When the furniture maker and seller called The Door Store said last summer it had to close for lack of business, the news brought a surge of customers that kept it open months longer than expected. Even now it is not quite gone – but the vintage goods shop Retrospect has relocated into the site and is thriving too.
After being “invisible before” at 864 Massachusetts Ave., just a few minutes’ walk closer to Central Square, Retrospect has moved its melange of clothing, accessories and jewelry, Tiffany lamps and paneled room dividers with dreamy, Victorian-era iconography, furniture and casino games and media and old tech such as cameras, turntables and typewriters to 940 Massachusetts Ave., Riverside, between Central and Harvard squares. A steady stream of customers come in to sift through its shoes, dresses and jackets, sit in the cozy furniture and appreciate the eclectic tableau composed by owner Tanya Iordanov.
If they venture back far enough, customers will find the pool table, where they are welcome to play a round and lounge between turns on the store’s vintage couches, because Retrospect is also “a community place,” Iordanov said. “I’m trying to make it to the place where local people can come and hang out. Not only that, they don’t have to buy anything – they can just play pool or listen to music.”
In addition to building community with the neighboring shops whose employees come in to play, the move has been “very good” for Retrospect’s foot traffic, Iordanov said. “There are a lot of customers that come and just hang out. It’s a lot of fun to be there.”
Iordanov “wants everyone to be able to afford” the items in the store. She invites customers to negotiate with staff and sometimes to name their own price for an item; there’s a section designed for it. “If anybody cannot afford the things that are here, they can go to the name-their-own-price,” she said. “The shoes and the clothes there are no-price.. We had them even in our old store and mostly the homeless people will come and say, can I have them. And I would never say no.”
The store is filled with items curated from estate sales and found by Iordanov, a 20-year Quincy librarian who opened Retrospect after retiring. She touches up some of the furniture herself with designs applied onto wood surfaces – artistically smeared hearts or images of surreal romanticism that complement a distressed wood dresser.
Retrospect is “unique” because “you can buy everything” – anything customers see in the store from the light fixtures to the old furniture she “dresses up,” Iordanov said.
Eventually the furniture will be gathered in a whole other section of the property now closed to customers. It will hold not just Iordanov’s work, but Door Store goods as well. Its production continues despite closing as a retailer in October after more than six decades. (Retrospect relocated at the end of November, connected by a former Door Store employee who became a Retrospect customer at the previous location)
The doors hanging on the Retrospect ceiling “to remember The Door Store” is a clue, as is the fact that the exterior Retrospect sign includes letters from the original Door Store sign and additional letters cut by Dawn Leate, the former shop’s manager and owner of the carpentry business DJ Designs.
Leate and Door Store owner Andrew Anisimov (who has an apartment upstairs) are still fulfilling furniture orders in the basement, and Iordanov said she will connect them with anyone “sad about The Door Store closing” and in the market for custom furniture. “The Door Store was such a legend,” she said
Leate considers Retrospect to be a “good fit” for the storefront because the store is “quirky like The Door Store. I couldn’t think of a better team to be working with.”
Retrospect is open from noon to 9 p.m. every day except Wednesday, when Iordanov upcycles clothing.
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)3 nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.