Real Ones Vintage
1613 E. 3rd St., Suite D
Nick Jordan is 35 years old—old enough to remember a time before being habitually online was a pathological condition. His shop, Real Ones Vintage, might have started as an online business, launched while touring with his former band, but it’s recently landed in the offline world as the newest arrival in the Studio Row district.
The interior of the store is bright, colorful, and carpeted with the same astroturf you might encounter on a mini golf course. Omnipresent mood lighting and graffiti on the walls add to the casual, playful DIY ambience. In one corner, a Real Ones commercial runs on a loop on one of three CRT televisions in the shop. A vintage couch gives people a place to sit and hang out if the mood strikes.
Jordan is exactly the type of person who makes you want to sit and hang out: friendly, easygoing, and full of an optimistic energy. He likes being on the ground floor of a growing district, with neighbors like Tulsa Guitar Co., Cody Mayo Studios, a coffee shop run by the owners of 918Maples, and of course The Church Studio. "It's cool for me to be a part of something that's upcoming. You feel like you're helping create it," Jordan says.
Jordan started out as a screenprinter—the name Real Ones started out as his own brand for his original designs that he screenprinted onto thrifted clothes—and the store definitely carries more vintage T-shirts than any other clothing item. One particularly popular new item is a T-shirt from the almost-fever-dream of a sitcom from 1991 called Dinosaurs, which featured dinosaur puppets and tackled issues such as gay rights, censorship, and corporate crime. Lots of people have been asking about that shirt, Jordan says, a nostalgia piece from a show many thought they had imagined as kids.