Le Grand Strip: Teasing Nostalgia

Amidst the siren song of new, replicated, immediate fast fashion, a Brooklyn-based vintage shop screams in protest. Le Grand Strip and its human embodiment, owner CC McGurr, make nostalgia a liveable reality. Her shop is the envy of every vintage inspired Pinterest board, and Instagram image collection belonging to the girl who was “sooooo born in the wrong generation.” With vintage shopping as big fashion’s latest out-of-pocket obsession, we begin our interview inside Le Grand Strip, on Grand Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Interview by Molly Apple

Edited by Victoria Nergaard

Owner, CC McGurr and Manager, Alexandra Blair

CC: Nostalgia is nothing new. Because you’re young it’s occurring for you right now, but for babes like me it’s been occurring. We’re always looking to the past. I was just telling a client that now vintage is called “sustainable fashion” which I honestly hate. Now it’s about wording. It’s called ‘sustainable’ because it’s cool to want to make peace with the world. For me, vintage clothing is a manifestation of a love. Designers used to design out of love for women and the body, but now it’s more of a mercantile industry.

MERDE: Do you think ‘sustainability’ as a buzz word has gotten vintage stores more business, despite it not being a ‘new idea’?

CC: What’s new is having that consciousness. Young people are very savvy and concerned with how a brand is going to appeal to the consumer, so sustainability has that appeal. Michael Moore did that whole thing with the meat industry and the whole world decided that we have a conscience and that we cannot do keep doing this, that it’s horrible. Using the word sustainability is a really great form of marketing. It’s funny, young people use the word ‘sustainable’ like a lollipop, they keep sucking on it.

MERDE: Tell me about your upbringing and what made you fall in love with fashion

CC: It was how I was born. When I was 4 years old, I developed a fever after my mother forced me to wear a getup that I didn’t like. I was so attuned to the clothes I was wearing at 4 years old. And you couldn’t argue with my mother. Unlike kids these days, you didn’t decide any-thing, you were just a child.

We lived in St. Tropez, and we used to visit my grand-mother in Lyon. I remember when I was 10, we could hear my parents planning to go to the marché aux puces (Flea Market) and my brother and I asked if we could go too, but they said we had to stay at home. I didn’t know what it was, I was asking them many questions and to me it sounded like the most magical thing. Finally, when I was 11, they allowed me to go with them, and oh my god I think I’m still recovering from that day. Basically, Lyon has the best marché aux puces—everything was for sale there. You had beautiful antiques and so many vendors, it was fabulous. Since that day, I was always attracted to vintage because of nostalgia, history, mystery. I hate brand new shoes, shoes that are not broken in. I’m wearing sneakers right now because I’m a practical person.

I did grow up in St. Tropez in the 70s and it was really a moment. My memory captured this snapshot of people being just beautiful. I was really young so I wasn’t being seen and could observe. There was a very naturally elegant way of being. It wasn’t forceful. People were natural in their sense of being—their je ne sais quoi. I remember tan couples wearing all white, both men and women in plunging necklines and gold chains, smoking and drink-ing. That’s how I grew up. People were kind of free. People are more bound today by brands and behavior and being guilted all the time. I refuse to be guilted by society if I smoke a cigarette.

MERDE: Is Saint Tropez in the 70s the most inspiring time and place for you, or do you have another time you’re nostalgic for in terms of style?

CC: Yes, the 70s were really good years—there was no drama, no craziness, so everyone was just enjoying themselves. In terms of nostalgia, I didn’t grow up in the 1920s, but I think those were fabulous years because people became modern overnight. They changed from being really repressed and Victorian, then all the sudden it was the 20s, and you were playing tennis, you were running, you were bicycling. Before, women were bound because of what they had to wear. In the 20s, rich people discovered drugs, it was really cool.

Nostalgia… I miss the years when I used to dance at Le Bain Douche in Paris, my brother was a DJ there. I really try not to get too emotionally attached to my souvenirs, my memories. I love to talk about them, even when I came to New York in the 80s, we used to go out to clubs. It was so rich, the culture, it was so different from France. I used to really ‘hang out’—I discovered the word ‘hang out’—and I used to hang out with really cool people, unbelievable artists, I hung out with Madonna few times *laughs*.

MERDE: What brought you to New York, and what were you setting out to do?

CC: I didn’t come to New York because I wanted to live in New York. I met a man in Paris when I was working in radio. He was an artist and he really wanted to marry me, have his kids and live in New York. At the time I remember being hesitant because I had a really good career, but I try to go back and remember what I was thinking. I think I needed to go do something that I didn’t know. I really took a plunge. It wasn’t easy because I was so French. I arrived here, I didn’t have a job, I learned English in France and I was 7 months pregnant. I went from being an indepen-dent French girl to being with a man in New York, and my husband didn’t really have a regular income. I set out to take care of a family. I imagine a Stepford wife, but a French Stepford wife, which I was, was even better. Eventually I was working as a reporter, and then I did a fashion line with one of my girlfriends. After, I was work-ing at Paper Magazine for a few years. Following that, my circumstances in life changed and I had an epiphany that I turned it into a reality. I considered what was more diffi-cult— raising 2 kids or having a business. I was already being responsible for my kids 24/7 so it was just a con-tinuation of that.

