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Mimi Regelson in front of Exile at 822 W. Grace St. (Photo courtesy Mimi Regelson)

Exile

The shop of trash culture necessities and ‘rock ’n’ roll rags and jewelry’ filled a niche in customers’ closets and lives

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The sign in front of Exile depicted a heart on one side and, on the other, a brain. A visitor to the 822 W. Grace St. shop read the symbols and informed owner Mimi Regelson, “I get it. ‘Open heart, open mind,’ ” she recalls. “And that wasn’t intentional. But if I had a really good exchange with the person, and they left without buying anything, I felt that I had profited.” 

Exile was where a generation of Virginia Commonwealth University students, musicians, artists and the fashion-forward bought their first Doc Martens, discovered Manic Panic hair dye and chose body jewelry. Prior to social media, Exile served as a gathering place. People stopped by to say hello, catch up “and leave an hour later with a supply of merchandise,” remembers artist Melissa Burgess, “like socks, or a belt, or a most extraordinary vintage sweater. There was always the perfect antique treasure.” Besides the advertised “rock ’n’ roll rags and jewelry,” Exile also hosted art exhibitions and performances.  

The shop grew into a “combination of an art project and a community center,” Regelson says. “It was definitely a store for the misfit toys. As far as being a successful business model, it really wasn’t.” 

Though Exile has been gone since 2011, its spirit lives.

Lauren Healy-Flora came to Richmond to attend Virginia Commonwealth University in 1998. She describes discovering the jam-packed shop in a house as a rite of passage. “Going in there was like therapy,” she says. She became a fashion photography stylist (sometimes working for Richmond magazine) and often used clothing and accessories from Exile. She formed an enduring friendship with Regelson.

Today, Healy-Flora operates Blue Bones Vintage with her husband, Jeremy Flora, at 310 N. Laurel St., around the corner from the now-vanished Exile site.

Setting up Shop

In the mid-1980s, at age 30, Richmond native Regelson was living in New York, running the office for a managing editor at the publisher Avon and then Warner Books in Manhattan, when she began to tire of her harried life.

“I was overworked and not earning enough,” she recalls. “And I started thinking, ‘Why am I living in the city when I’m too tired or too busy to enjoy it?’ ”  

Thus, she and her then-partner, Charlie Ilario, who worked in vintage stores and collected clothing and records, moved back to her hometown, the more affordable Richmond, to open a shop expressing their mutual interests in clothing, music and subculture, ranging from rockabilly to GWAR, and from screwball comedy films to the transgressive B-movies of Troma Entertainment.

Regelson’s mother, Sylvia, owned Ouroboros Art Pottery & African Arts in Mechanicsville’s Antique Village, which she still operates today at age 94, going in two days a week (down from her pre-pandemic six).

Ilario, who was “a rabid Rolling Stones fan,” as Regelson recalls, thought the name “Exile” was a natural fit, given the store’s first location at 1309 W. Main St. and the Stones’ 1972 album “Exile on Main Street,” as well as the couple’s relocation from New York. Regelson didn’t share the Stones affection, but she adds, “I later married a Tibetan in exile, so it seemed more appropriate.” 

On a hot afternoon in August 1986, Burgess and her friend Matt Linkous, lured by the open door through which wafted Johnny Thunders’ music, became the first customers to cross Exile’s threshold. Burgess bought a riveted leather men’s watchband that she still has today.

Through the years, she made numerous purchases at Exile: vintage sweaters, a giant taxidermy barracuda, a folk-art model of the Hotel John Marshall that lights up. “You never knew what you’d find,” she says.

Regelson and Ilario set up shop in the Caribbean-colored Uptown, a rising commercial district near VCU, but during the first six months, the shop suffered four break-ins. Replacing the shattered display window exceeded the shop’s minuscule budget, which led them to board it up instead. That made the store look as if it were closed, until artist David B. Frye came along to find Regelson distraught about the situation. He offered to paint the boards and turned it into an art installation, using black tape to make the image of a car battery in the corner with the name “EXILE.”

“So it looks really punk rock,” Frye recalls. 

The bands Mudd Helmut, Ten Ten and Sexabilly Avalanche performed benefit concerts for Exile at The Pyramid Club and other venues. Regelson worked three temp jobs and slept on the store’s floor to make ends meet.

