One of El Paso’s most unique and popular thrift stores is The Red Door Vintage.
Leticia Peña, also known as Morticia, is the owner that got her start in 2012 at the San Carlos building in Downtown El Paso. The Red Door later moved to North Mesa, and shared a space with West Texas Tattoo, and then moved again to its current location at 2225 Montana Ave., across the street from Dreadful Things.
Peña has been working in the film industry doing wardrobe and special effects makeup for 10 years and wanted to open up her own specialty shop.
“At the time, we would have art shows at the Hoppy Monk and my good friend Andy Truett brought up the idea of opening up my own shop,” she said. “I create a lot of my jewelry, accessories, modify apparel and upcycle any vintage threads we get.”
Peña has collaborated with artists around El Paso to create vintage pieces of clothing, home decor, as well as selling her own items on the shelves.
People have, and still can, donate fabrics and clothes for upcycling, to create new clothing pieces that someone might enjoy. Peña also recycles broken jewelry and turns them into something new and fun for people. Everything that goes into the store gets repurposed and sold with no intention of catering to a certain target audience.
The shop sells items such as vintage clothing, records, taxidermy mirrors, and voodoo dolls.
“Our clients range from all ages, all styles from taxidermy which we started back a few years ago,” Peña said. “Lost Love Vintage had an amazing collection with bats, and other taxidermy with original vintage and antique frames and a lot more, and (we) still continue to have a variety of oddities from other local artists and ourselves.”
The special effects services are prominent around Halloween and customers enjoy the makeup process that transforms them from the everyday look to a classic monster. If a customer has an idea, Peña is open to makeup collaborations.
“We work with the film department in El Paso, so we try to do keep a selection for prop rentals, sales and we customize wardrobe as well. We also offer services from makeup special effects and lots more,” Peña said.
Peña said that the biggest following the store has is from out-of-towners passing through the city. She said that they are a top-rated shop on Yelp, and they’ve grown a lot in the past few years.
“It’s not about how much you have or how big the location is, it’s about the quality and attention you put into the store. It’s smaller, but better quality. It’s a great spot. The more you expand, the less time you spend really catering to the one shop and what you have to offer the customers” she said.
For information on The Red Door Vintage visit its Instagram @thereddoorvintage.
