This article was originally published by our partners at onStage Pittsburgh and shared with QBurgh as part of Newsapalooza at Point Park University, Sept. 26-28, a celebration of local journalism in southwestern Pennsylvania.
The colorful totem outside of a Shadyside storefront signifies a convergence happening there, at Eons Fashion Antique, inspired by the man for all seasons inside.
Richard Parsakian, the 2024 grand marshal of Pittsburgh Pride, perhaps best known as the creator and gatekeeper of the massive Pride Flag that is a staple of social justice gatherings, owns Eons.
But that just begins to describe the scope of his impact.
Richard Parsakian, you might say, is a hands-on influencer, minus TikTok.
He explains his impact on all those he touches by saying, “I’m not the person with money. I’m a connector. I make connections.”
“I feel creating a safe space is probably one of the most important accomplishments that my store has all of a sudden become.”
He’s the type of guy that not only makes connections, but he makes them count, according to his beliefs.
A 2021 Qburgh profile of Parsakian tried to pin him down, with the title: Entrepreneur. Artist. Humanitarian.
For many in Pittsburgh’s queer and drag communities, and those involved in the fashion, arts and cultural scenes, not to mention a perpetual Hollywood connection, Richard Parsakian is a lightning rod for information, creativity, support and a perfectly put-together vintage outfit for any occasion.
Award-winning Pittsburgh actress Daina Griffith stopped by Eons in June to prepare for a cabaret she was performing in Carnegie, and came away outfitted to channel her favorite singers, Judy Garland and Rosemary Clooney.
Hollywood knows Richard’s name – yes, he’s a one-namer – and he loves sharing stories about the people who come through his store, which provides costumes for movies and streamers such as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and A League of Their Own. He first made his mark on local television when KDKA invited him to dress then anchors Patrice King Brown and John Burnett for a “Nostalgia Week,” which started in the 1920s, with each day a different decade.
Richard has since served on the advisory boards of the Pittsburgh Dance Council, the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council and former Mayor Bill Peduto’s city arts commission, aside from planning and designing awards shows, galas, fundraisers and programs too numerous to mention.
For his friends, he is a good listener and a fascinating storyteller, and he has such stories to tell.
For instance, he likes to name-drop Dame Helen Mirren, who with Robert Redford shot the 2004 film The Clearing in Pittsburgh. Or there was that time he was told that Silence of the Lambs star Jodie Foster admired a black-water globe display in his shop window, and wanted one for her house in Malibu. He said she could pick one out, if she came in to get it herself. And she did.
“I feel creating a safe space is probably one of the most important accomplishments that my store has all of a sudden become,” Richard says over coffee a few doors down from Eons, which opened in 1986 at 5850 Ellsworth Avenue. “Having celebrities come in is a bonus.”
By “safe,” he means not just for members of the LGBTQIA+ community who are exploring their gender identity, but for anyone with an eye for fashion and seekers of social justice.
The latter includes helping to produce Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania’s annual fundraiser, and fashion events for Pittsburgh Opera, The Andy Warhol Museum and other cultural organizations. He is a devotee and supporter of the drag community and dance in its many forms, and has been integral to the annual Ecolution Fashion Gala, a key component of Pittsburgh Earth Day. As much for his design prowess as his activism, City Theatre tapped him just last season to costume design What the Constitution Means to Me.
The native of upstate New York arrived here in 1971, as a VISTA volunteer with the Pittsburgh Architects Workshop in Oakland. Among his projects were playgrounds created from recycled materials for the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and The Three Rivers Arts Festivals.
Around that time, he decided “the gay coffee house” he frequented “was just sad.” So he cleaned out a 99-cent store of his favorite medium, plastic drop cloths (fabric, too, when he could afford it), and perked up the place as he might a theatrical set.
People noticed.
In the early 1970s, he recalls, the epicenter of Pittsburgh queer life was the House of Tilden (the Shadyside site was later torn down). Richard quickly became a regular there and in other clubs, and later worked as a photographer with his roommate, Tim Hare, to create The Gay Times, the first LGBTQ arts tabloid for Pittsburgh, launched three years after the 1969 Stonewall Uprising.
In 1978, with no full-time job on the horizon, Richard designed and helped a friend open The Vamp, a vintage clothing store on Shady Avenue. When he left The Vamp, he began buying and selling vintage clothing from his Shadyside apartment, and eventually opened Eons.
Richard’s connections to the Pittsburgh dance community began at this time and eventually spread far and wide, a long way from the a kid in a hockey town, watching PBS specials and Olympics figure skating, and daydreaming about what they could be.
