An interview with Cincy vintage store Rad OTR

Rad OTR, situated on Main Street where Over-The-Rhine meets downtown, is one of Cincinnati’s notable vintage stores introducing shoppers to the premier styles of yesteryear. Specializing in mens’ streetwear, Rad has boasted some distinguished clientele, such as Timothée Chalamet, Toby Wallace, Emilio Estevez, a handful of illustrious comedians, and touring bands such as IDLES, Hot Mulligan, and The Lone Bellow. 

In the store, minimalist racks of denim and rare hoodies juxtapose the noisy walls, which are splashed in a design that owner Billy describes as “the bedroom that Mom wouldn’t let us have:” Vintage posters, Wheaties boxes, a couple skateboards, timeworn sneakers cradling potted plants (authenticity questionable), an NSYNC doll (still in the package), A shelf of VHS tapes, a green ashtray, a huge, frameless mirror, and a whole lot of Michael Jordan paraphernalia. 

Billy, Jackson, and Jake (who was unfortunately out sick at the time of the interview) put a lot of passion into their little storefront, hot off the heels of a summer pop-up in Columbus. In their interview with The U Scene, they discussed their origins in vintage, sustainability, gentrification, future plans, and of course, fashion.

How did you meet each other?

Billy Jake and I were separately selling, buying, and collecting vintage clothing. We’d almost been doing it for a decade separately. At the time we, there weren’t a whole lot of people doing it in general, so we found each other through Instagram, and just thought that it would be a cool thing to meet up and see each other’s clothing and maybe trade it. 

For me, I was broke and in college at the time, and I think he was as well, so we probably wanted to make a little bit of money off each other. We ended up meeting in Clifton when I was going to UC and it just formed a friendship, and we would both show each other what we got each day or whatever. 

He was working a graphic design job and I was working a finance job a year and a half or two years later [after college]. And the dream for both of us was to own a shop like this, because we wanted a place to shop, and nobody else was able to do it, so we thought, “Why not us?” I found a storefront, and we both quit our jobs and just went all in on it. That was 2017, like late 2017. We got the keys and soft-opened within seven days. 

We had no money. We had less than a thousand dollars between the two of us. It was nerve- wracking, risky. Everybody says you’re supposed to have a bunch of liquid cash and capital to do something with, but we got lucky with the space, and the way that it looked, and the rent. 

So we just built it to look like, I don’t know, the bedroom that mom wouldn’t let us have. 

What catalyzed your love for vintage and made you want to start the store?

Billy  I saw a guy making YouTube videos where he was going through a thrift store and finding full clothing for really cheap, and it just made sense from a margin standpoint that I could make money on it, but also he was finding stuff that I thought that would be cool to wear. Cool Nike windbreakers and cool vintage band t-shirts. The more I would watch his YouTube channel, the more I wanted to go out and do it on my own. I was also pestered by people that I was living with to get clothing out of the house because it was getting to be too much. 

I think my love for it came from watching somebody else be successful at it, and finding things that, when I was broke, I could do. My dad also wore some old cool Denver Broncos hats and clothing and Green Bay Packers stuff. When I found some of that clothing, and I could wear it and I could do that for cheap, that’s what made it, I guess, skyrocket. 

Jackson So I started out in the sneaker world of things. I wasn’t so much actually into sneakers, but it was just a way to get some money in high school. That was back when you could still just show up to a drop, get the shoes, take ’em somewhere, flip ’em, make 50 bucks, and that was cool for me for the week.

Then I started just going to thrift stores and I didn’t really know that there was a vintage market at all. I started buying random things that I thought were cool. And then one day I stumbled upon a Green Day T-shirt – I’ve always liked old punk hardcore music like that. So then when I looked it up online, I was like, “Wait, you can make the same amount doing sneakers with this.” 

So then I dove in more and found out what you could buy, and that’s really how I found it:  Just randomly being in Goodwill.

Billy I think the other thing that’s kind of cool is you have to put $200 into a pair of sneakers to make $50, but if you can go to a thrift store and find a shirt for $3, you could make 40, 50, $60 on it. That margin is so much better. That entrance point price to the market is much lower, so anybody can do it. 

Jackson I like it ‘cause it’s accessible, it’s not like I already have to have connections to even get the shoes or anything like that. Anybody can go to a thrift store and just look for the right tags, and look for the right stitching and that’s what makes it accessible. And it’s also so much more sustainable in the long run.