Despite the damages to the store, rent came due, and the general feeling Regelson received from the building’s owner was that Exile needed to move on.

Larger Than Life

Opening in its second location at 822 W. Grace St. in 1987, Exile blossomed amid the vegetarian Grace Place restaurant, the big green jutting box of Don’s Hot Nuts, the final screenings at the Biograph Theatre and the complexities of a neighborhood adjacent to an expanding VCU.  

It’s the location Regelson on occasion finds herself dreaming about. “It’s the store, and I’m running it in some fashion, but it’s a labyrinth,” she says.   

Which makes dream sense, considering the plethora of stories and larger-than-life characters from this period: Gustave Heiss (1941-2015), he of the greater than 6-foot stature, stentorian voice and dramatic mien, often hefting a briefcase full of sketches and notes, a beloved member of the extended Exile cast who for years took out the trash for a dollar; the bands rehearsing in the basement; the shop dogs, a one-eyed Husky named Bosco (whose howling from the bottom of an unknown 25-foot well beneath a Fourth Street porch brought rescue and ultimately adoption by Regelson) and the small pit bull Gabora, devourer of bubbles and destroyer of recyclable cardboard; and the store’s curtained display cabinet containing a stuffed and mounted cat that, despite a written warning, startled some visitors.

The upstairs gallery of art and music, curated in part by Snakehandlers and Useless Playboys musician Jonny Cecka (1963-2017) , offered intriguing counterculture presentations, including “GWART,” the first exhibition of props and costumes from the shock-trauma rock-opera art collective GWAR. In alternative culture periodical Throttle (1981-99), writer Jimmy Blackford noted how at the show’s December 1990 opening, GWAR member Beefcake the Mighty smote a protesting “nun” and “priest” to lampoon Style Weekly’s refusal to cover the event “because it ‘wasn’t art.’ ”  

In May 1991 came “War Peaces,” inspired by the Persian Gulf War, the last major exhibition of the Urban Artists Amalgamated collective (1987-91). The opening featured a performance by musician/choreographer Robbie Kinter and dancer/writer Cheryl Pallant.

The February 1993 “Heartbreak” show was a dark take on Valentine’s Day, with the work of 18 artists, among them Michael Clautice, Georgia Myers and Fred Weatherford, as well as Lorianne Ellison (1958-2015), who went on to national exhibitions. Visitors wrote their anonymous stories of love gone wrong in “The Book of Heartbreak.” Paul Teeples’ aptly named “Hammer a Nail” invited visitors to do just that into a heart figure. 

Former Exile employee Margaret Reed, now a Social Security claims attorney, recalls how during store hours, guests went up to the gallery, “and they stayed a long time, writing their tale of heartbreak, and then you’d hear the banging of the hammer.” 

Downstairs, shoppers might find a midcentury modern lamp and multitiered lampshades, silk smoking jackets, gowns that women wore in silent films, studded leather jackets, kitten heel pumps, biker jewelry, an anatomy chart, an alligator purse and vintage pinup postcards. Reed keeps one of these postcards on her desk today. It depicts a woman on the beach holding a fan of playing cards across her presumably bare chest. “Tame by today’s standards,” she says with a chuckle.

Doc Martens, Manic Panic and Pierced Nipples

Exile rummaged about in the past while also looking into the streets of the day, which made customers of not only skate rats and rockers but also every variety of the curious. Potential shoplifters, however, may have hesitated when they spotted an an effigy head alongside a sign threatening a karmic curse for their misdeed.

The store became a go-to for film and television productions and touring bands. Courtney Love was apparently rude there, and nobody remembers what she bought. A pair of vintage bifocals fascinated Billy Bragg. Marilyn Manson’s retinue, without the performer, prowled the shop. They took pleasure in using the Manson company card for their purchases. Exile employees were seldom star-struck because, whether celebrity or counter clerk, they all worked in the circus.  

Betty Migliaccio, today an EMT and firefighter, helmed the store’s counter from 1992 to 1997. She describes how customers seized upon a fresh batch of Doc Martens. “We’d receive a shipment and then not get one for eight months,” due to customs issues, she says.

Exile stopped selling Docs about 15 years in, when the manufacturer, AirWair USA, started making the boots in China. The company, says Regelson, dropped longtime distributors that had popularized the brand to cut better deals with chain stores. 

