How Su Beyazit Curates Her Brooklyn Vintage Stores

Happy Wednesday! As we officially enter Scorpio season, our Culture Editor clarifies the fiction and facts of Scorpio mythology with the guidance of the Scorpios in her circle. We also caught up with Liza Koshy as she got ready for her first CFDA Awards and how to properly marry form and function this winter. Plus, Su Beyazit, founder of Brooklyn-based lifestyle store, Su’Juk, shares her founding story, how she’s built community, and her favorite pieces from her stores. – Samantha

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THE CLOSE-UP

A Warm Brooklyn Welcome with Su Beyazit at Su'Juk

Welcome to “The Close-Up,” where we indulge in conversations with tastemakers, entrepreneurs, designers, and others paving the way in their respective industries. Focusing on the people at the forefront of innovative and diverse companies, join us as we uncover their style ethos, guiding principles, challenges, and insights that have made them successful in the worlds of fashion, beauty, art, and beyond. 

This week, I had the pleasure of speaking to Su Beyazit, founder of Su’Juk, a vintage and lifestyle store with three Brooklyn locations and an outpost in Upstate New York. Ahead, we chat about her founding story, how she curates the store’s vintage, furniture, and lifestyle pieces, along with her past creative experiences.

Samantha Wu: What inspired you to start your own boutique?

Su Beyazit: I had been thrifting my entire life, more out of a necessity than it being a fun thing. We were immigrant kids, so we didn't have a lot of money, and that was the first introduction to thrifting. I remember loving thrifting and fashion, but after studying fashion design at Parsons, I realized soon after I graduated, that I didn't quite want to be working in the design field, so I played around with [a few] things. I was styling for a while, which was really fun, and I was also waiting tables.

I was living in Clinton Hill at the time, and I had seen this storefront that I had passed a million times all of a sudden having a for rent sign. It was really that that sparked the idea of a store. At a very young age, I always knew I wanted to work for myself; I didn't really know what context. It really wasn't that thought out, to be honest. It was what a 25-year-old would do, where you're aspirational and you're like, "I think I can do this," and fearless.

My whole closet, at that time, was pretty much secondhand, including all of my furniture. I grew up in a household like that, and so the idea of scavenging, sourcing, and going to yard sales and thrift stores was always in my DNA. That just felt like the natural progression of the store. I'm Turkish, so my idea was I'll bring things from Turkey, eventually, once I can get to a place where I could even afford to do that.

It started off as a small concept that was around vintage clothing, and it's eventually grown into what it is now, but I didn't go into it thinking it would be 11 years later. I remember being like, “I have a two-year lease and we'll just see what happens in two years.”

SW: As a small business owner, I would love to hear how you fostered your community and built that following over the last 11 years.

SB: Su’Juk started off as this really small, very centralized concept where I had a lot of people from the community involved in the business early on. I had my friend Alana, who did hair— in the early stages of Su'juk, we had a hair salon in the back. I had my friend Madya, who owned another vintage store, actually become a dealer and sell out of this space. The three of us hosted events, I would say, monthly. Our events just grew into this fun thing.

I also listened to the community. I was very much one of those business owners that came in, and was like, "What do you guys want? What would you see more of? Is there a product that you like or a kind of style that you like?" I've honed in on so many of our OG customers and they still shop with me, and I think that stemmed from a place of them feeling like they were a community.

The salon really cultivated this really amazing environment for people to share their stories, and be able to be vulnerable. Once we closed down the salon two years ago, we continued that inviting space. It was always part of our ethos to be extremely welcoming. I feel like that has always been such a big [part of the] brand identity for me, especially because I didn't really grow up with much. It was always wanting to be able to create a space that felt very warm and inviting.

SW: Your boutique is a combination of both a lifestyle store and a vintage store. How do you curate the pieces that are in each store?

SB: The lifestyle part came in about four years ago, when I was like, "Okay, I got the vintage thing down. I know how to source clothing now." I had more funding so that I could go back to my country, and figure out how to start sourcing things and bringing them back. It started off small, where I would literally have everybody that was traveling with me pack suitcases of product and bring it back, because I couldn't afford to ship it at the time.

When we opened Fort Greene—it's a temporary location, technically—, I definitely wanted it to feel really heavy on the lifestyle. I have other dealers that are a part of that space, one being my partner Patrick De Shong and my friend Hannah Buonaguro from @yourotherleftear, and so we all had our own little vision of what we'd like to bring to the space. It was great because it really did create this whole lifestyle store where we had provisions, that's definitely Hannah's focus, and Patrick does a lot of the male vintage and cool, funky lighting and more of the nostalgia memorabilia. I was focusing more on the vintage furniture and textiles from Turkey.

I think as the brand has grown, as I have grown in my taste, I have a clear idea of what it is that I like and what I want to carry. Cobble Hill feels like the fine-tuned version of the merge between Clinton Hill and Fort Greene. It's a permanent space, so we could spend money on it. We could invest in the build-out, and really think of everything through.

SW: What are your top three favorite pieces that you've ever picked up for Su'juk?

SB: There were these rugs I found two years ago. I think it was beginner's luck because I went to a new rug dealer.

I remember going to the dealer and he pulled out two rugs that were so breathtaking to me, and they were very similar styles. I loved those pieces. They were so magical to find.

I think the second thing would probably be [from] my first trip to Italy, another buying trip. Again, a very lucky trip where I just got a lot of really cool stuff. It was this really cool chair that did go viral on TikTok but it was the funkiest, weirdest chair. I've never been able to find it again.

For clothing, there are so many pieces but one thing that comes to mind, which I actually didn't end up selling. I found this insane velvet duster jacket that looked like a pea coat. It was very structured, had this amazing piping, all black velvet with this incredible, open pleat in the back. It was like the Matrix jacket but velvet. It had the most insane silk lining, this really beautiful gold paisley print. It was just divine. I did try to sell it, and I was like, "I can't." My mom saw it and she was like, "Oh." I was like, at least somebody in my life can have this jacket because I can't part ways with it.

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