Curriculum Gives Lessons on Telling Stories with Clothes
Fashion
If you are ever wondering what the coolest people in Salt Lake City are up to (besides the team here at SLUG, obviously) then you should go to Curriculum in the eclectic 9th and 9th neighborhood, across the street from the iconic Tower Theatre. If you’re lucky, you may just run into Curriculum founder and owner Chad Tovey — but frankly, it’s a joy to meet any member of their staff that is hand-selected by Tovey himself.
“It’s really cool to be able to meet the customers, get to know them, and talk to them.”
As soon as you enter the boutique, you are filled with the sense that absolutely everything you see has been pored over with an immense amount of care. From the bespoke leather boots and stylish knit jackets to the fine home and bar wares, you can tell that whatever the light falls on is of the utmost quality.
I was lucky enough to sit down with Tovey and discuss the beginnings of Curriculum as well as what is next for the exciting Salt Lake brand. We sat in the store’s lounge area, a moodily lit sitting room with an impressive setting of handmade boots on a table in the middle. Throughout the store rests a deep, rich aroma of Black Oud incense from Japan which is, of course, hand-rolled in keeping with the store’s artisan nature.
“Our philosophy is: You buy it and use it for the rest of your life.”
“I’ve been in retail my whole life, since I was 15 years old. I worked in a grocery store, I worked for Nordstrom for a long time, but I always wanted to do something smaller,” Tovey says, flanked on his right on the low leather couch by Curriculum Brand and Design Lead Luke Crowley. “It’s really cool to be able to meet the customers, get to know them, and talk to them. We have such a high rate of customer returns to our store. It’s so cool to be able to see people grow up and have that communication relationship that is more than just a transactional piece — where you see someone one time and then they’re gone.”
Tovey and Crowley were emphatic in expressing that Curriculum is not just a store where people go to buy things, it’s a place where you can hear and be heard and become part of a community fixture. “I feel like a lot of people come here because Chad [Tovey] has built a relationship with them, a lot of the people around here are friends of the shop,” Crowley says.
“You may find pieces of twigs because we wash them in the river and some customers don’t like it.”
This care and passion rings loudly in the stock they carry. “Our philosophy is: You buy it and use it for the rest of your life,” Crowley says. “A huge part of [the stock we carry] is a good story — how it’s constructed, where it’s constructed, where the inspiration came from. I mean, the shoes that we’re looking at over there,” he motions to the boots in the center of the room, “the boots have history. A brand founded in 1917, the boots are made by hand from Cordovan leather … Some of the garments we carry too, [like] sweaters from Mexico that are handwashed in a river before they are shipped,” Crowley finishes. “The brand we carry from Mexico,” Tovey interjects, “said ‘You may find pieces of twigs because we wash them in the river and some customers don’t like it.’ I said, ‘Oh my God, I hope there is a twig in every sweater they send us,’ because it has that story.”
It is obvious that there is a resounding passion in everything Tovey, Crowley and the Curriculum team does, but the crown jewel of the store is their scents. Of course, they carry incense and candles from all over the world, but the real treat is their fragrance tags — the scents are personally chosen by Tovey and Crowley and sold from a charming refurbished cigarette machine. I personally recommend the Protagonist scent, but any of their carefully crafted fragrances are a guaranteed delight. Discover more and shop their wares online at curriculum.shop.
Read more articles about local clothing shops:
Landed Footwear: Time to Explore
The Sustainable Fashionista’s Guide to SLC’s Secondhand Market
