“I turned my studio into the warehouse and gave up my easel for rolling racks and things like that.”
During the summer days of 2011, a cart on wheels with a sign that read “Le Pants King and the Traveling Spectacular” started appearing regularly on the streets of Boston. Justin Pomerleau reconstructed it to resemble a tiny house and pulled it by tricycle to sell his thrifted clothing collections. He stood straight near the cart with legs crossed, wearing a vintage floral vest and old-fashioned leather boots as a live model showing his clothing.
Before that, Pomerleau, born in Brockton, was a Massachusetts College of Art and Design student majoring in the Studio for Interrelated Media (SIM). But after a fire destroyed his portfolio of sculpture installations and paintings, he temporarily left school, devastated by the loss. Pomerleau says his parents went bankrupt and lost everything when he went to college, and to get by he worked at Brigham Circle Diner, did landscape contracting, political surveys, and sometimes worked as a deliveryman.
As Pomerleau tried to pick himself up, he came up with the idea for Le Pants King, which he described as a merely “artistic approach.” Collecting objects and apparel was always his passion. For most of that time, he was unaware of how big of an industry thrifty fashion was, but his street vending experience led to him pulling his cart into city markets like the Rock + Roll Yard Sale and SoWa Market. In 2014, he opened the brick-and-mortar shop Vivant Vintage, which has since found much acclaim and many fans.
Painting a new shop
On a bright and chilly Saturday, Pomerleau called me via Zoom from his studio just a few blocks away from his shop in Allston to tell me about his journey with Vivant. He’s in a stylish olive green scarf, and wearing round black-stud earrings with a black hat that half covers his curled hair.
In 2013, Pomerleau was given the opportunity to sell at the Brimfield Antique Flea Market, which is held three times a year. Later he acquired a permanent space for his Traveling Spectacular in the Quaker Acres field for Brimfield’s July show.
“Brimfield is six days long, but it takes me four days to set up with a full day to break down things,” he says. “So it’s usually about a 10 or 11 day endeavor and basically I lived on the field at Brimfield for a month out of the year.”
To earn the money for opening Vivant, he also split his time between doing shows in Los Angeles, New Hampshire, Maine, and all over Massachusetts. Although it was a ton of work and travel, he says that’s how he paid his bills.
When Pomerleau managed to secure the space in Lower Allston, he started on his next step—designing the shop. He spent weeks helping the previous tenant move out and then redecorating it to make the shabby place fit into his taste. It has colorful exterior murals that were done by his brother, while the inside feels like a historic site full of mystery, like an attic. Delicately curated vintage pieces fill every shelf, while the eccentric vibe draws you to explore more, from the 1980s denim jackets and floral flare jeans to Coogi knit sweaters.
Though not his initial plan as an art student, with the shop, Pomerleau is still an artist. His brush waves are everywhere around Vivant—wall paintings, signage above the door, his old Traveling Spectacular cart.
Over time, Vivant has become busier and known by more people, even though its location is off the beaten path. Looking back on it all, Pomerleau says that selling vintage goods is in his blood. When he was a kid being pulled in a wagon, his father, who was an antique collector and a small business owner, often took him to antique toy shows.
“[Being a salesman] was something I was passionate about,” he says, “and I thought it was creative and interesting.”
Family first
It is important to Pomerleau that he is surrounded by people he loves and cares for.
His eyes light up when asked about how he met his wife. While he was doing the Brimfield shows, he met his first employee and his life partner, Emmy Ember. Ember worked as a personal assistant to help him watch the booth on weekends, and their working relationship eventually ignited a spark after their first kiss at the antique event.
Ember is a fashion designer who also worked at Buffalo Exchange, a national thrift store chain. She recalls how she first met Pomerleau at a 1920s themed party.
“He was selling clothes and I was working there for a fashion show,” she says. “I thought he was the boy version of me. He’s so fashionable. I bet he’s gay. But I fell in love with him at first sight.”
Pomerleau and Ember fell in love in July of 2013. Running Vivant together, Pomerleau bought menswear, trendy objects, bulky antiques, and denim, while Ember typically ran the jewelry and crystal department and sometimes made earrings herself. They traveled all over America to find more oddities and curiosities, and during their mobile life got married in Mexico.
When they first opened Vivant, the team was officially just Pomerleau and Ember, but they were never short of helping hands from friends.
“I really like to work with my friends and work with talented artists,” Pomerleau said. He had his friend Chris Antonellis, a collage artist, design Vivant’s first website and Vivant logo.
Justin Rally, a friend of Pomerleau for more than 10 years, quit a job in corporate retail to work at Vivant. He has worked at the shop for four years and now is the shop manager. In Rally’s eyes, Pomerleau has a clear mind for business and “a good sense of community.”
“I’m a believer that if you raise other people up, you’ll rise up with them,” Pomerleau says. “I spend the most time with people I work with and start caring about them and liking them. I have a very motivated, smart crew.”
Living it up
He named his shop “vivant,” a French word that means living in a lively manner, because he wanted to give the apparel of the past a chance to live and be loved again.
Vivant closed a week before the pandemic shutdown, and was reopened last July. With the arrival of a baby Julian, Pomerleau, 33, says he and Ember are busier than ever. Vintage shopping has skyrocketed in recent years. The reasons, he said, are mixed. Vintage can be “a good alternative to fast fashion,” as more people started saying no to fast fashion in terms of the environmental impacts it brings. When people were home for longer during the pandemic, they went through their closets and thought about seeking a restart by finding a new style to express themselves.
“The trends are moving so quickly now with TikTok and Instagram,” Pomerleau says. “But you can always find new styles in vintage shopping and it’s the cheapest option.”
In spare moments after hustling, he said he realizes some part of him is missing.
“Now I don’t really paint anymore,” Pomerleau says. “I draw occasionally. But my whole life, my whole world, is this shop. … I just don’t have the time and I don’t have the space—I’ve given up every bit of personal space for my business.
“I turned my studio into the warehouse and gave up my easel for rolling racks and things like that.”
Angie Ye is a graduate studying journalism at Boston University and social media manager of The Buzz Magazine. She writes about culture and society.
