Not too cool for school

VIEW THIS PAGE

From the outside, eureka! eureka! eureka! looks like a hipster’s idea of heaven. Mannequins topped with large, feathered rooster masks are decked out in bright purple sneakers, baggy neon houndstooth pants and statement necklaces made out of deflated balloons.

With her Karen O-ish bowl cut fringe and avant-garde outfits, store owner Sandy Wu (吳哲先) looks like the ultimate scenester herself. But in reality, the soft-spoken, churchgoing Wu (a bright orange cross behind the cash register attests to her beliefs) sees eureka! eureka! eureka! as a big dress-up box for grown-ups.

“I loved playing dress-up when I was a little girl and I still have that same feeling when I get ready each morning and go through my closet,” says Wu. She plans her outfits each evening, mixing and matching different items until she gets the combination just right, but then often changes her mind in the morning. The looks that do make the cut are regularly posted on eureka! eureka! eureka!’s blog (www.wretch.cc/blog/eureka117).

Wu studied foreign languages at university, but began working at clothing design labels and stores after graduating. She eventually made her way to the boutique that used to occupy eureka! eureka! eureka!’s storefront. When her boss decided to sell the business two years ago, Wu took it over.

In addition to Taiwanese indie designers Pet Shop Girls, Back to British, Deeplay and Play Rough, Wu also flies out of the country twice a month to look for new merchandise. She frequently visits Bangkok’s flea markets, where she hunts for secondhand items.

Eureka! eureka! eureka!’s racks display an obvious 1980s influence, from the neon colors and geometric prints on leggings and dresses to black T-shirts with highly detailed silk-screened renditions of wolves against the night sky. “I think people back then were very individualistic and braver about what they wore. I feel that people nowadays tend to follow trends blindly. But the 1980s were all about knowing what you want, and using clothing to express yourself,” says Wu.

The store is located near Shida night market, but far away enough from the trendy shops on Longquan Street (龍泉街) to make eureka! eureka! eureka! seem as if it is in a world apart. Its neighbors include a NT$100 haircut place and a blue truck that seems to be perpetually parked across the street, giving the store’s name a special resonance.

“We’re kind of out of the way, so when people find us, we want them to feel like they’ve made a discovery,” says Wu. “Hopefully they’ll feel like they’ve stumbled upon a secret place that no one else knows about and it’s their own special stash of treasure, like when we were little and tucked things away in hiding places.”

Wu’s childlike love of dress-up and serendipitous surprises is part of her marketing strategy. The inside of the eureka! eureka! eureka! is dominated by a worn leather couch with cozy crochet afghans and cushions. Sale items are piled in a shopping cart for customers to hunt through, and colorful vintage clip-on earrings, badges and other jewelry are displayed in brightly lit glass cases alongside race car toys and plastic dinosaurs. Entire outfits of artfully mismatched leggings, tees and hooded sweatshirts dangle from the ceiling, while magazines featuring street-style photos, including Nylon, Tune and Fruits, are stacked next to a comfortable armchair. Many of her customers are university students and prices target that demographic — most dresses and tunics are NT$1,280, a pair of black high-heeled duck boots are NT$1,980, T-shirts are NT$890 and vintage leather jackets ring in at NT$3,280.