Episode Details

Today we're chatting with Kathleen Schaaf — the owner of Meow Vintage, located right in the heart of Retro Row in Long Beach, California. Kathleen is a vintage legend, someone who has been doing it for a long time, and doing it her way, and I'm so excited for you to hear her stories from four decades in the business.

Kathleen grew up thrifting with her mom, raiding her aunt's hand-me-downs in elementary school, and haunting the cheap, treasure-packed shops of downtown Long Beach before anyone was calling it a "vintage scene". She opened Meow Vintage in 1986 — nearly forty years ago — and has been a fixture of vintage ever since.

But Kathleen's story goes so much deeper. She's a dead stock hunter — crisscrossing the country before the internet even existed, cold-calling merchants and slipping into back rooms and dusty attics from New Mexico to Massachusetts, building relationships with dealers and shop owners that have now spanned three generations. And along the way, she built a parallel career outfitting film and television — from Roseanne and Seinfeld all the way to Stranger Things.

On today's episode, we get into all of it, plus what forty years in the business has taught her about people, quality, and the difference between loving vintage and just selling it. All that and more!

Let's dive right in!

DISCUSSED IN THE EPISODE:

• [5:05] Kathleen grew up thrifting and accumulated a lot of great vintage.
• [6:22] The "aha" moment where Kathleen realized she could be a vintage dealer — buying an entire rack of deadstock 60s pointy flats
• [9:51] She quickly became a deadstock hunter, criss-crossing the country looking for "new old" stock.
• [13:36] Opening Meow Vintage in 1986 on Retro Row in Long Beach,
• [16:06] Crisscrossing the country before the internet even existed, digging for deadstock.
• [20:36] What the vintage landscape looked like when she opened
• [26:52] She built a parallel career outfitting film and television
• [36:26] How the vintage industry has changed over the years
• [43:41] Reflections on Brimfield — what's changed, what hasn't, and the chaos that's part of it.

EPISODE MENTIONS:

• Meow Vintage
• @meowvintagelb
• Larry from Hellers Cafe
• Amy Parris
• Pickwick Vintage
• Rin Tanaka's books
• Liz Baca
• Shirley Kurata

LET'S CONNECT:

• 📸Instagram: @emilymstochl
• 🐦Threads: @emilymstochl
• 🎥TikTok: @emilymstochl
• 📧 Substack: https://prelovedpod.su