Amber Burkhart – Amberjoy’s Vintage Closet

Amber has always enjoyed dressing in threads from the past, often donning 1950’s-era clothing in high school. “I’d wear vintage hats and big poodle skirts and all my friends were like, ‘Something is wrong with her.’ But I always loved it, and that era,” she says.

With the help and support of the Nevada Women’s Business Center, Amber was able to transform her passion for vintage fashion into Amberjoy’s Vintage Closet, the go -to destination for vintage clothing and accessories in Las Vegas.

Although the st ore features clothes from a number of different eras, Amber is steering the bulk of her wares to the rockabilly genre, a look popularized in the 1950’s– think sultry Bettie Page and defiant James Dean. In the near future, she plans to release her own rockabilly -inspired clot hing line for men and women, including wedding dresses and crinolines, the fluffy underpinnings that give the period skirts their oomph.

Amberjoy’s Vintage Closet also offers consignment services, a pin-up photography studio and a host of vintage life-style events. “I want to have beauty class-es, hair classes, pinup classes, burlesque classes,” she says. “I’ll be reaching out to the community for people who are professionals in those areas who’d like to come volunteer their time, or charge for a course, to be able to do it.”

For Amber, the store is the culmination of a nine-year dream funded through her work as an interior designer and a public notary and aided by the Nevada Women’s Business Center. Her foray into selling vintage items started with outfitting close friends and selling from a spare bedroom in her home-a process that spurred her to find a storefront location.

Amber says she explored potential spaces on Las Vegas Boulevard, but nothing clicked and she feels fortunate to have found her present Main Street location, which she says was one of the last shopfronts available in the area.

The Nevada Women’s Business Center is proud to be a part of turning Amber’s dream into a real business.