Photography by Karlo Gesner
Neal Goulet founded Stay Apparel Co. to revive the logos of vintage Penn - sylvania brands while spotlighting the quality of USA-made goods.
That’s how he discovered Standard Pennant. Their name was on the tag of his wife’s Hershey High School letter jacket. “Are they still around?” he wondered.
He found the 100-year-old company still operating in the Western Pennsylvania town of Big Run. Standard Pennant is now among the proud American manufacturers providing Stay Apparel with its throwback lineup of T-shirts and sweatshirts, hats, pennants, patches and bags.
“It’s amazing to work with these companies that have these incredi - ble histories,” Goulet says. “They’re not getting rich off us and our sales, but to be able to be part of that and their business is really cool.”
Goulet is a career journalist and PR pro who was blogging about his passion for history and Americanmade goods when he decided to put “skin in the game” by founding Stay Apparel in 2017. The name harkens to the sense of place embedded in his products and to the historic images his research has uncovered
There are T-shirts printed with ads for vintage beers, such as Silver Stock Lager Beer from Graupner’s, a 20th-century Harrisburg brewing juggernaut. Felt pennants in Art Deco font proclaim Hershey as “The Chocolate Town.” Original designs from Stay Apparel say, with retro sensibilities, “Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful” and “Pennsylvania Bigfoot Believers.”
Photography by Karlo Gesner
Goulet first sold his goods online and at art shows throughout the region. Now, Stay Apparel has a permanent home behind the Hershey History Center, in an 18th-century milk house where Milton Hershey School students once learned agricultural trades.
The shop began with Goulet’s ongoing relationship with the Hershey History Center, where he researched area history and sold his items in the gift shop. For the 2023 holidays, he transformed the center’s vintage trolley station into the Holly Jolly Trolley Stop Pop-up Shop, stocked with Stay Apparel goods and heirloomstyle toys and gifts.
The pop-up shop inspired conversations about the permanent shop, which opened on June 6. Goulet decorated the space with vintage Facebook Marketplace finds, like the Lancaster general store shelves display - ing T-shirts. A country-store screen door, showing wear from decades of hands grabbing the handle, serves as a divider. The counter from a Richmond, Virginia, piz - zeria, rustic in reclaimed wood and corrugated metal, offers a spot for chatting.
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Photography by Karlo Gesner
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“We created a store that we would want to hang out in, that I would want to go to,” Goulet says. “A friend of mine who came in the first week was looking around and said, ‘I just want to hang out in here.’ That’s exactly what I want people to do.”
Goulet’s sleuthing finds the USA makers of his goods, all with intriguing stories. There are zipper bags from A. Rifkin, Wilkes-Barre maker of bank money pouches, and stocking caps produced in New Jersey by one of America’s last knitting mills.
“The past informs pretty much everything we do,” Goulet says. “I just like old stuff. I think it’s heartbreaking that these old brands were successful brands at one point, and they go away and people don’t remember them.”
As Stay Apparel moved into the milk house, Goulet also organized Makers at the Museum, a monthly makers market (February through November) featuring handpicked artisans arrayed on the Hershey History Center grounds.
Every market also spotlights local brewers and food trucks.
“It’s a common refrain among some of us in Hershey that it would be cool to have more lo - cal kinds of stuff,” Goulet says. “We’re so lucky to have all these things in Hershey to draw people, but it’s cool to celebrate independent retail and local. I love involving the craft beer crowd because that’s a great role model for independent retailers. Who’s done better at reclaiming something from the behemoths than local breweries?”
The Stay Apparel shop will be festooned for the holidays, nostalgic with old-fashioned Christ - mas lights and a vintage Philadelphia-made silver tree.
It’s all part of Stay Apparel’s growth in its per - manent Hershey home, serving as a linchpin for American-made products that revive the feel and brands of the past.
The shop is still tiny,” Goulet says, “but it’s just fun.”
Stay Apparel
40 Northeast Drive, Hershey stayapparel.com Open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday–Sunday (check for additional holiday hours)
Makers @ the Museum
11 a.m. to 4 p.m., third Sunday of the month, February–November
Goulet also curates the holiday Englewood Makers Market at Englewood Hershey, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Dec. 8.
