Love, Kickstand

Let me tell you about Eva. The first time we met, I had just moved to Portland and she was visiting and we were milling around at Last Thursday drinking beers in the street. Her bangs were hanging in her eyes and she had this leather jacket on and I was a little bit scared of her. And then we started talking and she was totally charming and then she moved to Portland and now we are friends.

She is a walking surprise. We’ll be chatting over beers about something or other, girl talk and she will just throw down some words of wisdom that leave me feeling like I’m in the Brady Bunch and I’m like, "Gee Eva, I never thought of it that way," and I want to walk off shaking my pigtails. Not like Eva in any way resembles the dad in the Brady Bunch. She is adorable and is always wearing awesome clothing put together in creative and flattering ways, fringe and jackets and boots and feathers and just when you are thinking that she is so much more awesome than you are, she will give you a sincere and lovely compliment.

And the great thing, for the rest of us, is that she just opened up a booth at the House of Vintage. She has been collecting all this stuff that she thinks is really cool and that she would wear; but instead, she’s going to sell it to you and I. So that’s good news. And she is a skilled shopper. This girl has been thrifting with her grandmother since she was a child. And the name. The name of her shop is Love, Kickstand. I asked her what the meaning behind that was, thinking she’d come up with something typical regarding Portland bike culture or something. No. Here it is, directly cut from an email correspondence with Eva:
When I lived in Bend I started a band called Master Booty-we were a birthday rap band and I was the MC. I would make up raps about my friends and perform them at their birthday parties. We did a couple of shows at bars and at our first gig was a pajama birthday party at my friend’s house. We all made up our "stage names" and I coined myself Kickstand.

So it’s official. My new wish for when I’m a cancer patient is to have a birthday party with Master Booty and my own personalized birthday rap from MC Kickstand. (Old wish: Being thrown into a giant foam pit by a couple of the Portland Trail Blazers.)

So in explanation, Love, Kickstand is a little present from Eva to her discerning customer. It really couldn’t be more beautiful.

Space #1
House of Vintage.
3315 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Portland OR 97214
503.236.1991.

Apparently they are open from 11 to 7. Also, I believe Eva is opening up an online Etsy shop of the same name, for those of you outside the Portland area.