How would you describe your personal style(s)?

Billy Mine has definitely changed over the years, for sure. It used to be: I would wear a lot of Nike shorts, like Nike windbreaker style shorts, with an, I don’t know, all over print t-shirt. Like a Nascar shirt or a Bearcat shirt. A lot of sports-oriented stuff, because that was the stuff that was easiest to find. It was also the stuff, because I’ve played a lot of athletic sports over the years, it was the thing that resonated with me. And then again, my dad wore a lot of that stuff. So it made sense for me to wear that stuff. 

But then I bought a motorcycle. And then I bought another motorcycle. Before I bought my first motorcycle, I was buying and collecting old Harley Davidson t-shirts. I just liked the look of them, and the fade of them and the wearability of them. And at the same time it was finding more concert t-shirts and collecting those; just bands that I liked or that I grew up listening to, or some that my mom had old vinyls of, like Fleetwood Mac. Before Fleetwood Mac had resurged, I guess, in the current popular culture, I had a decent collection of stuff like Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks stuff. 

So I guess it’s kind of changed over the years where now I’m wearing boots and jeans and Harley shirts. I’ve scaled back a lot of the, uh, “in-your-face” looking clothing. I’ve kind of refined it to where it’s a little bit more basic and worn in.

Jackson I would say my style is pretty much all based on kind of old rock-n-roll styles. It’s kind of always what I’ve kind of gravitated towards. When I was in high school, it was a lot more grungy, just because of some of my idols – Kurt Cobain, people like that – I was taking a lot of inspiration from that.

But as I’ve started to grow within vintage I get an appreciation for more ‘50s-70s items such as nice, beat-up, made-in-USA jeans or boots; stuff like that. I think it’s still kind of that mix, but I think it still has a heavy rock and roll influence.

Any trends you’re hoping to see come back?

Jackson Oh man, that’s a rough one.

Billy Cause there’s been some that have come back that shouldn’t have…One that I see that has come back a lot recently that I don’t [like is] kick pants. I cannot.

M Like bell bottoms?

Billy No, like rave kick pants. Like with chains and crazy stuff. 

M I’m not a fan either.

Billy At the time that’s exactly how we felt. I mean, I understand, I guess, but also I’m like, “Yo, this is just a wild fashion thing that’s going on.”

Jackson I’m going [with] starter jackets. I don’t like ‘em.

M What are starter jackets? I don’t know these terms!

Jackson This big, puffy Nike and NFL stuff. I know it. It’s controversial. I don’t hate it – 

Billy Jackson’s hurting me, half of those are mine!

Jackson I just think…I feel like I’ve seen enough of it. I’ve worn enough of it!

Billy To answer your question of what we want to come back, I think that people generally are kind of switching to more basics. 

Jackson Just plain stuff, not so much logo-mania. I think that’s what we’re starting to steer away from. More pieces that are just like good, solid blanks. It’s more about the cut, the flow of things, how it actually pairs together, rather than just having logo-mania and a bunch of branded stuff. 

Billy I think people right now are wanting to buy streetwear, brands that are kind of up and coming or off the radar: They want to put their money towards things that are more high quality rather than fast fashion.

 Hopefully. I’m hoping that that’s the way that the industry goes, not only from a sustainability standpoint, but also just for…

Jackson Just for looking like an individual. 

I feel like right now everyone’s looking more like who they might actually be rather than everyone else. Which is cool! We like seeing that.  

I think that’s one of the most rewarding parts about being in the store in general; you can always see what everybody individually likes, what their style is based on the piece that they like, ‘cause the piece that one person might love another person might hate. It’s pretty cool.  

What do you currently do or what goals do you have for the future regarding sustainability and keeping clothing accessible? 

Billy One thing that we’ve wrestled with is making our own merch, because we know that we are adding to the landfills eventually by creating something new, and then later on it just gets tossed. We hope that people don’t toss our branded stuff, but we know that it’s, you know, ultimately going to happen, right?

So the one thing that we did a couple years ago, which we really liked, was taking Carhartt  jackets that were already beat up. Different styles, and we did like, two dozen of them. So we weren’t adding to the goods that were being made that day. 

Jackson We were just reworking them.

Billy And that was creating something that was branded where we put our own patches on them. So as far as thread is concerned, very minimal waste to make a patch. It was something that was wearable, that was cool, but it wasn’t harming the environment.

