Vintage apparel business builds a bond between old and new fans

FORT WORTH, Texas -- It’s deep into the college football season and Fort Worth entrepreneur Lindsey Dixon is in high demand.

She’s all too eager to rifle through her customers’ bins stored in back closets and garages for vintage gold for her business, Fans Vintage. Her startup specializes in vintage apparel, with an emphasis on Texas Christian University.

“I always get compliments wearing my vintage TCU stuff,” said the 37-year-old. “It’s not very common and a lot of the stuff you can buy in different stores around Fort Worth, it’s pretty much the same.”

After graduating from the University of Texas at Arlington, she worked almost 15 years in the education industry before deciding to go back to college to get her master’s degree in business.

In 2020, she took a venture ideas class from TCU professor Michael Sherrod. He challenged around 20 students to start their own business in 90 days.

Hers was the only one to turn a profit during the class.

“A lot of people who start companies think it’s going to be just a whole lot of fun,” said Sherrod, whose resume includes founding or co-founding 18 companies. “And it is, but it is also a whole lot of work. The thing that really worked for Lindsay is that she was willing to put in a lot of work.”

The genesis of Dixon’s business concept came from marrying into a family of avid TCU fans. Most TCU fans buy mass-produced merchandise from the on-campus bookstore. Dixon said she saw an opportunity to provide TCU fans with unique vintage pieces.

Dixon’s initial inventory of TCU gear came from her own closet. For the class, she began selling items on Instagram that no longer fit her or she was no longer wearing. By the end of the semester, she had made $25,000 to $30,000 in sales.

“I had just done Instagram and a couple of socially distanced pop-up shops and I kind of thought, ‘Wow, I caught lightning in a bottle,’ ” said Dixon, who grew up in Corpus Christi.

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