AU grad and her mother open vintage clothes store
When Amelia Woodyard was at Ashland University, she discovered the perfect way to earn some extra spending money.
“I started reselling clothes in college and was pretty successful with it,” said Woodyard, a 2020 AU graduate.
Catching on to a growing trend, she started buying vintage clothes at thrift stores to resell.
Because it really took off, her mother, Angie Woodyard, started to help her thrift and fell in love with the hunt, too, Amelia said.
The mother and daughter, who are both Norwalk residents, have been doing so well with this venture that they opened a storefront on Oct. 1 in Huron at 613 Main St. called Single Stitch Vintage.
“Having a storefront was always a dream of ours,” Angie said. “I’ve always told Amelia ‘when the time is right, the Lord would make it happen.’” Then an available space for rent opened up. I love having our inventory on display in the city of Huron because it's a beautiful small town full of both tourists and locals in the summertime.”
Confidence to open a store came from time at Ashland University
Even though business wasn’t her major (it was dietetics), Amelia said Ashland University helped her learn how to communicate with business professionals and made her feel more confident with taking a risk like opening a store.
“Working with Amelia brings me great joy and appreciation for her dedication, much from what she learned at Ashland University,” Angie said. “I liked Amelia attending Ashland University because she wasn’t far from home and I was familiar with the city. I knew she was getting the best education around. It was also just a short drive to visit and enjoy a meal together at Convo.”
Amelia, a 2016 graduate of Edison High School in Milan near Norwalk, liked that AU was close to home, too, and also that it is a small college.
“I liked being at a smaller school,” she said. “I’m not much of a city girl and liked being in a small town, much like where I grew up. Ashland felt like that to me.”
When Amelia started thrifting at AU, she would show her mother some of the treasures she discovered.
“I found it ironic that they were some of the same clothes I would wear in high school,” said Angie, a 1991 Norwalk High School graduate. “I would stop at the thrift store to see if I could find something she would like and that’s when I realized I enjoyed the thrill of the hunt, too.”
Many hours spent and miles traveled hand-picking vintage clothes
For the thrill of the hunt, Angie and Amelia have spent hundreds of hours traveling thousands of miles to hand-pick vintage clothes from the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s at thrift stores, garage sales and estate sales. They also buy vintage clothes from people who come into their store.
On their social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram and TikTok) they are proud to say that they have hand-picked well over 3,000 items – and that’s just since they started tracking it.
“We started selling at events around us because we realized we had such a unique product that you don’t come across every day,” Amelia said. “We were also excited to share our rare finds with our community, as we were the first around us to do something like this. Fashion trends typically don’t take off in small towns like Milan/Norwalk and we wanted to change that. We started selling out of our vintage 1964 Layton camper for about two years before opening up a storefront.”
Selling at the Huron County Fairgrounds in Norwalk led to them finding their storefront. That’s where they met Teresa Brown, who owns Corner Cuts, a hair salon in the same building as Single Stitch Vintage.
Brown stopped by their camper and it casually came up that they wanted to open their own store, so Brown suggested an available space next to her business, Amelia said.
“She was so easy to talk to and has already been such a great neighbor,” Amelia said. “She was very helpful and made the transition for us super easy. She was genuinely happy and excited for us. We love the small town of Huron. Everyone is so kind and made sure they stopped by to congratulate us on our new journey.”
Daughter and mother love working together
In their journey to find clothes 20 years old or older, Amelia said they try to buy items that are coming back into style and don’t buy in bulk, hand-picking every item to make sure they are all vintage, which she added were made a lot better than today’s clothes.
As a person who has a passion for fashion and the youngest of 11 siblings, Angie said she has always loved staying up with the latest trends and learned how to mix and match different pieces she received as hand-me-downs as a child to make them trendy.
“I love working with Amelia because we share the same love for vintage clothes,” Angie said. “We both play a different role on the business side of things. She excels at running our social media pages and keeping up with the latest fashion trends, while I love putting together outfits and running the book-keeping side of things.”
Bonding through a shared love for vintage clothes has been a great experience, Amelia said.
“We get super excited showing each other our finds,” Amelia said. “We are very close and I would pick her to be my business partner any day. It’s always nice working with someone you can trust and rely on.”
Their store isn’t the only place they sell vintage items
Single Stitch Vintage, named because vintage clothes have a single stitch at the bottom because they are usually made of heavier quality instead of a double stitch needed to keep today’s clothes together, according to Amelia, is open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays.
The daughter and mother also still sell at events, as well as on Depop, an online clothes marketplace (singlestitchvintagellc), and on their social media platforms.
“We may end up being open five days a week (Tuesday-Saturday) and stay open later in the evenings,” Amelia said. “We will always be closed on Sundays, as we are very active in our church (Mount Harvest Church of God in Milan) and want to honor our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
They are both so grateful for this time in their lives, being able to live out a dream and shop for a living. And they are thankful to Ashland University for Amelia starting their dream there, teaching her how to make it become a successful business and giving her the confidence to take the risk.
“Our advice to anyone with a dream; follow your heart and take the risk,” Angie said.
