Pink in Portland

A couple of Cloudherders recently headed on down to Portland, OR to attend a swanky New Year’s fest. After the hangovers were hung over and the canapes scraped off the floor, it was time to head over to the always grimy/trendy Hawthorne area to see what was new.

On a dreary day of bare trees and slick pavement skipping by, the day-glo bubblegum pink exterior of Vintage Pink caught my eye like cotton candy on steroids. I’ve been informed that this block-long wonderland of vintage, used and antique oddities has inhabited its warehouse-like space for a while, but it had never before stood out so…erm…vividly. Yowza.

The musty smell of decades hits you as you walk in, closely followed by the glare of fluorescent lighting and then whatever strange-as-all-get-out experimental electronica is blasting over elderly speakers. You wind your way through epochs: here, a baby blue fridge from the 60s, there a waist high stack of Nintendo cartridges, a near impenetrable pile of womens’ shoes, an entire furniture set circa 1976 complete with cigarette burns and paisley. There is everything you absolutely don’t need, and a few things you definitely do, and everything is ridiculously well priced. A set of six plastic highball cups in putrid orange and green flowered print— Japanese manufactured circa 1950s—very nearly accompanied me home for just $15. And an antique typewriter was begging me to save it from dust bunny hell for the small sum of $55.

Broken guitars, steamer chests with “PORN” written in glittery letters on top, VHS or beta maxes by the box, roller skates, furniture, moldering books, lunchboxes, toys and piles upon piles of clothes inhabit Vintage Pink. Go delving and come up with something both wonderful and totally egregiously awful.

Vintage Pink — 2500 SE Hawthorne Boulevard
Portland, OR 97214