Regelson also fielded occasional calls from parents who were exasperated by brightly colored Manic Panic hair dyes.

She responded that hair grows back, and dyeing your hair purple was among the least dangerous experiments for their daughters.  

“My thinking is that if you think you’re cool, you’re not cool.” —Exile owner Mimi Regelson

Body adornment attracted customers who displayed their hardware while sharing their stories.   

“I saw more nipples and navels at Exile than I’ve seen in my life,” Migliaccio says, laughing. “It was kind of neat that they felt comfortable enough with us to show their weeping, oozing, disgusting piercings. They’d be like, ‘I think I need to change this ring out,’ and it’d be infected. ‘Dude, you gotta go back and have them look at that. Just don’t drop trou.’ ” 

Body jewelry became redundant as tattoo and piercing parlors began to proliferate in Richmond.

Exile furthered its punk and postmodern curiosity shop appeal through Regelson’s discerning acquisitions at estate and yard sales and buying expeditions beyond the city. 

Michael Ryan, today an artist and professor living in Oakland, California, counts as formative his six years at Exile’s counter, where he was known facetiously as “Metal Mike,” though his heavy metal days were past him. “At the store, I might be listening to Afro-funk,” he says. 

Ryan once accompanied Regelson on a buying trip to Las Vegas, and he enjoyed seeing how Regelson picked clothes and her choices in vendors.

But they tired of the city’s overwhelming gaudiness.

As a palate cleanser, they rented a car and traveled to Death Valley. “Where things come and die — that feels good to us now,” Ryan reflects. “That was both our alley.”

World of Mirth and More

Customers sometimes became employees. Randy Dugan studied English literature at VCU and co-founded the band Sliang Laos. He met Cecka and eventually joined the Exile staff. 

Dugan credits the Exile experience as a direct influence on his later career. His music and experience working on the occasional commercial and film that came through town led him eventually to a career in film and television in Los Angeles. He’s now a two-time Daytime Emmy Award honoree for his producer job on the long-running soap opera “Days of Our Lives.”

“I learned a lot of vocabulary at Exile that still helps me today at work,” he says. “If a costumer talks about a snood, shrug or kitten heel, I know what he means.” Exile taught Dugan to handle a clothes steamer, and he gained empathy for how annoying it can get having to sort through a rack of clothing to find the right garment.

For years at Exile, sales were not rung up on a cash register. The machine, Regelson thought, occupied too much space. Instead, a drawer with a cash divider sat in the jewelry display case. Each item in the store’s inventory was assigned an alphanumeric tracking number, and transactions were recorded on carbon paper. Checks were verified by calling an 800 number, and credit card impressions were made on a hand-operated device. Banks requesting immediate verification eventually required the store to automate through the phone line, though sometimes the process was interrupted by an incoming call. 

One day a voter registration effort set up in front of the store drew the attention of congressional candidate Bobby Scott, who came by to offer encouragement.

“A stripper and a lesbian were ‘manning’ the table for me, and Bobby Scott stopped to pose with them at their registration table,” Regelson recalls. “Of course, they weren’t wearing identifying signs but still were alternative-looking, so it was nice that he wanted to show that he represented all people and not just the straight-looking ones. That always endeared him to me.” And perhaps to voters, as Scott has now been a member of the House of Representatives since 1993.

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Shop pup Bosco inside Exile, his natural habitat (Photo courtesy Mimi Regelson)

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Gabora (Photo courtesy Mimi Regelson)

During its earlier years, Exile’s sign had been constructed from plastic bones ordered from a novelty catalog. “They came individually wrapped,” recalls architect and film location advisor Isaac Regelson, Mimi’s brother. “You’d get one big femur.” Over time, the elements caused the bones to deteriorate. Painting the name in the distinctive lettering offered the most elegant replacement.

At Exile, Regelson and friend Kathryn Harvey (1966-2006) discussed collaborating on a coffee shop or a wacky toy store/vintage housewares shop. Operating Exile, however, kept Regelson plenty busy. She invited Harvey to become a managing partner and use Exile’s second floor for the toy store concept.

The new shop got its name after Regelson discovered, while browsing at Whiting’s Old Paper, an ephemera goldmine at the Antique Village, the book “World of Mirth Shows: The Largest Midway on Earth” by Bob Goldsack, which described the Richmond origins of the World of Mirth traveling carnival (1933-63). Transporting this wild menagerie of animals and personnel, rides, games and attractions required 50 to 80 railroad cars. 

