Fox & Fawn on Manhattan Avenue

Fox & Fawn, a favorite inexpensive vintage clothing boutique for Lower East Side shoppers, found a new home in Greenpoint when it opened it’s doors on Saturday, March 13.
 
Despite the rainy beginning, Co-owners Marissa Johnson, 32, and Beverly Hames, 28, said business at the tiny boutique located at 570 Manhattan Ave. has been better than expected.
 
“We need to do restocking already. There isn’t much like this in the Greenpoint neighborhood. The community has been really good to us,” Hames said.
 
The boutique is straightforward, bright and welcoming with a “highly edited” selection women’s clothing, shoes and accessories ranging from classic 1940’s blouses and baby doll pumps to loud 1970’s geometric-pattern dresses and well-kept, worn-in leather boots from a variety of decades.
 
“We wanted to open a vintage store that we could afford to shop at. We’ve always kept our price point low and it’s even lower in Brooklyn,” said Hames.
 
She said everything in the store is under $100, and the highest prices items are from the jewelry line, Cheek-ie, which is made from the local designer, Angela Barrow.
 
Katie Pfohl of Greenpoint said she was walking by, noticed the store and decided to browse for summer dresses.
 
“I’m surprised at how many reasonably priced things they have. Everything’s really cheap. I didn’t find anything, but tried on a really pretty 1940’s dress,” Pfohl said.

 
The clothing store came to Greenpoint with five years of experience and fine-tuned business model from its original Manhattan location at 112 Suffolk Street. Johnson, the founder, said she had been working in retail and vintage stores for a number of years, but was feeling frustrated and ready to venture out on her own.
 
“I had some money saved up and had a really great business partner at the time to get things started. We found that location, but needed to make this move to get more foot traffic,” Johnson said.
 
She said the clientele in the Greenpoint and Williamsburg area is more receptive to their business model, unlike the more upscale customers in the Lower East Side.  However, in the first week of business, Johnson said they have not seen any one type of customer.
 
“We’ve seen anyone from young people really into fashion to extremely older women. There was one older woman, our favorite customer so far, she bought us out of all our blouses,” Johnson said.
 
Both Hames and Johnson have been members of the Greenpoint of community for nearly 10 years, so making the move from Manhattan to Brooklyn seemed like an inevitable step, said Hames.
 
Fox & Fawn, which operates as a buy, sell, trade vintage store, also has a new partner, the in-house new and used vinyl record store, Heaven Street Records, run by Sean Ragon.  Heaven Street Records is separately owned, but the share space adds new depth to the Fox & Fawn clientele.
 
“It’s great for couples. We don’t really have a lot of men’s clothes yet, but we just send the guys to the back where we have some men’s clothes and that’s where the record store is,” said Hames.
 
Fox and Fawn’s buy, sell, trade policies are flat rates, said Hames.  The store will give customers 35 percent of the in-store value of each item for a cash transaction, and a 55 percent amount of the item in store credit that can be used to trade for other merchandise.
 
Anjali Suneja of Williamsburg who has been friends with Hames and Johnson for about seven years said it has been nice to see the business grow.
 
“I’ve always thought they needed more space. This is a perfect, magical place, like destiny for them. I feel like all the stars will align now and really believe in it,” Suneja said.
 
Suneja said she has been on all ends of the buy, sell, trade business model and the majority of the clothes she currently wears came from Fox and Fawn over the years.
 
“They have the Brooklyn love,” Suneja said.
 
As for the future, Hames said she hopes Fox & Fawn continues to grow and develop stronger customer relationships, specifically though trades that will hopefully increase its men’s wear collection.
 
“At a store like this, the prices are always going to be a benefit, but we try to add a personal touch. It’s a highly edited selection, so you don’t have to sift through a lot of junk to find the gems,” Hames said.

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