Retail Pharmacy for Coeval Magazine
INTRODUCTION:
Under the sterile fluorescence of the ceiling lights, I am exposed. My proclivities are on display as I am drawn to unraveling decadence and lacy poetry. Running fingers over seams, I trace sinewy lifelines of textile junctures back to the genesis of their construction, trying to discern a pattern from a constellation, a motive, from creation. They hang, suspended on their own metal crosses begging silently to be born again - ironically they are given life by being worn, dreaming of skin contact, the warmth of blood below the skin. There are clothes and then there are pieces, blankets behaving like paintings, racks and worlds - there is shopping and then there is Retail Pharmacy.
The retail landscape in New York in its current form is suited for the taste of basic spring-breakers, in-the-know moms, sugarbabies of all tastes and the bros who are stoked on the sheer size of the Nike store in SoHo. Luxury flagships open their high-security doors alongside the likes of fast-fashion giants and gen-z favorites making for a modge podge synonymous with the digs provided by your local mall, give or take the presence of Chanel and Simone Rocha. The dolls are left without many places to shop other than from the comfort of their beds on SSENSE (bless that quick shipping), leaving them to admit that damn, we miss Opening Ceremony. Yet, a few folks have strutted into this seemingly barren landscape to build a new bliss that isn’t just commodifiable but emotional, where things aren’t just stocked and sold, they’re revelatory.
Retail Pharmacy, founded by Sophia Boli, is among these ranks of shopping-god sent angels who have created a place for people to go. It’s experiential by default because of the sheer range of its cohesive displays but more than that, its existence is intentional, sexily straddling the intersection of art and fashion in a way that is provocative, coaxing out narratives from creators not brands to flaunt a new context for their fantasies. As identity building becomes inextricably linked to capitalism, Retail Pharmacy acknowledges that who you are is who you’re going to be but how you dress? Now that will change. Sophia provides an environment where healing is indulgent but never greedy, it’s wellness without the fufu fluff, a place where the self is reflected in its current evolution and adorned so that it can love its reflection.
Coeval’s Lindsey Okubo, speaks to Sophia Boli about the creation of Retail Pharmacy and adds Sophia’s remedies to her list of goods prescribed - and shopping budget.
INTERVIEW:
Lindsey: To start, can you tell me about your childhood and what growing up was like? I feel like those experiences are always really formative to worldview and it’s interesting to see what you were exposed to etc. I know being from Hawaii we were often limited in terms of exposure to things outside of the cultural context of paradise we found ourselves in and instead Tumblr provided those kinds of avenues of discovery. I remember going to Opening Ceremony for the first time and being in awe of everything in its physical form.
Sophia: I was actually born in LA and my mom owned her own little store and my dad worked at Paramount Studios so I had a very LA childhood. I grew up in the back room of her store and then for lunch we’d go to the backlot of Paramount with my dad. When I was eight, my father wanted to buy a larger house but couldn't afford one in LA and he loved Hawaii so he found a fixer-upper there and it just kind of suited his lifestyle. Despite living in LA and working in the movie industry, he's very much so comforted by nature, he’s mellow and quiet, a gardening kind of guy so it worked out perfectly for him. I was a little traumatized because I had reverse culture shock from being surrounded by museums, Hollywood and fashion, to being very isolated. In LA, we had a condo so we had neighbors right next to us and now we lived in a big four- bedroom house with a lot of separation between us and the next house over. I didn't want to move, I was very adamant about not wanting to go cuz I loved being in LA so I think the move changed a lot about me; in a good way in the end, I don't know who I would be if I grew up in LA because being in Hawaii gave me this duality to my experience. It's hard to go places if you don’t have a lot of money and my family didn’t. We had a couple really great family vacations to like Europe that formed my sense of style and love of certain aesthetics but mostly I was just in Hawaii all the time, playing in the forest. As I got older and the Internet became more prevalent, I was on Tumblr a lot and always looking at clothes online. I grew up in Kona, which is very much a tourist town and the idea of fashion there was very like one note. It definitely wasn't the kind of high school where girls wore heels and I don't know if that's different now with the way social media is but I feel like it's changed the way younger girls present themselves and I’m always kind of curious about that. It was like the cool girls were in Abercrombie tops, shorts and flip flops and that was that. Meanwhile, people are asking me what the black stuff on my eyes was when I started wearing eyeliner. I was looking for all of these outside influences or sources of inspirations online because there was nobody around me that inspired me really which I’m grateful now because it definitely made me create my own sense of style but I felt alone a lot, I was very depressed for a long time. I think that that was good though because being a little sad makes you more creative, as fucked up as that is.
