Last Spring, Skate Club UW fundraised for themselves by vending directly on UW’s Red Square, designing their own stickers and garments, and hosting a pop-up sale. Noah Nguyen, an admin for Skate Club UW and a second-year undergrad, explained the concept behind the location. 

“We had the idea of doing the sale at the same time as our meets every Friday,” Nguyen said, “which is three to five, and that was pretty convenient. We can go skate and then when a customer comes, we just go back to the table.”

Cecelia Zavack, a vintage dealer and UW alum, takes the name of a former 90s industrial rock band under the pseudonym “ethylmeatplow.” In a transgressive fashion, she uses the spaces around her in a similar way to Skate Club UW by selling with her fellow vendor and friend, Jade, out of the historic “Karate Church;” they have been selling there together monthly for three years. 

“[Jade] lives in Bellingham,” Zavack said. “She used to do a market at her apartment, but then she moved it to a church that’s not a church anymore, it's just rented as a venue, usually for musical performances. It also used to be a karate studio at one point. So it's very multifaceted.”

Zavack’s been in this business since 2017, and she often travels across the U.S. from Los Angeles to New York. Her objectives include selling, sourcing, and visiting and accompanying good friends she’s made in what’s soon to be a decade-long relationship with clothing.

“I went to a market, it's called ‘Durango Vintage Festival,’ and that was crazy,” Zavack said. 

The Durango Vintage Festivus is a large event dedicated to vintage; it’s organized by Brit Eaton, a vintage denim dealer, and runs from late September to early October in Durango, Colorado. In addition to vendors, they also hold an auction and an ugly outfit contest, both of which Zavack has participated in. 

“I had to be in the auction and hold up the clothing. There were pieces of clothing that were running for $10,000-$20,000, and I won the [outfit] competition. I won $250, I just put on a 99-cent mustache. That was pretty crazy.”

Zavack also met her boyfriend through vending, and they resemble the relationship of exchange and support that defines parts of the vending community in Seattle.

“We run our businesses very separately, but we vend together sometimes," Zavack said. “Most of the menswear that I have, I sell to him, and he sells womenswear to me.”

Nathan Harowicz, a third-year undergrad student at UW and fellow Skate Club UW admin alongside Nyugen, similarly described the level of community effort involved in their Spring pop-up.

“We rented the tables from the RSO center,” Harowicz said, “and our former president, Carson, had some extra clothes. Then Noah and I had personal clothes that we brought, and we just posted up.”  

Skate Club UW’s profits are reinvested directly back into the club, keeping the RSO open and on an upward trajectory. 

“We have a lot of new members or people who are interested in getting started skateboarding, but there’s kind of a hump; you either need to have a skateboard or know somebody who has it,” Harowicz said. “What we've been wanting to do with our funds is get some basic skateboards built that we can bring to our meetings so that we can reach more people.”

As a postgrad, Zavack and her vend-friends, friendships that have now expanded far beyond that label, are in a transitional period of their lives, most poignantly marked by moving. But even so, Zavack maintains relationships with many of them.

“My friend Jade and my friend Elijah both run markets in Bellingham,” Zavack said. “I'll go stay with them, I'll do their markets, but also I feel like we talk about things that aren't clothes. One of my best friends, I used to do a lot of work with her. Then she moved to New York City to go to ‘FIT’ (the Fashion Institute of Technology) and now I'll go and stay with her, like, once or twice a year.”

Skate Club UW brings a unique selection of screen-printed graphics and guerrilla-made buttons and stickers, all true to the spirit of skate culture.

“Skateboarding, since its inception, has always been anti-establishment and punk and counter culture– that's prominently what it's all about,” Nguyen said. “I think people latch on to that because it's different than the status quo.”

If you missed Zavack, Ngyuen, Harowicz, and the 24 other vendors at the Fall Flea, Oct. 24th, on the Hub Lawn, come out to our next flea in the Spring. Support local businesses and find new pieces for your wardrobe.