'Costumes to Bands and Coats to Professors'

For vintage clothing buffs, Cambridge is a treasure trove, with 10 used clothing stores located around the city. While some specialize in limited styles from Edwardian dresses to bell-bottom jeans, all of the shops have one thing in common--low prices.

"Where else can a student go with five dollars and buy a piece of clothing?" asked Sandy Parmelee, owner of the "Reddog" shop at 1737 Mass. Ave. "We sell costumes to punk bands and overcoats to Harvard faculty members."

The most popular store among the shoppers interviewed yesterday is "Oona's" at 1208 Mass. Ave.

"If you can't sell it in Harvard Square, you can't sell it anywhere," said coowner Kathleen White.

Because almost 70 per cent of its customers are students, Oona's tends to sell mostly trendy clothes. "We call ourselves punk and preppy," White said.

"I come here [Oona's] for the silk underwear," said Gabrielle Ross, a Cambridge resident. "You can't get it anywhere else for five dollars."

Allure

Although many of the stores sell the same items, such as Harris tweed jackets and tuxedo trousers, each has an allure of its own, customers say.

"Keezer's," at 221 Concord Ave. has been in business since 1895, specializing in "traditional Brooks Brother type men's wear," according to owner Len Goldstein. Two of the Keezer's most popular items are tuxedos and overcoasts, he said.

While 60 percent of Goldstein's customers are students, many "are men who graduated from Harvard in the teens and twenties," he said. "They just keep coming back."

Approval

Like other store owners, Susan Cohen attributed the success of her three-year-old "Vintage Etc," shop at 2014 Mass. Ave. in part to her location and in part to the rising demand for new clothes. "Fashion magazines have given the stamp of approval to the vintage look," she said.

The owner of Arsenic and Old Lace, Sherry Gamble, said her store tries to distinguish itself from other used clothing outlets by carrying mostly black clothes ranging from the "uniquely unusual to the morbidly macabre."