Lindsey: Right and this notion of “searching” I think really resonates subconsciously with a lot of people - not only because it’s poetic but because life’s experiences there are quite prescriptive in a way that engenders a homogeneous outlook. So much so that you really begin to question yourself and your affinities.
Sophia: Yeah I ended up becoming friends with the goth, emo kids because they were essentially like the outcasts and I was an outcast in my own way. They were the only people who didn't insult me for what I was wearing. I was even talking to my boyfriend about this the other day but I love being here in New York because when I walk into a room people can look at me and be like, oh, wow, great outfit. When I walked into a room in Hawaii, people would be like, what the fuck is that outfit? It was humbling, for sure but I was always constantly searching for more people like me.
Lindsey: It's funny because thinking about the kids who are growing up today, it’s almost desirable to be an outcast of sorts in some ways. Why do you think that is?
Sophia: I think about that all the time. I have no idea why that is? To be honest, I think it has something to do with everybody wanting to be unique but not feeding into what makes them actually unique and understanding their own defining characteristics. Being unique is a trend but it’s like how much of an individual can you be if you all look the same and like all the same things? I feel like a lot of those people grow up in cities too and they’re not actually in small towns where being unique actually gets them shit on for lack of a better term where you’d actually be ostracized and stuff for being different.
Lindsey: I think that's what the difference is maybe between those who grow up in a city or around “culture” and those that don’t - it’s this general sense of courage and rejection of a need for affirmation. Ultimately, acceptance is still the goal. You want to be accepted for being unique, aka just whoever you are but at the same time, there's no real exploration of that in a context of adversity. I went on the Fashion Nova website for the first time because of that Miu Miu set that went viral and was shocked to see the fit models that all quite literally, look the same. As we're now fully entering this digital era in which knowledge is more so a question of access to resources than something ascertained, references are lost and physicality is fleeting, how is retail at odds with this impending reality? Is this something you’re actively thinking about all the time?
Sophia: Yeah, I think about that a lot. I feel like in person and personal shopping experiences are few and far between. I noticed even when I go to stores, this new generation of retail workers doesn’t know much about what they’re selling or feel connected to it. I think because I grew up with a mother who always worked in retail since she was 16, she taught me everything she knows. She can sell ice to an Eskimo and she taught me that when somebody walks in to look at what they're wearing, figure out their size, figure out like three pieces in the shop they would like, and their overall engagement level. Some consumers really want a personal experience but I feel like people just don't really do that anymore and no one's trained to do that. A lot of young people have these social anxieties that I think are birthed from not having that many in person experiences anymore because they can just use a virtual chat bot or something. A lot of younger people are afraid to talk to people and I noticed that in my previous job, when I was managing this store, it was hard to get some of the staff to engage with other customers because I think they were just nervous, which is fine, but I think that it's detrimental to shopping. There's something special about buying something in person. It's like treasure hunting in a way, like, you go to the store, you try something on and you feel great in it and you leave with it. There's this sense of happiness, new union and a little bit of fate. I don't get that same feeling when I shop online where you can’t gauge fit, or the quality of materials. Especially with a lot of the designers I carry who make more complex garments, there’s no discernment provided through photos.
Lindsey: What do you think about SSENSE? I feel like they’re kind of the exception to the rule in their service and overall brand buy.
Sophia: It's funny because SSENSE has a lot of the brands that I do like to buy and as far as online retailers go, they're probably one of the few I do actually shop on. But even a lot of the designers I have are too small for SSENSE and there's no real market for them that's doing anything for them. They can be on Depop, they can make their own little store or sell through Instagram, but they have to do all the work. I'm trying to create a space in a store where I'm relieving that workload from them and they just have to focus on designing and making cool stuff. Hopefully I’m able to bring them new clientele and sales by combining their products with other people's products by knowing what works well together. People don't do that as much in stores today as they used to.
