Story by Natalie Murphy

Right in the heart of Fayetteville, women are reclaiming their youth and femininity by participating in a swap meet. 

The idea of a swap meet is to bring clothes, art, and other knick knacks to sell and trade with others. Majority of the clothing is already second hand sourced from thrift and vintage stores. While the event surrounds the subject of material goods, the main goal for Celestia Petrykozy was to make new friends in a crowd of people with shared interests.

Petrykozy and Catie Riley are the creative minds behind the clothing and art swap that took place at Wilson Park on October 9. They created an event where girls could share their interests in sustainability and fashion all in hopes of fond female friendships. 

“The most sustainable thing you can do is wear what you already have instead of going to a thrift store and mass buying, so I thought swapping and wardrobe cycling with people you know will appreciate the clothes, to me, is a lot more meaningful way to put an end to that cycle,” Petrykozy says.

Petrykozy is a U of A art major who also works in photography and writing. Over the last three years she has spent her time between Fayetteville and Los Angeles finding her personal art and writing style. In doing so, her work has showcased prominent childhood memories highlighting the ideas surrounding girlhood. Swap meets are something Pertykozy is familiar with from her time in California and she wanted to introduce it to Fayetteville. 

After meeting Riley, who recently moved from Jonesboro, Arkansas to Fayetteville, they quickly bonded over their love of fashion and photography and set up the event.

The swap meet was fully self funded by the two of them and the event invitation was designed by Petrykozy with the eye-catching bullets: free food, music, and cute girls.

While it was posted and shared to their personal instagrams with an open audience for anyone interested, it struck a niche group of female-adjacent, sustainable fashion lovers in Fayetteville. 

“To me it is kind of reminiscent of playing dress up at sleepovers… and those cute little interactions of getting excited over clothes, curating your style, and meeting people who are like-minded and similar to you. I feel like those all tie into female friendships. I think the way women bond is much more intimate and social, and I feel like a swap meet is a perfect thing for that,” Petrykozy says.

Those who came to the event set down blankets in a circle to display their clothes and have a place to sit. Petrykozy and Riley also provided donuts, supplies to make friendship bracelets, a killer playlist and a photo booth backdrop with props for the attendees to take pictures.

 “I feel like this (event) is a really good opportunity for deep healing: we are making friendship bracelets and trading clothes,” Riley said. 

All of the attendees were uniquely dressed in their personal style and had an assortment of clothes to swap. The circle was full of conversation and exchanges of stories as all topics were welcomed. The usual “taboos” of religious experiences, sexualities, periods, and all around girlhood were flawlessly discussed with a lack of judgment.

When the topic of embracing femininity in adolescence came into conversation, it seemed to be a shared experience for the group that it was a struggle growing up. 

As women, points are docked from our seriousness when we enjoy the “stereotypical girly things” of life. We are often told to see each other as competition and told to betray our own femininity as it is our greatest weakness. 

Riley mentioned the “aversion” she had to the color pink growing up that she still sometimes senses in herself today. “Now I just accept it for what it is. It’s a soft color,” she laughs.

Examples from our childhood of boys and grown men making fun of us for twirling and flipping our hair, liking the color pink, or wanting to be a ballerina are all too familiar. It’s our own gender identity that seems to put a target on our backs, but embracing it can also be the strongest power we have.

“I feel like with Andrew Tate and Roe v. Wade, it is so pervasive to even oversell femininity. I feel like if we are over-exerting, we are still being seen and still being visible,” Pertykozy says. 

Fashion plays a big part in how we as women identify and portray ourselves. The clothes we put on our bodies implicate more than we expect from pieces of fabric strung together. 

Whether we like it or not, assumptions are made about our character, sexual preference, and personality. This is true for all genders, but is especially prevalent in female culture. 

“As women, we’re sexualized at such a young age that we often feel a lot of guilt or shame around being girly because it feeds those interactions of getting cat-called or being pursued; but I found that embracing that kind of girlishness now makes me feel so much more full, like in getting an experience I missed out on,” Petrykozy said. 

Sydney Winkler, one of the attendees, chimed in saying, “In the past I have equated being feminine and super girly to being powerless…but I think it is a power move to embrace your feminine side.”

It is a breath of fresh air to see women being celebrated and finding pride in their hyper-femininity, and it is these conversations brought on by events like a swap meet that are actively building a strong feminine embracing community in Fayetteville. 

“As women, we need more foundational community,” Petrykozy says. “We need each other.”

Petrykozy and Riley said they plan to host more events in the future that will continue to highlight female friendships. You can follow them for more information on any upcoming events at @petrykozy and @c44tie on Instagram.