Vintage store opens second location in Columbia

The Spark

Benjamin Illkanoff is the owner of Persian Cat Vintage. A store that offers a variety of antique furniture, clothing, and more. Before venturing into entrepreneurship, Illkanoff was a student at Moravian University studying political science and psychology.

“I definitely was on track to doing something like, you know, with the law and I had in planning for that. But in the back of my head and the back of my mind, I, I've always really loved clothing. Like, I started out with streetwear back in 2016 and, you know, just from high school all the way to, you know, even post College, you know, looking at graduate school and stuff.”

There are currently two Persian Cat Vintage Stores. The first location was opened in Lancaster, and the second was opened in February in Elizabethtown. Both stores offer different products to shoppers.

“So the store in Elizabethtown is an it's kind of like what I would call like a college nook, a college closet. It really, really encapsulates a 1990s and a really heavy like Y2K, 2000s vibe, whether it be like the plushies. And I'm like, I'm in the store right now, so I'm kind of just looking around and reciting back to you what I'm what I'm seeing. But it's a lot of like NASCAR stuff and toys and Pokemon and, you know, Looney Tunes and more like college crew snacks and sports memorabilia. It definitely is geared towards a college crowd versus my Columbia store is geared towards a crowd of anywhere from like the college high school crowd that I get in town to, you know, the oldest collector that I guess could walk in to the shop.”

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