Entrepreneur sells vintage clothing from Internet closets

SHOP WITH CAROLINE

In this story: Choose your decade Targeting Japan RELATED STORIES, SITES

From Stacey Wilkins
CNN Correspondent

GADSDEN, Alabama (CNN) -- You can always rummage through thrift stores in search of that fake ostrich skin purse or fuchsia miniskirt.

Or you can peek inside Caroline's Closets, a Web site that brings vintage clothing to the masses with the click of a mouse.

These closets belong to Caroline Keating, a 27-year-old Internet entrepreneur who connects new buyers with old clothes.

"That's my favorite thing to do -- to just find really weird, wacky stuff," she said.

Caroline's Closets is a family affair. Caroline's sister, Margaret, is the technical guru for the Web site

So her customers don't have to, Keating scours garage sales across the United States, seeking hidden treasures in places like Gadsden, Alabama.

Then she posts pictures of her finds on the site, along with descriptions and ratings -- on a scale of 1 to 5 -- of their condition.

The site is divided into closets. The Cocktail closet is for vintage items dating to the 1960s and earlier, the Polyester closet covers the disco '70s, the Retro closet features '80s fashions, and the Interstate closet holds "rugged clothing" for the road such as jeans and Western wear.

Among the hottest discoveries these days are '80s castoffs -- think "Flashdance," Michael Jackson or early Madonna -- which are the rage of the moment with the vintage crowd.

Caroline's Closets is based in Miami, and the enterprise is a family venture. Her sister, Margaret, is the technical guru behind the site.

"We have been successful so far by keeping the look and feel very light and happy and friendly and personable and inviting," she said. "Those are the kinds of things I go for when I'm designing."

Now that her business is catching on, Caroline Keating is opening her "closet" in Japan, where she says there is a ready-made market for vintage Americana.

Japanese shoppers love the kooky, kitschy clothing that Caroline's Closets specializes in.

"It's very expensive to get those clothes in Japan," said Chris Starace, the site's business developer. "There are a lot of middlemen in between. We can actually cut out the middleman and they can buy direct."

If the Japanese go for it, Keating might just have to spend a little more time on the road, practicing her exacting clothes-hunting techniques.

"We worked it out to a science last year that if it is really neatly set up and there is lots of nice, neat stuff on hangers you don't stop," she said while on a stop in Alabama.

But if there's an unwieldy pile of junk ...

"You stop," she said, "because they don't know what they have."

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September 22, 2000
Antique-hunting online
August 25, 2000
The big book on garage sale success
July 7, 1998
Out of the closet: Vintage clothing the latest trend
May 6, 1996

Caroline's Closets

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