Hello: I’m Here

When I got into fashion in the latter two years of high school I didn’t have much of a cognizance for Need Supply. It was the expensive looking store front that the rich girls at my school who were into fashion shopped at. At the start of senior year, Zen and I visited their archive sale. Besides remembering a pretty neat Neighborhood collaboration jacket I didn’t take away much from the experience. I think I only visited the actual store once or twice that year.

In freshman year of college as I started to have a bit more money and started buying from brands like Undercover, Wacko Maria, and Number (N)ine. Need started to make sense. Richmond, Virginia is far from an unfashionable city — the prominence of art is more than enough to produce a slew of exceptionally well dressed people everywhere you go, but our retail experience is lacking. Clothing stores are largely the same old vintage/upscale “thrift” and women’s shops still carrying brands more catered to white women from the old money suburbs, far removed from what the average college student would be looking for. Need was special. It was the place I went to to see members of my favorite local bands buying Stone Island, it was the first place I would ever see Margiela, Beams+, Junya Watanabe, and dozens of other incredible garments from exceedingly cool brands in-person. It was the store where we would go to touch every single shoe, magazine, and piece of clothing (an idea which now seems incredibly foreign). I could only learn so much about my tastes from staring at a computer — to hold a shirt in hand felt infinitely more educational, more significant. 

I don’t want to use a term as strong as “safe space,” but that’s what Need effectively was: it was where I felt most at home when I needed it most. It was the place I learned my style. I need it less now, but it’s still home. I’ll miss it.

Thanks for the memories.