The plan was to enjoy some rest and relaxation after selling the successful clothing company they had spent decades building.
So, when Andi Rosenstein launched R&R Surplus clothing line with her husband, Steve, it was more than just a clever name reflecting the couple’s first initials of their last name.
”We had no intention of going back into designing, but…,” Andi says.
When the Rosensteins purchased the building that would become The Duce—the popular Downtown Phoenix entertainment venue and night hotspot in a historic prohibition-era warehouse—in 2007, they did it as a project to distract them from their former career.
At the time, they had just sold Fitigues, the clothing brand they started in 1988 in their native Chicago. They were living in Scottsdale by then, and The Duce was a way to channel their energies while decompressing.
As they worked on making The Duce bar- and restaurant- ready, they began selling repurposed and vintage clothing from the 1960s inside the building. They enlisted someone to hand-embroider pieces and sold athletic college-style sweatshirts. They even sold surplus vintage leather by the pound to walk-ins.
“We had an old vintage scale and put it up there, weighed it, and sold it,” Andi recalls.
And it was there in that old warehouse that anchored what was once the Phoenix produce district—hence the vintage scale the Rosensteins inherited—that R&R Surplus was born.
In 2010, The Duce was up and running, but the clothing line had gained its own following. A year later, R&R released its non-vintage line of original pieces for women and men. Today, R&R has boutiques at the Phoenician Resort and in Laguna Beach.
R&R’s clothing is comfortable, yet dressy enough to go from the gym to errand shopping to lunch with friends. Andi designs the women’s collection, and her son Luke (who is also the model on the company’s website) does the men’s.
The operation is a family business, with Andi’s other son Jake working with The Duce.
“That’s the biggest blessing of all—getting to work with my boys every day,” Andi says. “It’s a pretty amazing part of life for me right now. A pinch-me kind of situation.”