The Factory Tees and Vintage Apparel is a retro, individual store in Old Town Fairfax that offers a unique, wide variety of vintage clothes and graphic tees. The store opened about a year and a half ago and expanded just over a year ago. With vintage dresses, leather jackets, cowgirl boots and witty graphic tees, the store provides a great selection of teenage friendly clothing for both genders for a very low price.
“ [The] vintage stuff we get from whole sellers that collect up and down the East Coast,” store owner Stan Darke said. “They basically pick and then they sell to stores. But then there’s a lot of new stuff that we design and print here in our shop.”
The store’s website has a design your own t-shirt feature where customers can select from a wide selection of products including items like hoodies, tank tops and sweatpants. After selecting which specific brand and product to use, the customer can pick out a color and either choose from a collection of graphic designs or make their own design to be printed on the product.
You can use this feature to make funny t-shirts with photos of you and your friends or even show your spirit and design a class t-shirt. This feature is a creative way to make your wardrobe a little more personal and unique.
“We do custom screen printing; we do stuff for like different clubs or organizations, that’s our main business,” Darke said.
The store has printed t-shirts for various local high schools’ sports and clubs teams including South County Cheer and the Hayfield Theatre Department. According to Darke, they have even provided Annandale t-shirts for several sports teams including basketball.
“We sell an equal amount of vintage and t-shirts, and the vintage stuff tends to sell a little more with people that are like in college and beyond,” Darke said. “Some of the younger [shoppers] tend to get more of the t-shirts, probably one of the more popular ones is the Northern Virginia is better than the rest of Virginia [t-shirts].”
According to Darke, the hippy bajas are one of their more popular items that are sold very quickly. The store offers the hippy bajas in several colors for a extremely low price of just $20, which is a much cheaper alternative to those that are sold at big time clothing chains like Urban Outfitters.
Along with the hippy bajas, the store offers a wide selection of vintage leather jackets, flats, heels, jewelry, handbags, high-waisted pants, floor length skirts, unique dresses, cowgirl boots and retro men’s and women’s shirts and combat boots. Some of their non vintage products include a display of quirky I-Phone cases and bedazzled hair clips.
The store’s location on Main Street offers free parking and is open every day. Check out the store’s Facebook, Twitter or web page or go to the location and personalize your wardrobe with some unique retro apparel!
