Kate Soo Hyun Kim
As I clomp through the sludge on Chapel Street, I notice that my socks have taken on a waterlogged quality — succumbing to the icy water that has seeped into my shoes. The sleet, bordering on hail, pellets my umbrella as if the droplets want to drive straight through the plastic.
Miraculously, I make my way to my destination: A glass-front store with its name in charming gold cursive, tucked away between a cake store and a bike shop — EBM Vintage and Civvies.
As the glass door shuts behind me, I step into a dim hallway populated only by a small wooden desk and leaned mirrors. I can’t help but check my appearance in one — my bangs have unfortunately met their match and succumbed to the elements. After a quick touch up, I rest my umbrella on the side of the glass wall and enter the main floor.
I’m immediately bathed in butter-yellow light. Faye Webster’s “Right Side of My Neck” drifts through the showroom and somewhere, the faintest crackling of stage directions can be heard — I found out later it was the New Haven Theater Company, who have been hosted by EBM Vintage for the last 10 years, preparing for their latest show.
I drift into the charm of the decorated displays. Like stepping into a home, I’m welcomed first by a foyer of delicate teacups and glassware. A few steps in, a cozy sewing nook unfolds — fabric bolts neatly organized by color, buttons in every shape and shade and a vintage sewing machine set on a wooden table. A kitchen-like space to the left — complete with a washing machine and dryer — brims with neatly arranged utensils. And there, amidst it all, smoothing the creases from a linen garment with an industrial iron, is the owner of EBM Vintage and Civvies: Carol Orr.
I had come to the store without calling beforehand. Timidly, I introduce myself and ask for an interview.
“Right now? Sure! Not doing much else, I’m just ironing out these linens.”
Carol gets up to take a chair from a nearby display for me to sit in. Unfazed by the interruption, she returns to feeding the linen through the press. I asked her about the machine, having never seen anything like it before.
“It’s a rotary iron. I can press through all the fabrics pretty quickly. We do everything, there’s a dishwasher there, there’s a washer, dryer, we clean everything.”
She points to the linens, “I’ve been working on these for three days, trying to get these linens white again. They come in pretty dirty.”
I watch as she feeds another sheet through the iron. The rhythmic motion feels almost meditative. The scent of cleaned, warmed fabric lingers in the air, like the remnants of a well-loved wardrobe.
“Where do they come from?”
Carol turns towards me. “Mostly estate sales. Now I have a couple guys who will call me in for the clothing early, because they have a hard time getting rid of clothing.”
“They haven’t met me yet,” I joke.
“Well you have to buy in volume. I’m buying, you know, 50, 100, 150 pieces at once. I’m not cherry-picking.”
I imagine the boxes filled with an odd mix of treasures and forgotten relics, clothing steeped in stories.
“And then I come through, and I look at it. I think to myself, ‘I gotta mend that, I gotta wash that.’” Carol expertly feeds another linen through the rotary iron, “Some things you can’t mend, so we’ll chop it up and get fabric scraps. Nothing goes to the landfill on my watch!”
The iron hisses softly, pressing out the wrinkles with mechanical precision. I glance around the store again, taking in the way each section unfolds — the tucked-away sewing corner, the kitchen-like space where we sit now, the fashion showroom that feels like a walk in closet.
“I have to ask,” I say, still taking it all in. “When I first came in here, I thought all of this was for decoration. The way it moves — it’s almost like I’m walking through a house. Is that something you curated intentionally?”
”Yeah. One of the first girls who worked for me was trained as a florist,” Carol says, feeding another linen through the iron. “She could just take the most random stuff and make it look amazing. And so I learned from her, you know, how to color coordinate things. You see things differently, and you can kind of picture yourself in that space.”
I watch as she carefully folds the freshly pressed fabric, setting it aside with the rest. “And how did you start EBM Vintage?” I ask. “Did you always know you wanted to open a store?” She looks up from the linen, her tone practical. “I had a business with my husband. He’s an architect, I’m a landscape architect. We’d bought the space in 2003 and were working merrily upstairs until 2008 and the housing crisis shook our world.”
“We were gonna lease this as office space,” she continues, nodding toward the room around us. “We had to rethink things.”
Vintage has always been a part of Carol’s life. She cites her mother, an interior designer, as her gateway into vintage items. “I started off selling vintage on a very small portion of this space. We put a lot of money into making this a “white box,” but when we started in 2008, there were only two electrical boxes.”
Carol gestures around the room, “So we had all this electricity coming from just 8 plugs. But as we grew more, we got more efficient. Got heat after a couple of years.”
“Got more plugs?” I offered.
“More plugs, yes,” she laughed.
At that moment, Carol squints past me, looking towards the register.
“I think someone wants to check out, walk with me.”
Feeling like a real reporter, Carol and I marched towards the register located near the entrance of the shop.
“Look at what you found!” We meet a couple, ready to check out with two Harrison Tweed jackets.
“Good deal on these jackets,” Carol says as she scans them.
“Yes, we appreciate it! And they’ll last a lifetime,” the woman joyfully adds.
“We were actually taking a walk last night and saw these jackets! My husband had been looking for jackets and he thought about it all night. So we came back.”
The couple lives in Brooklyn, which they claim doesn’t offer a good deal on curated vintage like EBM does. They happened to be in New Haven for a getaway weekend, in town to appreciate the architecture and choosing to stay at The Graduate because of their dog-friendly policy.
Carol smiles when they mention this. “Well, we’re dog-friendly too! You can bring him in.”
She finishes the transaction and sends the couple off.
As our conversation continues, Carol begins to open up about the challenges she sees in New Haven’s relationship with Yale students. “It’s a city. There’s a huge disconnect. I guess we’re just tired of it,” she says, shaking her head. “Yale pampers a few stores up there, and that’s it. They do a huge disservice to the rest of New Haven.”
It’s clear that Carol has thought deeply about the issue. She’s not just critiquing Yale, but advocating for a deeper understanding of New Haven, a city that offers far more than its connection to the university.
“Looking ahead, do you have any dreams or plans for EBM Vintage?” I ask, curious about the future of the store.
“Retire,” Carol says, and we both laugh. She adds, “We’re playing with doing workshops. We used to give lessons and I’m thinking of starting that again.” She thinks for a moment. “Like mending workshops — just basic mending.”
She pauses for a moment, then adds, “As for the future of EBM, it’ll be here until it’s not.”
As I gather my things and prepare to leave, I take one last look around the space. The soft hum of the rotary iron continues in the background, and the comforting scent of aged fabric lingers in the air. It’s clear that EBM Vintage is more than just a store — it’s a place where history is preserved, mended and made new again.
“Thanks so much for your time, Carol,” I say, giving her a nod of appreciation.
She offers a warm smile. “Of course! Come back anytime.”
As a New Haven local, I had walked past EBM a few times before but never took the chance to venture inside. I feel as though I have learned a little more about the fabric of my community — its people, its stories and the layers that make New Haven feel like home.
Stepping out of the store, the cold air hits me again — but it doesn’t feel as unforgiving. The city seems a little quieter now, a little less hurried. I find solace in the fact that I have found a place that holds its own against the rush of the world — something timeless.