Lindsey: Do you mean, like brand cohesion?
Sophia: Yeah it’s like they have a mission and everything they carry and do is subject to having to be a piece in that puzzle. The last store I worked at the mission was to stock women-owned or sustainable brands but the merchandise wasn't always cohesive. It's kind of like identity politics in a way. But with Retail Pharmacy where when I stock something, I’m looking at the garment and half the designers I talk to on Instagram I do so through their brand page so I don't even know what gender they are, I don't know what race they are, I don't know what age they are. I just know that I love their items and that I want to sell them. I think that’s true inclusivity and I'm not looking at the demographics of my designers but I'm just looking at their work.
Lindsey: Yeah and after I visited the shop the last time I was thinking about the difference between brands and makers and how that distinction is inexplicably tied to how we’re thinking about luxury today.
Sophia: Yeah, I always struggle with what word to use that is inclusive of everybody in the shop because some people are designers of clothing and some are artists, painters etc. I just settled on creators because at the end of the day, they’re all creating something. The difference between designer and maker when I think about the people involved in the show is that they’re approaching the things they’re making from a conceptual point of view. I try to carry brands that have intention, if that makes sense.
Lindsey; How are you defining that?
Sophia: By people that are either making these items themselves or they're thinking of it from a conceptual point of view. I had one girl in the shop that had like these deadstock rings and that was like my one exception to like the vintage/not made yourself thing because she still has a whole other brand she’s building and this was just an extension of that in the grand scheme of things. Then there's also people like Tibby of Stomach of Your Dead Soulmate who just makes tanks for the shop but she’s still a multidisciplinary artist who makes installation based work and I kind of view the garments as one of their art forms. I want to tap into finding more people who sit at this intersection of making both art and clothing and I find that really interesting. For instance with Ramona’s collection, she created this SCOBY leather to make her garments out of and had this whole writing that accompanied the collection that explained the concept. I feel like fashion used to have so much more concept like I think of old Alexander McQueen and the Highland Rape collection and how the model's stumbled down the runway in their ripped up clothes and it told a true story. I just want to find more designers that feel that way and I feel like that kind of went away in the early 2000s.
Lindsey: It became more like you present your clothes in a very clean way so you can focus on the clothing and thus it’s more conducive to wholesale pick-up. It's created almost to be shown on social media and that really changes both the platform and function itself. For instance with NYFW, you see shows that are presented at Spring Studios and it’s a very sterile environment where the only context the clothes have is the model that’s wearing them. Even with the way the clothes are sold online, retailers are having to find ways to communicate through imagery while still preserving any existing story that the brand is trying to tell. How is this best done?
Sophia: I don't know, I'm still trying to figure that out. I am noticing that theatrics are coming back into fashion which I do love and appreciate but trying to tell a story is really hard. People have always asked me what the story behind the shop is and why it’s called Retail Pharmacy? I’m always like, I don’t know but my mother always took me shopping when I didn't feel good, it was like a medicine. Another big reason was that I feel like the pharmacy is a place everyone goes and has something everyone needs. Hopefully whatever you get from the pharmacy makes you feel better and I want the items I sell to do the same things. Somewhere there’s a balance between keeping the integrity of the stories of individual brands while also creating this brand for Retail Pharmacy that they are carried under. The presentation we did here to promote Ramona’s collection was beautiful. I felt like it was a good mix of her vision while still in this sterile, medical environment. I’m hoping to do more runway shows in the future. I really want to bring more of that to the fashion world just like telling a story and making the presentations to be almost like a performance. I also had a reading at the end of Retail Pharmacy and two of the artists in the show read at it so it showed the fact that they have other disciplines and all that.
Lindsey: Totally and if you look at the current landscape now, the only retailer really working in this capacity in New York is Dover Street Market. While they have amazing installations, they’re still a place that has a budget to produce without too many constraints and it still feels somewhat inaccessible. I think that aspect is key because so many brands are championing notions of community but they remain out of touch in terms of price point, presentation etc.
