Matt Kraus, owner of the new boutique Euclid Vintage in the Central West End, has always had a love of things from the past. “I grew up going to flea markets and my family are big antique junkies and collectors,” says the St. Louis native.
At the University of Denver, he found a vibrant vintage clothing community and made extra money during college by reselling clothes. “I’d go to thrift stores around Colorado and sell to friends and online,” he says.
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After graduating with a degree in finance in 2020, Kraus worked in banking for a few years before deciding that corporate life wasn’t for him. He moved back to St. Louis and decided to pursue vintage fashion full time. Eventually, he found a storefront in a former sandwich shop on Euclid Avenue.
“I wanted an area with good foot traffic and a young, hip population that would understand the concept,” says Kraus, who will host the store’s grand opening party on October 13. “I looked around a bit and landed on the Central West End. I’m a block away from Forest Park and it’s a good walkable community.”
Kraus officially moved back this summer and has been busy renovating the space, removing old industrial kitchen equipment, doing drywall repair, repainting, and building his own checkout counter and clothing racks. He had the store’s 1970s-inspired logo painted onto the windows.
“It’s going to be a hodge-podge of things that I think are cool,” he says.
While the store will sell a mix of men’s and women’s vintage clothing and some accessories, the main focus will be vintage t-shirts from the 1970s through the 1990s, including movie, television, band, and sports tees. “T-shirts are the most accessible and timeless and easiest to procure as far as thrifted goods,” Kraus says. “They are typically unisex and there’s a lot of diversity. In any era or subject matter, you can find a t-shirt.”
While he is open to anything vintage from other eras, he says it’s easier to find things from the 80s and 90s. And that resonates with him because he grew up in the 90s. “All of the video games and culture are nostalgic and fun to find. A lot of my personal collection is 90s stuff.”
In the beginning, Kraus plans to pull from his massive personal collection to stock the store’s inventory. “On an ongoing basis, it’s a lot of going to thrift stores and estate sales and garage sales,” he says. “I’m a frequent browser on Facebook Marketplace and there’s a lot of making inroads with other vintage resellers and trying to buy them out wholesale.”
Address: 12 and ½ S. Euclid Ave.
Hours: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wed-Sun.
