You may have heard of Roadie from their interview with yinzpiration or their write up in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, but if you haven’t it’s just a matter of time before it will be a household name in Pittsburgh. The brainpower behind Roadie is Cailey Breneman, aPittsburgh native who says she has always known she never wanted an office job. She went off to college at a small school in Virginia majoring in microbiology, hoping to go to med school. She decided she wanted to go a different route and came back home to Pittsburgh and is now a freelance stylist. She has been around clothes her whole life growing up with Yesterday’s News. She first began Roadie by selling all of her own clothes and now all of the clothes she sells are acquired through friends, from Highway Robbery, travelling, vintage shops, clothes that weren’t used on photo shoots she worked on and from free trade in the South Side. I had the privilege of meeting Cailey on Saturday June 22nd at her event. I also found two really cute vintage pieces of clothing, for a steal, that I took home with me.
Cailey brought this vintage clothing out-of-a-truck idea from other cities, but in Pittsburgh it’s a bit more unique. Her interpretation is much more relaxed, all of her clothes were taken from her Kia Sedan rather than from an expensive ice cream truck like most other cities. All of the clothing she sells is very affordable, while in other cities the clothing is much more expensive. She hopes to one day be able to save up and buy a Winnebago or an Ice Cream truck, right now she’s keeping it nice, simple, and down to Earth.
The coolest thing that has happened to her so far was there has been nothing but support from everyone in Pittsburgh, her events have attracted 200+ people from word of mouth and social networking; she hasn’t paid for any advertising. She has a very interesting life from freelance styling where she has encountered many adventures like the one on an American Eagle winter campaign shoot in Alaska where they got stuck on a glacier and had to be rescued by a helicopter, to a less physically dangerous, starting Pittsburgh’s first fashion truck. Her event on Saturday was a success, just like all of the others have been. People played pool, enjoyed refreshingly cold drinks, and a DJ while looking through racks of vintage clothes, shoes, scarves and hats at Union Pig and Chicken and Harvard and Highland Bar who were the very accommodating event hosts. Roadie will definitely be making more waves in Pittsburgh soon.
