Today we’d like to introduce you to Cassandra Davis.
Hi Cassandra, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I opened Secret Oktober on February 14, 2004. I have been into post-punk/goth music since I was nine years old, and I will never grow out of it. I always enjoyed going to goth/punk shops in my youth and found them to be extremely important for the scene. I have always wanted to be part of that. Most of my jobs before opening the shop have been in retail. With one exception, they have always been small, locally-owned shops. A year and a half after opening, I had a premature daughter (very healthy now!) and had to take on a partner, so Mary Milton has been co-running the shop with me ever since.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not always. Goth and punk are always going to be around, but there have been some years when they were not trendy. In the early days of the store for instance, the goth scene was more cyber and less romantic goth. We helped create some events, starting with Deathrock Disco, to help revitalize the scene with goth nights at Elysium Nightclub (who have always been a wonderful ally.) Keeping a wide variety of menswear is always a challenge. There are only a few brands in this genre at any given time.
Being in Austin is hard since the rents are very high, so we have to make more sales than shops in other places.
And, since it is so warm here, we have a hard time selling heavy goth outfits and jackets, so it limits what we can carry.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Secret Oktober?
Secret Oktober is a locally owned shop that sells alternative (especially goth, punk, post-punk, horror, & 80s) clothing and jewelry. We sell a mix of new, used, and handmade items. Most stores in this genre do not mix these things but tend to focus on just handmade or just secondhand, etc. This is something we have not seen very often at other businesses. We are the sole buyers/curators. As long as it fits our style, we will carry it.
We like having the room of secondhand clothing to give people more affordable options. We understand that not everyone in this scene has a lot of extra money lying around.
We try very hard to carry jewelry that is high quality but affordable. This is sometimes a challenge to find, but we are doing it. So many people have metal allergies now, so we are making sure that we have many options.
We are especially proud of our selection of rings.
We also carry a lot of music merchandise. We have a large selection of t-shirts, pins, patches, and stickers.
Also, we have art and anime stickers and queer pride pins.
We are size inclusive and try very, very hard to find plenty of plus-sized clothes and t-shirts.
We carry Tripp, Lip Service, Killstar, Jawbreaker, Dracula, and many, many more brands of clothing. We are constantly on the lookout for new places to buy clothing from.
We get in new items every single day, so the stock is constantly changing.
How do you think about luck?
We were forced to move a year and a half ago, which is always a hardship. We were very lucky that the exact spot where we wanted to move to had a space open up just in time for us to re-open after the Covid closures. Goth and punk are at an all-time peak with teenagers, and with us being near a college and high school, it gave us a financial boost that covered all of our moving costs and helped us get through the difficult Covid years.
Contact Info:
- Email: secretoktober23@gmail.com
- Website: www.secret-oktober.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/secretoktober23/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/secretoktoberstore
Image Credits
Mary Milton