“I would sit back, listen to classical music and imagine myself skating to the music,” he recalls. “I made believe my hockey skates were figure skates, so in my head, I sort of danced through music on ice first, and I would do impossible things. I would skate to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and just in my head, creating the choreography, and then being disappointed that nobody could do anything.”
Years later, through his work with the Pittsburgh Dance Council, Richard was able to discuss those childhood musings with choreographer Lars Lubovitch, whose company was performing in the city and who created ballets on ice and was an innovator in the field of ice dancing.
At The Vamp, Richard first crossed paths with one of many Hollywood costumers and designers who know his name. Michael Kaplan came in seeking hats and jewelry for a Pittsburgh project.
“I can pick out every one of them from every scene – it was ‘Flashdance,’ “ Richard says.
His vibe and his fashion sense attracted a dance crowd, which led to his epic 34th birthday party, with a punk band, Boystown, as the entertainment and friends from Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre dancing the night away, like “a Warhol party.” It was held in two apartments, his own and his neighbor’s, on the top floor of the Panama apartment building, not far from where Richard is seated on a rainy day in June 2024.
A newspaper report about an incident at the party noted that there were 150 guests, which prompted a call from concerned family members and his colorful landlady … There’s a lot more to that story, as there is to many in Richard’s repertoire.
His social circle was growing, and included director, choreographer, dancer and educator Tome Cousin and producer, director and writer Kevin Huffman. Two of his big design projects with local dancers, at the former Graffiti nightclub in Oakland, were Jazz That Moves and Moods For Moderns, with live musicians including the Kenny Blake Trio.
“It was all improvised – exactly what the model for the Pillow Project is now,” Richard recalls of those 1980s performances. “And then for the second show, I would come in, and just do up the room.”
In 2001, with business neighbor Ellen Neuberg (GalleriE CHIZ), they decided to do a counter festival to the Shadyside Arts Festival that was entertainment oriented, and call it the Ellsworth Music, Dance, and Arts Showcase. Part of the idea, from Richard’s perspective, was to “take the drag culture out of the bar and bring it out into the light,” he says, getting teary.
They closed down the street and built a massive stage there, and had performances by Squonk Opera, Lenora Nemetz, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Staycee Pearl’s dance company, and a very young artist named Kyle Abraham, who would become a celebrated international dancer-choreographer and continues to remain a close friend to Richard. Other performers included “The Divas of Drag” – a dozen drag kings and queens performing as pop culture icons.
For Richard, breaking barriers and seeing families enjoying these performances was “one of the proudest moments ever, that I was able to open up that world of drag artists to the public. And I can probably say I’m the first person to do that.”
Fast forward, and Richard is the man at every major theatrical opening in Pittsburgh. He’s the “Norm” of Pittsburgh performing arts, where everyone knows his name.
From those 99-cent plastic drop cloths and selling clothes from his apartment, he has built a legacy of caring and activism, as much as a destination store for civilians and celebrities alike.
That totem outside his shop? It appeared one day unannounced – a show of appreciation from Randyland’s Randy Gilson, one wildly creative Pittsburgher to another.
One of the arrows on the totem reads, “All Things Retro” and another connects to a close friend, heralding the “Billy Porter Annex.” (Porter, Richard says, credits Eons for finding his love of fashion and finding “home.”) One tier resembles a magazine cover, with the title “Shadyside News.”
Not bad for a person who describes himself as “the shyest person” growing up. At 75, he is not shy about his age or sharing his story.
“I consider myself an elder,” he says. “I say I like to teach the children, especially queer history 101, when they don’t know it. I always joke with them, ‘Do you know who Grace Jones is?,’ but I feel like we have a responsibility to pass on history and knowledge.”
He scoffs at the idea that he is as much a celebrity as the people who, like Dame Helen Mirren, know his name. He admires politicians such as Rep. Dan Frankel, whom he thanks for his hard work on LGBTQ equality and women’s reproductive rights. But he’s too impatient for something that might take decades and never happen.
Richard is in his comfort zone behind the scenes, getting the job done. And he is willing to talk with anyone open-minded enough to listen. This is how we make change happen.
“I like one-on-one. I love when strangers come into my store, and I start these conversations, I ask: ‘Where are you from?,’ and then I have no issue getting into politics and all that kind of thing. It’s surprising how many people want to talk and exchange ideas”
“I’m like the bartender,” he says, “but without the alcohol.”
NEWSAPALOOZA ‘DOER’ PROFILES
This story is part of a series on Western Pennsylvania doers from a partnership of about 30 regional newsrooms as part of an inaugural Newsapalooza event, September 26-29, 2024. The collaborative series demonstrates the power of a story when networked through an entire community. Read more on the event and buy tickets at newsapalooza.org.