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Ed Chalfa is proof that persistence, imagination and commitment to your instincts are still a viable route to professional success. Owner of the West Coast’s largest resale clothing store, Portland’s über-popular Red Light Clothing Exchange, his stores have helped define counterculture style in Seattle and Portland for more than two decades. And not a single one was opened with the help of private investors or a major bank loan.
Like many of the major decisions in his life, Chalfa started his first clothing business on a whim. In 1982, he was a two-time college dropout with no retail fashion experience. But, as he notes, “I’m incredibly lazy, so when I work I like to do things as hard and fast as I can and get them over with. It seemed like my method would be more productive if I was my own boss and could work when I wanted to.” So, he invested his savings—$75—in a retail venture with Art Bobrowski, a co-worker from The Grand Illusion Cafe. Though their plan to resell clothing at flea markets was a resounding failure, Chalfa was not discouraged. He suspected that success was just a matter of rethinking the business approach.
Chalfa began operating a store out of his own U-District apartment, converting his bedroom into a showroom. As he learned the trade, he bought out Bobrowski and moved his shop first into a vacant unit in the apartment building he managed, then into a storefront on University Way. By the mid-‘80s, he was opening unique clothing shops throughout Seattle, with every store more evolved and ornate than the last. Former employee Gene Burnett notes, “Ed is an artist, and his stores are like installations. Each store he opened became more and more a work of art…He doesn’t like stagnation.”
Longtime employee Pony Maurice concurs, “He is persistent and always trying new things, but sees creating an interesting environment as a better long term investment than making a quick buck.” From employing old-fashioned barkers as advertisers to allowing the Jim Rose Circus to perform in the windows of his The New Store Annex, Chalfa has always run his stores based on his own sense of the cool or curious. To maintain the right ambiance he hired smart, quirky people—paying them above-average wages—who were well aware that they brought a special energy to his shops.
His persistence and integrity paid off when Chalfa and his then-partner sold The Red Light Clothing Exchange on the Ave in March 1999 after being open just two years. The sale was a professional highlight that gave him a wad of cash and the opportunity to leave the career he started nearly 20 years before. Upon reflection, however, Chalfa realized that his skills and personality were best suited to retail. The Red Light Clothing Exchange in Portland opened in October 1999.
As Chalfa has grown from a small entrepreneur into the owner of a $1.5 million-a-year business, he has changed his lifestyle and approach very little. “Just do what you know,” he advises. “Stop planning and just start something; don’t get discouraged. People who stick with things are always the most successful.”
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