MERDE: What was it like working for Paper Magazine in its beginnings?

CC: Paper Magazine was an entity. I knew them when they started the magazine. My son was in the first issue at 6 months old with little angel wings. Every person I worked with and everything they created embodied New York very much, they were very much New Yorkers. I think that the magazine ultimately was very loyal to a certain image that would be more underground. They show-cased emerging artists. We collectively did a good job. I always really breathed style, which is not the same story as fashion. Fashion exists because of great style. I have a problem when clients come here, and they just want the brand. I had the best time watching the show Bling Nation. It’s about when fashion becomes grotesque. You have the means to get fashion, and then you use those means to turn fashion into something grotesque in the process.

It’s funny because, to me, it shows how brands become so worshiped by individuals who can’t afford them. Peo-ple who can afford them never really worship any brands, they just buy them because it’s how their social circle is attired. I find these documentaries fascinating because it shows this kind of fashion crisis, they really nailed it. For French people, we look at Americans with wealth and we don’t understand them. We don’t understand what they chose to invest with their money. It’s not always about feeling good, it’s about impressing others. It’s the idea that other people are looking at you and that you need to show them something they’ll want to look at. French people think completely differently. We still love to show off, but it’s different. I always ask myself, why do some people not give a crap about what they’re wearing? There are some people that I am just mystified by, they don’t pick the right proportions and it just looks really wrong. You have to get dressed everyday, you can’t walk around in the nude.

MERDE: You describe your store as a museum, how do you go about collecting pieces?

CC: It’s because I love to capture things that are antique and beautiful. I recently acquired this thing called a snuff box. It’s from the Victorian era, and women were wear-ing these corsets that were so tight it would cut off their breathing. They had these boxes and would pop them be-neath their nose to come back to life. It’s like Uma Thur-man in Pulp Fiction when she gets that needle and comes back to life. It’s this very beautiful box, and I am literally fascinated by all beautiful objects because they show the best of human beings—people who would create beautiful things for the love of things. That’s why my store is like a museum, there is a little bit of everything in here. But it’s a museum where you can touch and try and buy things. You could pull any piece from here and I could tell you within 5-6 years when it was made. We have many old pieces, like cage skirts under plastic in the basement. We keep some things downstairs, like original flapper dress-es which are very fragile.

MERDE: What is the story behind the name Le Grand Strip?

CC: At the beginning it was called Filles de Joie, but after being in business for 7 years we had to change because of another company with the same name. I had called the store Filles de Joie because it looked like this really beautiful hotel particulier from the turn of the century where ladies would entertain gentlemen for a certain sum of money. Some of those houses were the most comfort-able and modern. I did some research and there were also some in New Orleans as well called cat houses. In France it was called a hotel particulier and they had beautiful linens, rugs and drapes, and some nights they would release butterflies to please the clients. Very wealthy men used to come in, the girls wore negligées, and there were doctors staying there so that they girls wouldn’t get sick. I modeled the store after this idea of a very comfortable place, but at the same time, we have lots of clothes. When I had to change the name, we called it The Grand Strip because of the street, and that girls are always get-ting naked here. We even had a couple of strip shows here, we did a defile—a runway show—years ago. We decided that we wanted to present bathing suits under blazers and our coolest styles on live girls, and that we would have the girls walk in the window while the journalists and the public were outside. We had 2 of these about 7 or 8 years ago. I’ve had the desire to do more, but now it’s COVID and everything is too taxing.

MERDE: Besides the everyday street shopping walk-ins, who are your most loyal clients?

CC: We work with many stylists and with Warner Brothers and Hollywood. The type of clients who shop for them-selves are babes who are really self-assured and have character. They don’t need anyone to tell them what to wear, for them it’s like a bee’s nest, they can smell the honey. That’s why I’m still in business. I’ve always been attracted to clothes. I feel they contain this magical thing, especially when they maybe belonged to another babe. You know how women are, when they see someone wear-ing something, they suddenly want it.

It’s really interesting what’s happening right now. We’ve been working with China for the last 3 years through virtual live streams and we’re educating Chinese clientele who live in Shanghai and cannot come here. We work with a company that’s the middle-man, who speaks mandarin and does the live stream. They introduce clients in China to what we have here. Now that these clients know us and the kind of product we have very well, they make requests in advance. China has opened up completely to the idea of vintage, which 4 years ago they were very closed minded to. That’s been a fascinating transformation, there’s a new kind of mindset that occurred because of well-traveled Chinese bloggers who discovered and started worshiping vintage, wearing flapper dresses and mixing really cute styles on social media. They convinced the other girls that it was cool, the internet does so much for so many people.

MERDE: Who’s your favourite client?

CC: Right now, Juniper Cranford. She’s a 4-year-old. She blows my mind when she comes in here, she owns this store. Her mom gets all the best stuff. She dresses a little bit like a cartoon, but also a young girl who wants to be a princess and a unicorn. Lots of glitter, I wish I could wear all of this cute stuff.

MERDE: What are 3 words live by

CC: Cigarettes, fucking… that’s it.

Photos by Molly Apple