An orange building stands on Baltimore Avenue in West Philadelphia, with two glass doors. Teal gates close off one door and welcome people passing by to step through the other.
Welcome to Manzanita Boutique.
The door opens to the shop and the sounds of West Philadelphia pour in. Clothing hangers slide across metal racks clinking together, and upbeat music plays over the sound system.
“Hello dear friends, how are you?” Dorit Avganim, the owner of Manzanita Boutique says, greeting customers from across the boutique with an eager smile.
Avganim does not just call her customers “friend” — that is what they truly become. Bonds are formed between Avganim and those who enter Manzanita, whether a connection is made over life events, clothing or simple everyday to-dos.
Avganim says she realized she is a person who thrives in a community during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I wanted to be with people, and I missed people,” she said.
Avganim’s husband, Ben, supported her drive from the beginning stages of completing her Master’s Degree in Nonprofit Management, all the way to running her own boutique a decade later.
While talking to a career coach, a gift from Ben during those beginning stages, Avganim was asked how she wanted to spend her day.
“To change my circumstances was my only goal,” Avganim said. “And she [the career coach] was like, ‘Yeah, but how do you want to spend your day?’ And I never thought about that. It really changed me.”
Creating a space
As Avganim made her start in the vintage clothing world, she began popping up at markets. She realized this business was something she was good at, and she reflected on her life experiences and how they not only shaped her to be in the position she was at the time, but where it could lead her in the future.
When Avganim was young, her father owned a restaurant and a mechanic shop. She saw first hand the hard work needed for a community-based business to flourish.
“I was always working and in production. I was always with blue collar workers,” Avganim said. “I love the public. I love the people, and I want to be with them.”
While she was prepared to run both a business and an event space, Avganim wanted more. She wanted to offer calm in the chaos.
“Well then, why don’t you open a door?” Avganim said, recalling her husband’s words.
What is currently behind the door of Manzanita was crafted from Avganim’s love for the city and the black, queer-forward community of West Philadelphia.
“I always say Manzanita would look radically different anywhere else. This [the boutique] is very distinctly designed to welcome the people that live here and to celebrate them,” Avganim said. “I am humbled to open my door every day and to serve this community.”
The ultimate goal of the boutique is to extend a sense of autonomy to every person entering or even just walking past the exterior. Manzanita addresses the trials and tribulations of the world with offering something different, something constant.
“If I can humbly pull together the ingredients, then maybe people can feel that sense of sanctuary. You are welcome here. You are safe here,” Avganim said. “The 600 square feet is safe.”
Pieces of a puzzle
When the concept proceeding the brand was still underway, Avganim was working with one of her close friends, MacGregor Harp, who passed away in 2022 from pancreatic cancer. At the time of his passing, she felt as if there was no way she could continue with the project, until she realized it was the reason she had to continue.
Avganim says she had to continue developing her business so down the road, she could open the teal gate every day, greet her new friends with a grin accompanied by a delighted, “How are you?” and leave the door open, because someone may walk through the door to become a friend.
Avganim works to make room for everyone in Manzanita Boutique. She operates heavily on the notion that if you have an idea, you have a place.
The experience is what is being sold, not solely the clothing. Manzanita is not a “hard sell” as Cacie Rosario, friend of Avganim and a Manzanita regular customer, explained.
Rosario labeled the boutique’s selection as beautiful and intentional. She said Manzanita is the place to go when you are looking for something to wear, but do not know how to describe what you want.
Rosario said Avganim always knows when a piece is “meant” for someone before they try it on. Sometimes, before they even pick it up.
On multiple occasions, Rosario has picked up a piece she liked, but was unsure of when Avganim, mid-conversation with someone else, would simply say, “That is yours.”
These comments give customers confidence, says Rosario, and it makes all the difference.
Selling confidence and clothing
While Manzanita is a business that sells vintage clothes, accessories and stationary items, the experience — everything from when customers lay eyes on the boutique until the time they leave — is the focal point.
When Avganim helps a customer find a piece or fully styles them, she asks the run of the mill, “What do you like to wear?” question, but she also asks what makes them feel powerful.
Customers enter the dressing room with a ceiling painted to match the bright blue sky on a partly cloudy day with hopes of finding their favorite new shirt, but Avganim hopes they feel good in the clothes they see in the mirror even if the clothes go back on the rack afterwards.
Performing capitalism without the anticipation of extraction is how Avganim described the style in which the boutique operates. The boutique offers the experience and if customers wish to seek an exchange, Avganim said she hopes they think of Manzanita.
The roots
The boutique’s namesake is a type of tree commonly found in western North America. Avganim said she was hiking in Los Angeles, brainstorming names for her new boutique when she bumped into the Manzanita and remembered her dad mentioning the tree.
“I looked at it, and I was like, ‘It’s kind of ugly,’” Avganim recalled. “It’s not obviously beautiful, it sheds its skin constantly. It’s a refrigeration tree. It stays cool in the heat.”
Manzanita Boutique, much like the tree, sheds its skin. There are constantly pieces being brought in before being sold to their new owner. It can take on many forms, whether it be as a vintage clothing store, a sanctuary for those longing for community or a meeting place for local events.
It is a place to cool down when the heat of the world gets to be too much, Avganim said. With the constant change of the world, work and personal life, having something steady, even if it is a boutique you pass on your way home from work everyday, is important.
“I feel like people knowing it’s here is enough, you know, they don’t have to shop here,” Avganim said. “They can just see the lights on.”
