Q&A with Ashley Doremire at Mix Tape
An Alaska native, Ashley Doremire moved to Sunnyside in 2012 to focus on her leatherwork business. A desire to expand her business and connect more deeply with the Sunnyside community led to her opening the consignment shop Mix Tape in 2018. (For those of you under 25, a “mix tape” was a compilation of favorite songs recorded on a cassette tape and usually given to a friend or lover.) Mix Tape has since grown to be a cornerstone of Sunnyside, offering art, vintage pieces, community resources and more.
How long have you run Mix Tape?
Six years.
Why did you choose Sunnyside for Mix Tape?
I always ended up in this area because it made me feel like it was a small town in a city. Even when you don’t know your neighbors, people still recognize you. If you don’t know their name, they still say hi. I just love this area and I always find myself coming back to it.
Could you tell me a little bit about Mix Tape and what you guys do?
We are a collective space; we have 168 vendors. Anything handmade, 70% goes back to the artist and the rest goes to keeping us up and running. For everything else, 60% goes back to the vendor unless I have to repair the item. I do leather work and repair; I fix leather jackets, zippers, purses, straps, etc., and it’s a great way to give back to the community. I started off being an artist in Portland and a lot of stores take half. I could never survive off that and I didn’t understand how other artists could either. You can’t invest in yourself when you’re struggling to pay your bills. So when I opened Mix Tape, I just really wanted to be able to give back as much as possible. We also host pop-ups, mostly on the weekends, and then the artist gets to keep their full profits for the day. We’re just really trying to change the way consignment is done in Portland.
What makes Mix Tape different from other stores or consignment shops in Portland?
We definitely try to be size-inclusive and help every person who comes in. We really pride ourselves on having something for everyone. From teenagers to older adults, we get a wide demographic, and I feel like it’s definitely a safe space. We also get a lot of people from the neighborhood who come to us when they are concerned with things in the neighborhood. Recently, a group of kids came in and they said this man was following them at the bus stop. They knew exactly where to go to feel safe; it made me really happy to be here for them. That being said, often times when houseless people need shoes or resources they’ll come to the store and they know that I’ll help them or point them in the right direction for, like, a cooling center or whatever their need may be.
So would you say that Mix Tape isn’t just a consignment shop but also a sort of community hub, or somewhere people in Sunnyside can go for resources or support?
Yes. All of our vendors come from the neighborhood except for two, and they’re both people who lived in the neighborhood and moved away.
Did you always have a dream of making a space like this?
It kind of came naturally. I was working at a restaurant and they were struggling to pay their employees. I was doing leather work at that point, just making stuff out of my house. Ihad a Craigslist ad, so people would come over (to buy leather), and my friend was just like,“This is nuts. You’re letting strangers in your house to do leatherwork? This is very dangerous. You’re a woman. You live alone.” We were walking down Belmont Street one day as we normally did and I passed this little store next to Belmont Books. (Belmont Books wasn’t even there yet – it was just a little empty space next to Hoda’s.) My friend called the number for me, and said, “You need to do this.” And it just kind of took off. I never envisioned Mix Tape to be what it is… I was thinking it would be more for leather at the time. I was like, ‘How cool would it be to have a little leather shop where it’s just, like, tons of different leather workers?’ and my friends were like, ‘Oh, kind of like a mix tape.’ and the name just stuck. But it’s really grown. When we first started, we had 12 vendors. Then we moved across the street and it allowed us to expand. Hopefully we just keep expanding and I can support more and more people.
What future plans do you have for Mix Tape?
I really want to grow into a bigger space where I can host classes and artists who want to teach classes. I’ve been doing leather work since 2010 and there’s so much that can be done with items that people think are ruined. I’m trying to help people figure out that kind of stuff, with sustainability and upcycling. A lot of times people bring stuff to donate to me and I’m able to fix it. We’re talking about something they’ve had in their closet that they thought was ruined. They’ll be like ‘Oh, this zipper’s just totaled,’ and I’ll be like, ‘Actually, it just needs a few teeth and a zipper pull.’ They thought they were going to have to replace the whole thing and it was going to be all of this money. I’m really wanting to teach classes where I can help people take care of the items they have for longevity, just to keep things well loved or recycled. I would also love to host other artists to do that. Our space now is great, and I love it, but we’ve definitely outgrown it. That’s exciting, but also a little scary because Sunnyside doesn’t have a lot of large spaces to rent. So I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can better serve the community where I’m at and with the vendors I have, because I love Sunnyside and I never want to leave.
What is your favorite part about Sunnyside?
I love that all of the local businesses are run by the people who own them. That’s very rare in Portland. Before I got my space a few years ago, I went over to Division and was looking at a space that was really lovely, and I just kept going to the block and hanging out and talking with different business owners, and I realized that no one there who owned their businesses worked in their stores. I think that’s something super special about Sunnyside. It’s definitely a neighborhood where people are looking out for each other, and checking in on each other. A couple weeks ago, I left town and went camping, and people thought I was sick or something. Everyone was like, “Where have you been? Are you okay?” I love that everyone noticed I was missing for a week. It’s a block where everyone’s kind of in tune with each other, looking out for each other.
What do you think could use some improvement in Sunnyside?
I think sometimes people are a little scared when they see someone who doesn’t want help. Sometimes there are houseless people or people in general who don’t want help, and it’s hard to know what to do in those situations because they have autonomy and they’re saying, “No, I don’t want any resources from you,” but you can see that they need help. This has been a hard thing even for me to handle. I’ll want to give someone shoes, but they’ll say they don’t want them from me. Sometimes I’ll just leave them outside and then they’ll be gone and I just hope they ended up with them. Besides that, I definitely feel that there’s a lot of empty buildings in this neighborhood that could be filled, but that’s happening all over Portland, not just Sunnyside. I think Sunnyside has a really good thing going right now.
Visit Mix Tape seven days a week at 3300 SE Belmont St.
