In a small shop located on Fountain Square, visitors will find a vast array of vintage clothing and jewelry items, curated to the season, style trends and customers.

The shop, Becky Brooks Vintage, is owned by WKU alumna and Bowling Green native Amber Brooks, who loves the “thrill of the thrift” and sold vintage clothing online for around 10 years.

After living in New York and Nashville, Brooks and her family decided to come back to Bowling Green, where she opened her storefront in 2021, with the help of store manager Brandy Tucker.

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“We just decided to try it, and we’ve been here,” Brooks said. “It’ll be three years in March, so [it’s] gone pretty well.”

Brooks graduated WKU in 2009 with degrees in sales and marketing, and she did see herself potentially owning her own business. Owning a vintage store combines her interests in business and curated thrifting.

“I’ve always had [something] like that in the back of my mind,” Brooks said. “ I just didn’t really know what path it would be.”

During 2020, Brooks continued with the online side of vintage selling primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and she brought on Tucker at the end of the year to help with staging. 

In 2021, Brooks purchased an open shop space on the square, located next to Mary Jane’s Chocolates and near the Capitol Theater

“Starting with her just kind of opened this whole world for me,” Tucker said. “And it became this love of vintage and just clothes and all the things.”

The shop itself is run by Tucker, who makes sure products are in good condition, deals with customer sales and posts on social media. Brooks thrifts the pieces and prices them.

“We’ve really balanced each other,” Brooks said.

Tucker is from Bowling Green and also graduated WKU in 2009, with degrees in animal science and agriculture, but she never saw herself working with a business like this.

“[There are] things that you land in and you’re like, ‘okay, this is really neat, yeah, I love this,’” Tucker said. “Not planned, but it just kind of led here and it’s so much fun.”

Brooks believes buying second-hand is important for many reasons, and something she personally enjoys it for is that it brings nostalgia and uniqueness.

“I thrift is to find something that’s not like what everyone has,” Brooks said. “I also think the quality is better. And typically speaking in clothing, it’s affordable.”

At her shop, the vintage pieces are curated, which she said saves the customer time. Brooks said buying from vintage stores and thrifting also divert from fast fashion ending up in landfills.

“Sometimes, the uniqueness is here in my head, the fast fashion is here, but those ebb and flow, like what’s more important in a given day to me,” Brooks said. 

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For Tucker, vintage shopping is all about the surprise factor that it brings customers.

“If you thrift, if you shop vintage, it’s the surprise factor of what you’re going to find,” Tucker said.

Thrifting and buying vintage clothing has risen in popularity, especially among college students, due to affordable prices, availability, vintage style trends and higher concerns with not buying fast fashion.

Lena Jerkins, a recent WKU graduate, often shops at Becky Brooks because they are a local business that helps eliminate fast fashion practices.

“I shop at vintage stores, specifically Becky Brooks, because I want to contribute to slow fashion and small businesses,” Jerkins said. “I value sustainability, so buying clothes second-hand from a curated shop is how I prefer to shop for clothes.”

Jerkins chooses to shop at Becky Brooks because the collections fit her personal style, and she has also been able to grow a connection with other customers and the staff.

“I love Becky Brooks because of how specific the collection is to my personal styles and how personal of a connection I have with the people in the shop,” Jerkins said.

Brooks and Tucker constantly see the shifting of style trends and what customers are really looking for when they come in.

“We have to try to get in these little niches of things that are in,” Tucker said. “We have to just be aware of what’s back [in] right now and be sure to have the things that people are looking for.”

This mindset is important for both of them, as Brooks works to find pieces that are in-style and will sell, while Tucker watches for customer feedback and what is currently selling.

“For this business, it really is ever changing,” Brooks said.

Fountain Square, located in downtown Bowling Green, features an array of local businesses and restaurants, making it a popular community spot, especially with WKU students.

Tucker explained how the diversity of business on the square is so vital and how their shop fits in to offer something different. 

“It’s diverse, like as far as what’s to offer what’s offered here, and I feel like we’re just something different, but we also fit the energy of Fountain Square all together,” Tucker said. “With Spencer’s [Coffee] and you can get chocolate and shop vintage and shop music, it’s just that it all goes together but everything’s so different.”

Compared to Brooks’ college experience, where the square was mostly bars and nine-to-five businesses, she has seen it grow into having more independent, “outside-the-box” businesses, including her own.

“There’s some cohesiveness to that on the square,” Brooks said. “That’s a really cool part to be a part of right now. It’s really neat, [and] even if it doesn’t work out, let’s say two years down the road, it’s nice to be a part of it now, because I think we’re contributing to the diversity in a neat way.”

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Editor-in-chief Alexandria Anderson can be reached at [email protected].