By Desiree Prieto
Contributor
I arrive at Velma Reed’s home as she begins preparing for her men’s collection debut at Hi-Tones nightclub on North St. Mary’s. She’s working on a vintage-chic outfit with a white Christian Dior silk tie and a leather Levi’s jacket.
Petticoat Pulga, Reed’s mobile boutique specializing in vintage clothing, is a new spin on thrift-and-sift. Reed not only finds all the vintage designer clothing for sale herself, but she then carts it through town.
“I have a shopping-cart bicycle, so I can ride it and push it around,” says Reed. “I have a little horn so that you know I’m here — honk-honk — and play an anthem as I am riding: it’s the Wicked Witch of the West song.”Local artist Cruz Ortiz helped Reed create the mobile cart so she can park her collections outside venues with some panache.
“I think we have a similar style. [Ortiz] likes to use pieces that he’s sort of salvaged and make them into something different, and that’s really my concept also: finding something and recreating it into something useful and beautiful.”
Reed attended New York City’s prestigious Parsons School of Design, where she received a certificate in Fashion Design, and is completing a degree in Chicano Studies at UTSA. She’s worked at Julian Gold, where she met her mentor and this year’s featured designer at San Antonio Fashion Week, Adrienne Yunger.While she cannot disclose where she got the shopping cart (“Let’s just say it’s from a well-known family store”), its contents are classic, and constantly evolving.
I notice a string of makeshift Charlie Brown Christmas lights decorating the shopping cart bicycle’s frame and clothing rod that Reed maintains are not just for the season.
“Well, I have them anyway because that is very rasquache and I need to be safe on the streets,” she says.Rasquache, meaning, in essence, making the most with the least, defines Petticoat Pulga’s recycle-conscious, underdog fashion sense. Reed just returned from Laredo, where she sourced through used clothing from warehouses filled floor to ceiling with clothes.
“It’s hard work and you have to have a good eye and know what you’re looking for,” she explains. Petticoat Pulga also honors her personal history, which includes making trips to the pulga with her Mexican immigrant family while growing up.
“Whenever my grandmother would pick me up [from school], I knew I had to go to the flea markets, or pulgas.”
Reed’s grandmother taught her the art of sifting through “stuff,” and each time she finds a new piece, whether or not it’s vintage Chanel sweaters and skirts, or gorgeous nameless tops, she attributes the finds to a higher power.
“I feel a spiritual connection to any of these pieces,” she continues. “I feel like I am really lucky to find them, for example this [red] see-through, ’70s number: I think about what woman wore this, and what spirit brought this beautiful gown to me. I feel like I am honoring their legacy.”I had the opportunity to step inside the pre-Petticoat Pulga closet, which is actually a whole room — in addition to a closet. Racks and couches are overloaded with the finest clothes: ensembles in plaid patterns evoking classic Jackie O and the Alicia Silverstone movie Clueless, as well as Christian Dior and Chanel gems.
The “vagabondesque vintage” — as Reed calls it — also includes a pair of nude Manolo Blahniks and a Bill Blass beaded blazer. Reed’s inventory also includes a Southwestern twist, with traditional tribal patterns representing her indigena culture. The price point for the “legacy” clothing is, as Reed reminds me, negotiable.
“I’m willing to bargain. Like Mexico, this is definitely a pulga.”Find Petticoat Pulga on Facebook (and about town). In addition to her rock-club appearances, Reed is also available for private parties.This article was originally published in the San Antonio Current on Jan. 6, 2012.
Prieto is a masters student in the School of Business.