We do a lot of donated goods, but we choose the companies that we donate to wisely. We know that Goodwill, at least within the last couple years, only uses between 15 to 20% of the clothing that actually gets donated to them: The majority of it gets palleted and sent overseas. 

Instead we try to utilize local homeless shelters if we do drop offs of extra clothing that we have, or extra clothing that we find. Sometimes people will bring stuff in here and donate. 

We’ll just take a donation, even if we can’t sell it, if it’s not vintage or something, or we don’t think it’s a style for us.

Jackson We’ll pass it out to somebody right out front that we might see every day.

Billy Shoes included.

How do you feel about claims that vintage selling is gentrification?

Jackson I would say fashion in general, like, no matter what you’re into in fashion, there’s an element of that in every style and every look. Whether it’s high fashion, fast fashion, I don’t think it necessarily matters: I think it’s gonna be there regardless. 

I would say just try to do it in the most sustainable way. Obviously There’s stores right now, especially with vintage being on trend right now, that have been upping the prices significantly and now all of a sudden that’s where you get into “Okay…you might have got this piece for a dollar, and now you try to sell it for like, let’s say 400, $500.” I think that’s where issues come in, especially when it’s jeans or stuff that’s all over the place. We have shirts in here that are $20, right? And they’re sustainable. We found them. They’re old. They have all the elements that check all the boxes for us. You would buy that same shirt for $20 at an H&M and it’s way worse. So I think that’s the way that I can justify it within my mind still.

Billy It’s a difficult thing, but we try to make as many deals as we can with people that actually walk in here and seem to enjoy the things that we have.

If people come in here and they just kind of scoff at things and then leave, then that’s their prerogative. That’s fine. But then some people will come in and be like, “Hey, I used to have that!” Or, “Hey, that’s so cool, I’ve seen that before.” 

We’ve hooked people up. We’ve given stuff away for free in situations like that. We’ve had people that have come in and said “Oh, I gotta come back later. I just don’t have the money for that,” or whatever. Half the time we’ve just tossed stuff. 

There was one situation where there was a guy that was coming in here who had a developmental delay of some kind, but he loved MAD magazines like crazy, and we used to have a few of them on display here. There was one day where he came in, it was maybe his third visit, and you could tell he was having a rough day, and Jake actually chased him down after he left and gave him the magazine that he was super excited about. 

Because what did we pay for that magazine? Pennies. What are we gonna make on that magazine? 5, 10 bucks. So it’s not worth it to have it sit here and not be enjoyed by somebody, where he’s gonna take it and he’s gonna remember. And that was worth it. Regardless if he came back in to buy anything after that, it was worth the experience.

You work with your neighborhood.

Jackson You work with the people that are around here, and everybody’s into different stuff. That goes back to what I was saying about the most rewarding part of it in general: You can see all the different things that people are into and you see what people get excited about.

Something might mean nothing to me that means the world is somebody else. So if you can help them kind of relive that or get that nostalgia, then that’s awesome. 

What’s in the future for Rad? 

Billy That’s a tough question. Jake and I have wrestled with the ups and downs of this store for five years now, and you know, because of our low overhead, this store will likely stick around, whether it’s this space or not.

We also have looked into opening another storefront in different cities. We’ve also looked into opening another storefront locally that would be a different project. It’s tough to say right now, because we would want to make sure our next move is a smart one, risk-avoidant as much as possible, but one where we feel like we’re either offering the similar experience in a different city or, a different, cool experience in the surrounding area. We don’t want to just make another store like this locally. 

Jackson Yeah, there’s no point in mimicking the same store, and just picking it up and putting in a new location within the city. I think if you did it in a different city, it makes a little bit more sense because now you’re offering something, but this is already here. There’s no reason just to double it. 

Then I think, [we’re] trying to tap into a more online atmosphere too, because just like anything else, we are seeing the decline of actually people coming in places, and everything [is] moving to online. It’s a new thing: How do you figure out vintage within an online system? So that’s challenging, but I think it’s something that we’re doing and we’re working on that’s definitely gonna be a push for us in the future.

Billy If Jake would come around again, I’d love to do a podcast, but I don’t think he’s down for it.

But yeah, I mean, we’re honestly kind of open to anything at this point. We’re just figuring out what the best move is for us going forward.