water, questionable dyes and unfair labor practices. “Vintage is often quality good stuff,” Avratin says. “Almost everything here was made in the USA using union labor.”
To an onlooker, the shop appears well stocked and organized, but Avratin says she’s still in the process of setting up. Born in the Berkshires and raised in Great Barrington, Avratin used to travel Route 23 frequently to get to Hudson, but hardly expected she’d ever land in Craryville. Old-timers frequently stop in the old restaurant space, curious about what’s happening in it now, telling tales about the old days. A former bartender, Avratin can talk to anybody — one of the reasons she’s so stuck on the retail life. “People are super fascinating,” she says.
Not so different from her vintage clothing collection.
Sideshow Clothing Company
1376 NY Route 23, Craryville, NY
(413) 347-3724
Open Thursday-Sunday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.
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