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| TurnerLane Vintage, in loving memory of Travis Turner who lived on Church Lane. |
Back in 2000-2004 my best friend and I had a vintage clothing store called Funk in the Trunk. We spent Thursday through Sunday in the store and allowed the other owner to work on Wednesdays. The store was a great place to hang out after partying on "the night before", and we got to meet several new friends and clients while we did what we loved: spending time together, listening to 80s rock songs, and trying on fly vintage gear. That's pretty much all we did while at work.
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| http://www.etsy.com/shop/ |
On other weekdays, we went to our boring day jobs, or shopping for Funk in the Trunk. Life was pretty blissful back then. In mid-2004 we decided to get out of the retail business and me and Travis took home several hundred pounds of vintage clothes. We always planned to either open up another store or begin selling online.
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| http://www.etsy.com/shop/ |
We never got around to it. A few years back, Travis learned that he had liver cancer and decided to start treatment. It was too late, the disease had spread too quickly, and he died within a couple months. It was devastating to me and all of the friends and family who loved him. Travis' dad reached out and ended up giving me the clothes that were stored in his house. There were thousands of items.
In transporting the clothes from his suburban address to my city apartment, I decided that proceeds from online sales from Funk in the Trunk that was, would go to an organization called Hopewell Cancer Support. This group has offered post-treatment support to several people I know that survived their battles with cancer. I know that had he not died, Travis would have found another family at Hopewell.
Today, I've opened an Etsy shop named for Travis Turner who lived on Church Lane, and have enlisted he unpaid help of half-a-dozen friends and family. These folks have volunteered to take photos in the clothes and lend their faces to the shop. It's been fantastic---many of them knew Travis or spent time with him before the illness.
In the intervening years between now and the closing of the shop, dozens of bands and other things have cropped up and called themselves Funk in the Trunk. The name's no longer unique. Hence the name change.
Since I began selling off our inventory, clothes and accessories from this little clothing store in Baltimore have been shipped to Connecticut, New Orleans, France, and Malaysia--among other places.
Each item that I photograph, fold, package, and mail reminds me of the man who bought them. I miss Travis and the time that we spent together. I'm glad and fortunate to have had him in my life.
