I am standing in Surrender Dorothy, the recently opened (and still very under-the-radar) vintage store and much more at 13 West 17th Street in New York, but wondering where on earth I really am. With its theatrical vibe and sense of dress-up box discovery, it’s like stepping through the wardrobe-doored portal into Narnia, or backstage at the Sadler’s Wells theater in London circa the Fonteyn/Nureyev era, or some mythic place between the Oz of Wizard fame and the notorious Oz magazine of the late 1960s. In other words, Surrender Dorothy—the name is, yes, an allusion to the Kansas heroine played by Judy Garland, but was actually taken from Salman Rushdie’s novel, The Ground Beneath Her Feet—is the very best kind of store: madly creative, transportive, and individualistic.
“Surrender Dorothy is about this idea of splendor you might not think is even possible in daily life,” says Ruby McCollister, who along with besties Leah Hennessey and Arabella Aldrich, makes up the trio who opened the vintage store this past October. “We all admire places which are like that—like Alice Underground, which was in Los Angeles, or Biba in London, which was the holy grail of the coolest stores. It’s the idea that shopping can be a thing of wonder and fun, and you’d enjoy being there for more than 30 minutes. I don’t even buy that much; I just love going into stores. And we wanted a place where you felt you could come and hang out, and have a cup of tea.”
Time certainly flies by when you’re at Surrender Dorothy. On that recent visit of mine, the rails were groaning with so much, I felt like I had to look at everything in case I missed a treasure. In the mix: a tattered, frayed black velvet Shakespearian doublet (an old stage costume) that looked like it was once worn by Hamlet; a chic brown vintage Jean Paul Gaultier evening dress with a fringed train; a skinny, long-sleeved tee promoting the fabulous 1971 movie adaptation of the Twiggy-starring musical, The Boyfriend; another old stage costume that Aldrich loves because it reminds her of the 1940s movie The Red Shoes; and, more faves in the form of experimental, innovative new pieces by up-and-coming designers who Aldrich found in London, some of whom are recent graduates, like Ellen Poppy and Genevieve Devine.
In essence the m.o. of Surrender Dorothy is the idea that you put something on—old, new, madcap, couture-y, destroyed, pristine, whatever you want—and get into character that day. It’s the very definition of mood dressing. “I don’t think any of us has a particular interest in fashion as it stands right now,” says Hennessey, “but I think we are all pathologically obsessed with dressing up and costumes. We all wore our mothers’ clothing and we all have really kind of shockingly impeccably chic mothers in different ways. And maybe even more so, we all had very, very chic fathers. We stole clothes from them, so it’s like a second generation style; we were into dressing a lot older than we were,” she continues, laughing. “I was definitely more punk, but I kind of dressed like a middle-aged punk.”
Hennessey had, at 16, a black-clad SoHo gallerist phase, while McCollister had a “European,” fake-fur-coated, equestrian booted, lace-hosiery moment. When they met Aldrich in Los Angeles as teens, she arrived in a vintage Chanel mini-skirted suit which came from her journalist mom via an editor acquaintance renowned for her love of Chanel. Since then, they’ve gone on to study and act, putting on stage plays (like Jean Genet’s The Maids) and creating films. But it’s the shared love of what clothing can express that made them join forces and open Surrender Dorothy.
The location, likewise, couldn’t be more them: It occupies a gloriously dusty, vividly hued floor in a building that belongs to a Tony Award-winning actor who was mentored by Richard Burton. It even has its own mini theater which said actor created for his actress wife, and it’s still there, on the floor above them. Surrender Dorothy as a retail space is full of surprises, from the Mondo Mondo scents showcased in vintage dolls house and the sofas strewn with Jess Maybury quilts (available for sale) to the pulsating green walls, which, says Aldrich, were inspired by the Emerald City.
Dust aside, it all feels like a breath of fresh air, done just for the love of creating something special and unique. Surrender Dorothy is as close to the late, lamented concept store of old as we’ll get these days, only without the self-conscious (or indeed, pretentious) ‘lifestyle’ connotations. The store, says Aldrich, is “an opportunity that’s almost this intimate way to interact with someone’s art piece. You get to enter their minds. I love that we can create that kind of interaction here; that stores can do that. It’s the coolest thing.”