It’s about two o’clock in the afternoon when Carmen Hawk and Rodney Klein park their truck behind my rental car. I’ve been waiting on the sidewalk in front of their closed store for about half an hour, watching confused customers yank the door handle, look through the window inside the dark, lifeless space, then sheepishly retreat to next door’s Good Girl Dinette for a Vietnamese coffee, in eager anticipation of that redeeming salvation. Because Avalon Vintage is well worth the drive and the wait. Me and about eight other hopeful patrons, are here for a sole purpose: to be transported into a six hundred square foot world of musical and sartorial dreams. “I call it the city of lost angels,” Carmen tells me later of her beloved Los Angeles. “I love its ghostly spirit. But I hate the traffic.”

Tardiness and gridlock aside I am happy she’s here. I haven’t seen Carmen in fourteen years. Not since she left New York with her daughter Ava, who was just over two years old then. Ava’s father is Craig McDean, the fashion photographer whose studio I manned for six years. I still ride the bicycle Carmen left behind – it’s my dearest possession and a sweet reminder of those tumultuous times. “I was a wild child,” she admits looking back. “I feel my path has been very much about survival. And now in my forties I am learning to relax and find out about myself.” She wandered all over America, first with her mom, then as a model. “We hitchhiked to Oregon when I was five,” she recalls. “From that point I lived in Iowa, Florida and Illinois. At fifteen my mom sold all our things and drove with her friend cross-country from Illinois to San Diego. In a Datsun. With a three legged cat! A few years later I was scouted by someone from Elite. I spent my early twenties modeling. I quit for a while, moved to Seattle, worked in a vintage shop, sold my paintings, then modeled again in New York, made music, met Craig, fell in love and had Ava!”

The store exceeds my expectations by miles and decades. When Carmen unlocks the door and starts turning on the lights, I gradually get an idea of the work, love and passion that went into creating this treasure trove. I know very little about the value of old records so I won’t divulge my thoughts about Rodney’s side of the store other than that it looks impressive. But I can with certainty tell you that Carmen has excellent taste and a very unusual, quirky eye. If not location, vintage has been the one true and loyal constant in Carmen’s life. She grew up in second hand clothing and outfits her grandmother made. “It was a rare thing to have new store-bought clothing,” she says. And to this day she prefers whimsical dresses and leotards – she wanted to be a dancer when she was growing up – and always wears heels. “I have noticed I dress very much like my mom did in the 70s,” she thinks. “I’m not very put together and find most of my best outfits to be accidents. Describing my personal style is a little hard for me. I feel a lot as if I’m still finding it.” It’s also during her years as a model that Carmen met Milla Jovovich whom she eventually started a very successful clothing line with, inspired by vintage pieces Carmen had been collecting. One rack in the store is entirely devoted to remnants of their five-year collaboration.

So things have come full circle for Carmen. She is still the jovial, striking woman I once knew, but she seems calmer and more settled. The way I see it, the store is her chef d’oeuvre, the culmination of a life long allegiance to all things old and beautiful, converged into one happy center of recycled rewards. Carmen’s extraordinary collection is the magnet that keeps all those eager customers stationed outside the closed door for ages, and the reason why people like Vanessa Paradis and Lou Doillon visit regularly. Every piece has historical substance and an interesting quality; these are not cheap, boring frills, even though everything is more-than-reasonably priced. Carmen and I spend the next three hours dressing up, chasing the setting sun and taking pictures of each other’s improvised outfits – she also dabbles in photography. I accumulate an unsurmountable stack of things I want to buy: a denim jumpsuit, a cream satin blazer, a frazzled boatneck T-shirt and an embroidered top. I suppose I’ll worry about the extra baggage later. And that parking ticket under the windshield wiper! “Oh no, I forgot to remind you about the parking meter!” Carmen cries. I too, hate the traffic.