Sophia: Totally, it shocks me how many people I know, even young designers, who are afraid to go into luxury stores? But you should be able to go and look at that Miu Miu skirt you saw on the runway, fuck it, you should be able to try it on. I feel like that plays into the personal shopping experience I mentioned earlier because really it’s just being welcoming towards customers. People would come into Retail Pharmacy and when I had everything up on the walls, they’d just sit on the bench in the middle of the room and stare at everything. It was like a spectacle but it wasn’t a museum and I wanted to combat any notions of it feeling off-limits by being very welcoming and telling people they could try anything on because I know it can be intimidating. I also think having these smaller spaces is better and I'm working with designers that are mostly known in small circles of people so it's not as intimidating. I think there just should be a choice at certain shops where you have the option to browse or to have that very catered experience but it’s ultimately important to have this physical space where people are able to just look at stuff. I've followed so many of these brands online for so long and it's hard to find their stuff in person and for some, it is actually impossible as they really only sell online. For one of the designers, Violette Hay, I love her stuff but she only sells online and I reached out to her for the first Retail Pharmacy but she rejected me, so I reached out to her again for this one because it was more established and she knew more of the people involved and she agreed to do it. It ended up being a great experience and people would come in and be elated to see the pieces in real life. For a lot of these brands, we are a part of this same little internet community and we're all kind of I feel maybe not the most outwardly social people but we have this mutual love of fashion but there was no uniting entity for us to actually meet up, see people’s items and just talk and I loved creating that. I also don't want to push things on people because I grew up not being from the best economic background so I understand what it's like to just want to see something and I don't want to make anybody feel guilty if they can't take something home. I include a wide range of price points so I can make sure that if they do want to go home with something, they can.
Lindsey: Right and I think it’s because you create such a strong physical context is why people also want to take things home, there’s an emotional exchange that occurred because it was rooted in experience.
Sophia: Yeah for me, a lot of my clothing is tied to memories. I wanted people to be able to come into the space and take home a memory of the day. They told me they were just so happy to see all this work together. I had some people come back like three times over the 10 days whether or not they took something home and if they did I know that they'll like think about and remember Retail Pharmacy forever.
Lindsey: I think what's cool too is that a word that's not often used in the retail context is trust and the process of developing a relationship through understanding of someone’s vision and creative context outside of their primary layer of selfhood. You're developing that with a lot of people that you carry and that obviously takes time, a certain nurturance and being a certain kind of person.
Sophia: I feel like this whole store is just coming from such a genuine place in my heart. I really just want to put cool clothes together and dress people better. I'm so tired of seeing people in Brandy Melville and Fashion Nova while knowing that these fast fashion companies are taking away from the livelihoods of young, creative designers in more ways than one. I want to just create a space for people to be able to sell stuff so they can make a little extra money and work a little less for other people in exploitative situations.
Lindsey: I think so much of fast fashion is reflective of the phenomenon of cringe because it’s a certain prescription to mindless self-expression; on a level where we can’t even verbalize our affinities for things. It's akin to vibe capitalism which is then related to the way that we shop and the way that we present ourselves because people want to say, oh I got this vintage Junya Watanabe top on eBay and no one wants to say they got it at Zara anymore. There’s this weird form of identity building that has become inevitably linked to capitalism.
Sophia: Totally, there’s a whole identity of being like a vintage shopper. It's funny because I feel like there's definitely two groups of people that consider themselves fashionable right now. One is the group of people that shop at Zara and have no problem saying so. They buy clothes there in bulk like I would only do at Goodwill and it’s all to go with their new YSL chain purse. Then there are the rich people that want to be poor. I do not understand that. As someone who grew up in the lower middle class, you don’t want to be poor, so it’s funny to me when people tote about where they got their stuff and how little they paid for it.
Lindsey: Right it’s like the dialogue around value has shifted and I think being privileged has come with certain responsibilities that people don’t want to take on so opting to being “poor” allows them a feigned sense of understanding and relatable set of experiences.
