Crystal Wise
In February, a picture of Billy Bob Thornton, star of the Fort Worth-filmed “Landman,” was making the rounds in Cowtown. He was looking like the begrudging movie star he is, sporting an Amon Carter-style cowboy hat and a Henley shirt, and stood, with one hand in his pocket and a slight smirk, next to a collection of colorful weathered boots and pink paisley dresses. Like a lot of famous folk who make their way to the Camp Bowie area, the pic was captured while he and his wife were shopping at Studio 74 Vintage.
“I had no idea he was coming,” Laura Simmons, owner and sole employee of Studio 74, told me. “But he also didn’t know that I had done some of the costuming for ‘Landman.’ So, when he was here, we were able to make that connection. A lot of the stuff you’re going to see him wearing in the show came from my store.”
The highly curated secondhand store, which is chock-full of unique, one-of-a-kind clothing items — much of which with our favorite Western tilt — has become a go-to boutique among names you might recognize (Leon Bridges, Abraham Alexander) and collectors like Steven Porterfield from PBS’s “Antiques Roadshow.” From bolos to boots to bellbottoms, the shop covers over a century of fashion. According to Simmons, most of what she has is from the 1800s up to the early 1990s, which is why costume designers for period-specific films and TV shows are ransacking her shop.
We’re not saying Studio 74 is the Rodeo Drive (pronounced row-day-oh) of Fort Worth, but there’s little doubt the small shop tucked away between a design studio and a “For Lease” sign is getting attention from people with unquestionable style.
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I mean, who wouldn’t wanna shop where Leon Bridges gets some of his threads? And, with cowboy couture at the height of popularity, Fort Worth might just be one of the most stylish cities in the country. We’re not joking.
“People who come from out of state or out of the country are always shocked to learn everything in the shop is from Fort Worth,” Simmons says. “I think the perception, especially if you’re from LA or New York, is that Fort Worth doesn’t have style. They’re always impressed to learn this is all Fort Worth.” Simmons says she purchases about 2,000 items per week, and it’s all locally sourced.
The shop first opened its doors in January 2021 after Simmons, who previously spent 25 years in law enforcement, worked for a couple of years with her husband at Simmons Estate Jewelry, also located on Camp Bowie. A lover of history and, as she puts it, anything old, Simmons had also started a hobby of styling people in era-appropriate attire and photographing them, which eventually led to magazines featuring her work.
“And then I would get bored of it because that’s what I do,” Simmons says of her photography and styling. “I like to learn something and then move on. So, I would sell off all the clothes that I had collected and say, ‘OK, I’m not going to do that anymore.’ But then I would be back at estate sales, back at Goodwill, buying up all the clothes. Finally, at some point I was like, OK, I’m not going to fight it anymore. Obviously, I’m drawn to this for a reason.”
Only three years in, and Simmons thinks, even if she calls it a pipe dream, that she can make Studio 74 Vintage the best vintage store in the country. After all, she has one of the best suppliers of vintage fashion at her fingertips: Fort Worth.
