 "Photo: Sara Ehlers | Daily 49er")
Vibrant colors, Mexican folk-heart style and amazing vintage finds — all under $30. Too good to be true? Maybe not.
Located on the commercial avenue corner of Broadway and Linden, Ay Que! Vintage is becoming a must-stop-by store for vintage junkies.
Style-savvy owners and sisters Lizette Suarez, 21, and Mayra Suarez, 30, work hard to keep their store up-to-date with all the new fashion trends.
"We like to hand-pick everything ourselves to make sure it's what we're looking for," Lizette Suarez said. "We try to see what's in fashion to compare and make it into a modern vintage look."
This may sound like an easy task, but it is not one at all. The Suarez sisters find their products by scavenging warehouses that distribute vintage clothes, as well as online findings, lots and anywhere else they can find something they think will be fashionable.
Starting with only 30 fans on their Facebook fan page a year ago, Ay Que! Vintage now has more than 450 fans. With this page, "liking" it enables fans to see any events and sales they have, as well as any new or featured products coming in. Facebook has helped the small business to gain some more customers.
Lizette Suarez said, "People see other people joining and then they maybe check out the page--then they like it so that's sort of been helping." She said sometimes she'll post a picture of a new item they're selling and people will comment "I want it!" or "Save it for me!" so it's clear to see the internet definitely has a toll on their business.
"We have a mix of new customers [who come] randomly, but we have our return customers from the old store that we've had for about a year," Lizette Suarez said. "They don't come very often, but they do return."
Ay Que Vintage is also popular among Cal State Long Beach students.
Nicole Beck, a senior communications major at CSULB, said, "I like that they tailor the clothing they find. They'll find something with cool print or a cool style and then tailor it to the style now. And they still sell them for as cheap as they bought them for."
As store owners, Lizette Suarez deals more with the day to day of the actual boutique, while Mayra Suarez deals with financial business.
"I've always liked vintage as a kid. I mean I'm still [pretty] young," Lizette Suarez said. "But I've basically liked it my whole life."
Lizette also said that she's always wanted to do some fashion design, so that is why some of the items they sell are reconstructed and re-made for a vintage edge.
Now as for style, the sisters describe their store as "very colorful and unique with a Mexican folk-heart style."
Lizette Suarez said that they are trying to focus on '80s and '90s pieces right now since they know that's what their customers are looking for at the moment.
"We try to find not necessarily trendy stuff but stuff that you'd see everyday that you're sort of looking for," Lizette Suarez said.
The owners use fashion blogs, designers and different sources just to see what is popular in the fashion world. Sometimes they even see the style of the customers that come in as inspiration for what they may look for next.
Ay Que Vintage is located at 501 E. Broadway. For more information, visit their Facebook at Facebook.com/pages/Aye-Que-Vintage.
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