About
My name is Gina Clyne and I am based in Los Angeles, California. Phases and Stages is the name of a Willie Nelson record, and the phrase feels very right for the name of a vintage kids clothing shop. I love how naturally it conveys the constant change and growth that comes with being both kids and parents alike. I am a lifelong vintage-lover, treasure collector, and artist/photographer, so the subject of Time has always spun round in my mind. Having a kid of my own and becoming a mother has only intensified my relationship to Time.
I collect kids clothing from 1950s-1980s.
For the last 20+ years, dressing myself in vintage has always been an easy outlet to express myself and generate joy in my everyday. When I turned 40, I had my baby boy and was diagnosed with breast cancer immediately afterwards. In the long days of postpartum and cancer treatments that followed, my closet became a mausoleum to a different woman's body. A psychic sore spot, I had to get real with myself and surrender to survive. It was a natural pivot to adorn my kid's body while I hit pause on my own. Sourcing vintage kids clothes has been a very joyful experience during a very tedious and terrible time of uncertainty. One day it occurred to me that I could scale-up and effortlessly bring the same joy to others! It was a very important and connective decision to lead with joy and begin to design another way to live, rather than just survive. — And I am happy to report that I am now cancer-free!
—Excerpts from an interview with York Manor Market
Does your art and photography influence your approach to Phases and Stages?
Oh yes, it's all intertwined. I've never been any good at compartmentalizing the things I do or am passionate about, and don't think I should have to. It's all apart of the work I put out into the world and how I choose to spend my time while I'm here. As a kid, I used to sit on the floor of the laundry room, right next to the hot dryer, pour over our old National Geographic magazines, and imagine the exciting bigness of this life. In art school learned that all those photographs from that period were shot with Kodachrome film. Kodachrome made color photographs more brilliant and those vivid scenes (captured moments in time) fed my hungry little eyes. I wanted to catch time and life through art-making and photography with that same fullness. When I source vintage kids clothes, which a large part are deadstock/new with tags, I feel they radiate in color and time in a way that fires up all my senses. A piece of a living past where we are lucky enough to become temporary time travelers. I don't think I ever want to shake off the wonder I felt as a kid looking at those magazines in the laundry room. It's still a beautiful kind of everyday inspiration. Being an artist and mother has the same feeling of exciting bigness.
