Philadelphia Weekly

Photographs by Michael Persico • Makeup by Adama Jay • Hair by Jason Tavares from Pierre and Carlo Salon

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Liza Goncalves' face is already glowing from the screen of her slick laptop, but her eyes brighten even more when she looks up suddenly and says, "I want to try using teabags to stain the shirts to give them that real vintage feel." The words race out of her mouth; she's clearly excited. Michelle D'Avella, sitting across the table, nods in agreement.

The two women are camped out in the back corner of Higher Grounds, a Northern Liberties coffee shop. It's only midmorning, but every horizontal surface around them is covered with papers. They've been hard at work for a while.

Goncalves and D'Avella are the clothing designer and art director, respectively, behind Vintage Blue, a new clothing line inspired by the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). The line has piqued the interest of Macy's and international dealers. Goncalves and her team hope to have it featured in boutiques across this country and others in the next year.

Goncalves is from Boston, but after studying film and video production at Drexel University, she feels like she's a Philly native. "I came here for college, and just never left. This is my home now," she explains.

At Drexel she became involved with The Avenue, an underground hip-hop show that ran on DUTV. There she learned the importance of multitasking, a skill that would come in handy a few years later when she started her company and began juggling design, sales and marketing.

"In everything I've done I've worn all these hats. I was the producer, the director, the editor, the host. I did it all," she says.

As host of The Avenue, Goncalves nursed the struggling cable access show to success, and in 2000 it won the Billboard Music Video Award for Best Local/Regional Hip-Hop Program. It had already been nominated twice, but this win was especially notable; Goncalves was the first woman to receive the award.

After her stint on DUTV, Goncalves pursued her broadcasting career in New York. She got a job working red carpet events and movie premieres, and eventually became the host of BET's Saturday afternoon show MAAD Sports, on which athletes hosted a countdown of their favorite rap and R&B videos. It's a strange jumping off point for a career in fashion, but hating her wardrobe was reason enough to jump into a new industry.

At the time, her husband was a consultant for Mitchell & Ness, a Philadelphia-based sportswear manufacturer. He often received promotional gear from various companies and leagues, and Goncalves, looking for a way to spice up her on-screen look, soon found inspiration in these items.

Designated hitter: Michelle D'Avella is Vintage Blue's art director.

"He'd get all these nostalgic, retro throwback [jerseys], and I loved the colors. I loved the look and the feel. So I started cutting them up and making dresses, tops and bags, and wore them on TV."

The response to her new outfits was positive, and Goncalves continued to make clothes to wear both on-screen and off. One evening while she and her husband were dining in a crowded New York City restaurant, the owners of Stall and Dean, a major clothing company based in New York, approached them.

"My husband had his throwback outfit on, and I had on mine in the girl version, and the owners walked up to us [to find out where we got the clothes]. And we just parlayed a deal with them. We told them we made it, and we had a company, and they needed us to design for them," Goncalves says.