From Whiting’s she also bought period World of Mirth posters to hang in the new toy shop to provide a thematic unity for the space. 

World of Mirth opened above Exile on Aug. 6, 1993 — the same day a tornado ripped through Petersburg and Colonial Heights. After two and a half years Harvey went out on her own, opening World of Mirth at 2925 W. Cary St. on April 1, 1996.

Regelson soon opened Exile Upstairs, a showroom for vintage furniture and housewares from the 1940s to the ’70s, along with contemporary furnishings by regional artists. She took pleasure in the arranging.

“She put stuff together in a way that you’d say, ‘I want this whole room!’ ” former employee Reed recalls.  

Regelson and Ilario parted ways romantically and professionally about a year after moving Exile to Grace Street, and Ilario went on to cut hair at Pine Street Barber Shop. They remained friends, however, and Ilario’s daughter, Maria, grew up in Exile and enjoyed being a store kid.

Now a Brooklyn-based archivist and collections manager for an artist’s estate, she muses, “Growing up there was tremendous. I was so young, and I may have taken for granted how cool it was. Mimi is so much about inclusion and community. It’s so ingrained in me. Even though I was tiny, I was a part of it. It wasn’t like hanging out with my parents’ friends.”  

Maria accompanied her father for frequent drop-ins (her mother worked at Grace Place). Her first lunchbox came from World of Mirth upstairs. She walked shop dogs Bosco and Gabora, and she’d take naps curled up in the large bookshelves used for displaying sweaters. She’d get nervous scootching through the eerie mannequin storage to the rat-motif bathroom.  

At age 16, she started assisting with the theatrical window displays. “Exile was a constantly growing art installation rather than a store,” she says. 

Exile, through its advertising, underwrote art, street and film festivals, and music events, and in 1993 the store hosted a benefit to aid the owners of the arson-destroyed Kokopelli club by displaying “strange and twisted artifacts” pulled from the wreckage.

The shop likewise supported the late-1990s Capital City Barn Dance with its programs designed by musician Wes Freed. (In 2019, a collection of Freed’s work was published as “The Art of Wes Freed: Paintings, Posters, Pin-ups & Possums.”)

The Final Years

Both Regelson and her brother held positions in Grace Street’s neighborhood and business association as the group attempted to negotiate a period of transition along Grace Street with VCU gobbling up entire blocks — including the 800 block. The sale of 822 W. Grace precipitated the store’s third and final move down the street to 935 W. Grace St. in 2006.

At this location, employee and artist Noah Scalin launched his Skull-a-Day creative project, making skull forms out of everyday objects, which he documented on a blog that later turned into a book.

A dinosaur head was mounted on a wall as though it were a big game trophy.

Sarah Callaway worked as Exile’s last employee, and she recalls the early 2000s as a daunting and stressful time for Grace Street. “Mimi was such a mother to so many people,” she says. “That place was amazing. It praised avant-garde creativity.” 

During the 1990s, the 800-900 blocks of West Grace had boasted more than 30 independent businesses. The extent of the subsequent university-driven and chain-brand alterations made the area nearly unrecognizable to those who knew the street in its livelier and grittier days.

During the store’s final years, Regelson found herself again facing a demanding schedule that afforded her time for little else — she was in the same situation that prompted her departure from New York. She muses, “I thought the longer I did it, the easier it would get.”

The street-culture milieu that the shop supported and celebrated became more diffuse and accessible through other means — like the internet. “Exile had run its course,” Regelson says. “It was the only one of its kind for a long time.”  

In 2011, the store closed with a clearance sale of everything down to the fixtures after 24 1/2 years in business.

That half-year resembles how a phonograph needle is lifted from a record to play the music on the other side, rather than an end. But ends came: Gustave Heiss died at age 73 in 2015, Ilario at age 62 in April 2020. 

“The funny thing about it is, people came to us like we were cool,” Regelson says, laughing. “We were the uncoolest in school, the rejects. My thinking is that if you think you’re cool, you’re not cool.”

Dugan responds that although Regelson may think she was uncool, “She had fantastic taste, always looked great and was very kind. What more to cool is there?”