On a Thursday afternoon, a young man brings a few items to the counter at a vintage clothing store in Bellevue. “You like Slipknot?” 22-year-old shop owner Christian Meskanick asks the customer after seeing one of the t-shirts. “I like the shirts,” the man replies, and they laugh. Meskanick mentions to the customer that he bought another Slipknot shirt from him last year. As he rings him up for $70 of clothes, he asks the customer which summer concerts he plans to attend.
“I try to make it as comfortable and good shopping experience as possible. Ideally, I’d like to get a customer on a first-name basis, try and find what they like, the sizes they need, and try to accommodate them as best as possible,” Meskanick tells Pittsburgh City Paper. “Because I think it’s cool to have a connection with someone rather than just being like, ‘hey that’s a place where I get my vintage clothing.’”
The Closet, owned by Mars native Meskanick, has found success in its few years of business and stands out due to its stock of decades-old Pittsburgh memorabilia, effective social media posts, and cozy, personable atmosphere.
The shop, opened in December 2021 at 10 S Fremont Ave. in Bellevue, has an approximately 500-square-foot floor filled with racks of vintage clothing. It’s most known for its selection of vintage clothing featuring local sports teams. Store hours run noon to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
The racks, organized by size and color, feature items typically priced between $15 and $45, according to Meskanick. The Lion King and Aladdin shower curtains shroud a small changing booth. Behind the counter, pricier items adorn the walls.
To Meskanick’s left behind the counter, he has lovingly curated a collection of Space Jam VHS tapes, plushies and figurines, alongside some other tapes for nostalgic films such as Home Alone and Dumb and Dumber. (These collectables are for display only.)
It’s always Meskanick behind the counter. He currently has no employees but has been considering hiring in addition to obtaining a larger building. Such ambition comes after about a decade of thrifting and flipping clothes independently. He recalls an early score, when, as a teenager, he found a Michael Jackson T-shirt at Goodwill for one dollar and, within 24 hours, sold it online for $125. This confirmed for him that he wanted to stick with this venture.
“There’s definitely some money to be made, and it was a cool T-shirt too,” Meskanick says. “It wasn’t like it was an expensive brand. It was moreso, like, the story behind the T-shirt.”
His brother, who owns Pittsburgh Smoke Shop up the street, previously leased in the spot where The Closet currently operates. When it became available, Meskanick traded taking business classes at a community college for starting his own business. The COVID-19 pandemic had caused his classes to go virtual, which didn’t work for him, and he saw an opportunity he couldn’t pass.
“I figured I’d give it a shot,” Meskanick says. “I said, worst comes to worst, I just put myself into some debt and get to say I tried at following my dreams.”
Utilizing social media platforms has proved essential for growth of the business. In keeping with current trends, Meskanick focuses on the business’s Instagram account, which has about 34,000 followers, and TikTok account, which has garnered more than 81,000 likes. Videos of new items progressively filling a rack serve as some of his best-performing posts. One on Instagram secured almost 22,000 likes. On TikTok, one video of a ’90s Cholula Hot Sauce t-shirt stuffed in a fake bottle received more than 370,000 views.
Almost all of his traffic comes from people who saw the business on social media, according to Meskanick. He’s even attracted artists who travel to Pittsburgh for their shows, including Knocked Loose, Madison Beer, and Subtronics.
“The content I post usually goes right to the right target market,” Meskanick says. “So, chances are, if you like vintage in Pittsburgh, you’ll see it or hopefully come across it, and from there you’ll find the store.”
Meskanick keeps busy. He mans the shop Tuesday through Saturday and spends Mondays at a laundromat cleaning new items. He’s developed a system, he says, that gets 150 to 300 items washed, dried and folded in two to four hours.
It’s not a typical life for someone in their early 20s. When he met with City Paper, he said he lived at home with his parents in Mars but that he would move next week to a Bellevue apartment.
“It’s really nice,” Meskanick says. “It’s fulfilling … I’ve been doing this since I was 14. It was not always like this. I didn’t always have regular customers coming in on a daily basis. So like, at this point, I’m really happy with the stage of my business. I’m proud of it. I’m only 22, and I have plans to do a lot more, but for now, it’s a great feeling.”
This article appears in Jun 12-18, 2024.