Sophia: I think that life is hard no matter how you grew up or where you grew up. The human brain is messed up and people can have the best upbringing like on paper and still have horrible problems so I don't ever want to discount that. But it is funny to me when people are looking for identity in these stereotypical trendy ways like getting all the piercings, the pink hair and then claiming they’re unique but then they look like a quarter of gen-z and how unique is that? I've been lucky enough to fall into this circle of people in New York where like everyone kind of has their own sense of style. We can all admire a trend but I don't think I ever try and dive too deep into one. I like to mix all my references.
Lindsey: Right and the thing is that identity changes all the time, it’s not a fixed thing. I feel like that notion is scary too because it means people’s perception of you will always be in flux. People strive to build their images but so much of the time it’s not a fluid picture, which is where I think the social anxiety you mentioned comes up. Someone's not gonna fuck with what you do at any given moment.
Sophia: My mom always says to just treat people how you want to be treated and try to maintain some equality in this world. I was talking to one of my designers about it moving here and I felt a little dumb compared to other people honestly just because of their cultural knowledge compared to people I knew in Hawaii. I got a little stupider here and I say that that's the best thing that could have happened to me because being a little stupid makes you brave. When I was in LA, I never had the balls to reach out to any of these people there, let alone really dress how I wanted to dress. But here, I put on an outfit and I know there’s gonna be another person dressed like me and there’s this friendly competition to try and outdo each other's outfits. I love that and see that it really births some great innovation. I get so inspired when I walk outside. When I was growing up, I just looked at everything online and tried to refer to all of those different things and educate myself on the history of your wardrobe and I think more people need to do that. I want to constantly be in flux. I don’t want there to be one version of me that everyone knows and then I feel like I have to upkeep said version of me. I want to be constantly evolving.
Lindsey: Right and it’s that differentiation that yields identity. I feel like even looking at the marketplace and the players in NYC right now between you, Lucky Jewel, Cafe Forgot and even SSENSE, there’s still some brand overlap but how do you go about selecting pieces from them to sell at RP and how do you think they see the opportunity at RP?
Sophia: In this show because I had so many people involved, I just let most of the designers pick the pieces they wanted to drop off for me. It's kind of funny because they all had an interpretation of what the shop is which was this kind of creepy, dark, sexual vibe. When I'm thinking of what brands I wanted to have in this show, I was just kind of building my own dream styling closet in a way because when I think of selling to customers, I think of it more as styling an outfit for them that they can leave with versus trying to sell an item. Some people I picked because they had things that were more medical themed like Richard Kerns’ Medicated book and another friend makes these CDC shirts in the CdG font so that was on brand - so there were a few of those picks that played into the theme and I'm a sucker for a theme. The other designers selected were more based on personal aesthetic and what I liked and I didn’t always know what I was getting from them so that made it kind of fun for me. I think that’s where the trust you mentioned before came into play as well, it was mutual.
Lindsey: Lastly I just want to hear more about your mom’s shop and what you remember about it.
Sophia: I was really little when it closed, I was maybe 4 or 5, and then she started working at this other shop called Boulmiche. I can kind of see it in my brain, me mom’s shop, you walked in and it had racks lining the walls and her cash wrap was in the back and I would just sit on that all day. There was a backroom with three mirrors I would sit in front of with my easel and paint little pictures while my mom was busy with customers. I have more memories of Boulmiche which is like this luxury store on Rodeo Drive. She worked there for like 15 years so that was kind of like her longest stint at any place and funnily enough, it's actually the store that the girl in Pretty Woman gets rejected from. I hung out upstairs all the time and would look down through the window and look at the shoppers and a lot of the celebrity clientele. I think that that was probably really unknowingly formative in my love for clothing and I always wanted to help my mom. The second I was able to help she’d be like go get this scarf for me or whatever it was. My mom is the kind of person that builds relationships with her customers and even to this day she still works a few days a week doing retail because she loves it so much. She’s currently at this touristy shop in Kona in Hawaii and people come back every year and they take her out to dinner. I noticed that in my own retail experiences as well I really do love making connections with my customers because this is my dream and they're supporting it. When I was really tiny, my grandparents lived in New York and when I visited my late grandma, she had this crazy handkerchief collection and I would play store with her. When I look back at it, I realize this is kind of always what I wanted to do.