Somewhere Over the Rainbow (on West 17th Street), You’ll Find NYC’s Most Delightful New Vintage Store

I am standing in Surrender Dorothy, the recently opened (and still very under-the-radar) vintage store and much more at 13 West 17th Street in New York, but wondering where on earth I really am. With its theatrical vibe and sense of dress-up box discovery, it’s like stepping through the wardrobe-doored portal into Narnia, or backstage at the Sadler’s Wells theater in London circa the Fonteyn/Nureyev era, or some mythic place between the Oz of Wizard fame and the notorious Oz magazine of the late 1960s. In other words, Surrender Dorothy—the name is, yes, an allusion to the Kansas heroine played by Judy Garland, but was actually taken from Salman Rushdie’s novel, The Ground Beneath Her Feet—is the very best kind of store: madly creative, transportive, and individualistic.

“Surrender Dorothy is about this idea of splendor you might not think is even possible in daily life,” says Ruby McCollister, who along with besties Leah Hennessey and Arabella Aldrich, makes up the trio who opened the vintage store this past October. “We all admire places which are like that—like Alice Underground, which was in New York, or Biba in London, which was the holy grail of the coolest stores. It’s the idea that shopping can be a thing of wonder and fun, and you’d enjoy being there for more than 30 minutes. I don’t even buy that much; I just love going into stores. And we wanted a place where you felt you could come and hang out, and have a cup of tea.”

“Surrender Dorothy is about this idea of splendor you might not think is even possible in daily life,” says Ruby McCollister, who along with besties Leah Hennessey and Arabella Aldrich, makes up the trio who opened the store this past October.

Photo: Courtesy of Surrender Dorothy

Time certainly flies by when you’re at Surrender Dorothy. On that recent visit of mine, the rails were groaning with so much, I felt like I had to look at everything in case I missed a treasure. In the mix: a tattered, frayed black velvet Shakespearian doublet (an old stage costume) that looked like it was once worn by Hamlet; a chic brown vintage Jean Paul Gaultier evening dress with a fringed train; a skinny, long-sleeved tee promoting the fabulous 1971 movie adaptation of the Twiggy-starring musical, The Boyfriend; another old stage costume that Aldrich loves because it reminds her of the 1940s movie The Red Shoes; and, more faves in the form of experimental, innovative new pieces by up-and-coming designers who Aldrich found in London, some of whom are recent graduates, like Ellen Poppy and Genevieve Devine.

In essence the m.o. of Surrender Dorothy is the idea that you put something on—old, new, madcap, couture-y, destroyed, pristine, whatever you want—and get into character that day. It’s the very definition of mood dressing. “I don’t think any of us has a particular interest in fashion as it stands right now,” says Hennessey, “but I think we are all pathologically obsessed with dressing up and costumes. We all wore our mothers’ clothing and we all have really kind of shockingly impeccably chic mothers in different ways. And maybe even more so, we all had very, very chic fathers. We stole clothes from them, so it’s like a second generation style; we were into dressing a lot older than we were,” she continues, laughing. “I was definitely more punk, but I kind of dressed like a middle-aged punk.”