Tear It Up Boutique
- by Jon Devin, Wednesday, September 5th, 2007
Owner Adrienne Klein displays one of her rock-n-roll wares. Photo by Jon Devin.
“There’s a big difference between vintage and retro,” says Adrienne Klein, owner of Tear It Up, a rock-n-roll boutique in Midtown. Her wares - music-themed T-shirts and 50’s flavored clothes for men and women - fill a niche in the Memphis market, just as her business fills a niche in a quaint Victorian house on Cooper Street.
The difference is that the term “vintage” means the clothing is not new, but actually dates from a previous era. “Retro” clothing is newly made, but is styled after an earlier year, and is usually less expensive than vintage.
Klein referrs to a rack of lovely pencil dresses and bombshells, some with peasant tops, others with full skirts.
“Polka dots must be in,” she says, selecting a red dress with small white polka dots. “Because I just bought a bunch of these and now I only have one left.”
That dress and several others, she explains, were hand-made by women in New Hampshire who design and sew clothes professionally. Klein strives to support cottage industry. Another dress from California features bunches of cherries with green leaves on a royal blue background. It speaks of a time when fashions were much more relaxed than today’s clothes.
More importantly, the dress-makers tend to be more flexible with their sizing, so the dresses actually fit “real women” as Klein puts it. She says standardized sizing leaves much to be desired.
For men, she sells bowling shirts and other retro styles. Her stock of shoes includes everything from sneakers to stilettos. Much of her stock is ordered from the internet as well.
Klein opened her boutique a year and a half ago after she and her husband moved to Memphis from Philadelphia. The couple had made a habit of visiting Memphis regularly for several years. One year they decided to stay.
“I’m a huge Jerry Lee Lewis fan,” says Klein, “so we came down each year to celebrate his birthday. We were all over Sun Studios.”
The quieter pace of Memphis suited both, but she admits there was some culture shock.
“I still don’t think my husband is over it and we’ve been here six years,” she laughs.
Klein had worked for years in retail clothing sales and merchandising before striking out on her own. For her boutique, she chose a small retail space at 895 South Cooper Street. The converted Victorian house was remodeled as commercial space about three years ago. Klein’s shop is in the one space with its own external door. It is toward the back of the house though, so Klein has had to get creative with her signage to make sure people don’t pass by without noticing. When the weather is nice she puts mannequins out on her small front porch, and she just ordered a herd of pink flamingos for her yard.
Music T-shirts are her biggest sellers to date. A wide range of people come looking for T-shirts of their favorite bands, and Klein carries everything from country to rockabilly to metal/punk, all of which serves as memorabilia as much as fashion. Teens to retirees have found their favorites at Tear It Up, such as The Clash, the Misfits, Johnny Cash, and thanks to Sonny Burgess himself, Sun Studios.
Largely due to the music industry, Memphis never got tired of the 50’s look and diehard music fans love to relive the bygone eras of their favorite songs. Klein is actually surprised that her style of boutique had not been thought of before.
For her the best part of owning her own business is having the control over selecting her own stock.
“I have no one to blame when I buy the wrong item and it doesn’t sell - but usually it works,” she says. She will readily admit though that a lot of items she likes are not great sellers, so she remembers to choose for her customers rather than herself.
In the future she hopes to expand her business, particularly her small online business which she says gets a big response from overseas buyers. That said, she has no intention of becoming a chain.
“There’s nothing wrong with being small,” she says with a smile.
Oh, and the name? Klein chose “Tear It Up” after the song of the same title, by rockabilly artist Paul Burlison, who died in 2003. By doing so, she hopes to honor him and inform the public about her fashions at the same time.
Check out Tear It Up’s website.