Queens of the Road
The Junk Gypsies have created their own saucy blend of home décor smarts and Southern charm - a flavor that keeps their groupies loyal and their fan-base growing
Eclectic, shabby-chic and Texas-size fun: Amie Sikes, left, teamed up with her mother, Janie, and sister, Jolie, to form the Junk Gypsies, a traveling home-décor retail road show. Image courtesy Jack Thompson
Back in the late 1990s, Amie Sikes' future seemed clear. She graduated from Texas A&M University and was preparing to enter law school when she suddenly started having doubts about the wisdom of pursuing a career that involved endless hours of shuffling paper and staring at a computer screen.
Like Willie Nelson, one of her idols, Sikes loves the road, the endless hop-scotching from town to town and the opportunity to meet people and see how life is lived across America.
A suggestion from her mother that she take a booth at a local flea market in order to earn money while she tried to figure out an alternative career proved to be a life-changing event.
"I went from wearing a suit to having skinned knees, dirt under my fingernails and old leather gloves in my purse - and I couldn't have been happier," Sikes said.
Before long, both her mother, Janie, and her sister, Jolie, joined her, and out of that collaboration emerged The Junk Gypsy Co., a traveling retail road show based in College Station, Texas. The Junk Gypsies' work includes everything from flea markets in dusty Texas towns to department store boutiques at Macy's to gypsyville.com, their rollicking Web site.
The merchandise is a mix of new and old, and is flavored with Sikes' love of everything from rock 'n' roll and alternative country music to vintage advertising signs and vending machines.
Sikes recently explained her freewheeling approach to life and decorating, as well as the philosophy of being a Junk Gypsy.
HOMESTYLE: Who or what is a Junk Gypsy?
AMIE SIKES: It's a lifestyle and also an attitude. We have two quotes on our Web site that kind of tell the story. The first is "Well-behaved women rarely make history," and the second is "Resist much, obey little." We believe in following your heart.
HS: How does that play out in decorating terms?
AS: If you want to paint your bathroom taco-shack pink, do it. Don't worry about what the neighbors will say or whether some big magazine says you're not supposed to do that. If taco-shack pink puts a smile on your face, go for it.
HS: You got your start buying and selling at flea markets. What was that experience like?
AS: There are two main ones in Texas, one in Canton and one in Round Top - two little towns within a day's drive of Dallas. Canton is once-a-month and Round Top is twice-a-year. So we - my mother and sister got involved very early on - would go to garage and estate sales during the week and find cool stuff and then we would go to these flea markets and sell it. Before long, it was a full-time job.
HS: What did you sell?
AS: We started off doing shabby-chic stuff - a lot of furniture, accessories, crusty old paintings - and gradually it turned into a style of its own.
HS: Which is?
AS: Eclectic. It's basically stuff we love blended together. Maybe you start off with a great 1970s Willie Nelson concert poster in an antique frame next to a lacquered Oriental dresser from the 1940s. We love rock 'n' roll stuff, Western stuff, whimsical stuff like old signs and gumball machines. We're drawn to certain colors - a lot of turquoise, a lot of red, gold, black and chocolate brown - in crazy quilt patterns. In the beginning, we painted or embellished almost everything. We wore out a lot of electric sanders. And we still do some of that.
HS: Where do you mainly sell today?
AS: The Web site, which we designed ourselves. We also do special projects and promotions. Last summer, for example, we did a big thing with Macy's in Chicago where they had Junk Gypsy boutiques in five of their biggest stores. That was very cool. We also decorated country singer Miranda Lambert's tour bus. We got a phenomenal amount of publicity from that. We also do a big warehouse sale once or twice a year called Junkapalooza. It's three days, and we bring in bands - it's always a great event.
HS: You have an unusual following for a home-furnishings company.
AS: We do. Our business has grown almost like a rock 'n' roll band's. You know how a band goes out on the road, going from town to town and building a fan base? That's exactly what we've done. We have customers who follow us wherever we go. It was a real party in Chicago last summer. We had people flying in from all over.
HS: Is it mainly women?
AS: A lot of women, but men seem to love our stuff, too. The reason, I think, is that we're not frilly. Men love gadgets and funky stuff, and so do we.
HS: What's it like working with your family?
AS: We joke that nothing has changed since we were kids. My parents owned restaurants when my sister and I were growing up and we worked in them 24/7. We're all workaholics, which you have to be if you own your own business.
HS: What's your home like?
AS: Three years ago we built a new warehouse in College Station, Texas, and I moved into a loft on top of it. It was supposed to be a temporary thing until I could find a house, but now I love it. I have a huge cigar-store Indian, an old jukebox, gumball machines. I also collect maps and anything to do with the ocean, old seascapes, stuff like that. It's all pretty dreamy and whimsical.
HS: What's your next project?
AS: An actual store. It was supposed to happen last year but we got distracted with other stuff. We want it to be out of the city in a funky place where there's room for concerts and pancake breakfasts and anything else we might want to do.
HS: Does that mean an end to your flea-market days?
AS: No! At least I hope not. I love that part of the business. I love being out on the road, meeting people, seeing things, hearing stories. It's how we began. What we do is never dull. It's never the same thing day after day.
 |
CATEGORIES
CONTACT 
|