On the racks at Steezy Bus, the past is always in style. 

The blue 1992 short school bus draws a crowd wherever it goes. Racks line either side of the interior, another sits outside the front and hangers dangle from nearly every available space. Dresses, jackets and shirts fill the windows. An ottoman for lounging sits behind the driver’s seat, while vintage news clippings and bohemian decor fill whatever spaces the clothes leave behind. 

Steezy Bus has so much inventory that most of it lives in a warehouse just outside the Whiteaker, a space that feels like an old saloon filled with vintage masterpieces. 

“We love making real friendships and connections with our customers,” Stella Arrieta says. “This exclusivity of it speaks Steezy.” That philosophy is at the heart of Steezy Bus, the vintage clothing business Stella started out of the converted school bus in 2023. Now, Stella and her husband Joey run the business mostly from their warehouse. There, the customers can book appointments for shopping and one-on-one styling sessions with Stella, while the blue bus continues to appear at various events and pop-ups across Lane County. 

Stella has been selling clothes since she was 12. She photographed pieces and posted them online, held school parking lot sales from her car and worked her way into secondhand clothing.

In 2022, Stella dropped out of Oregon State University’s business school and managed Ghost Town Outfitters while consigning her own clothes. 

At the time, her brother, Tristan Yaroscak, was a nomad, living out of his converted blue school bus. He was an avid skater and creative, but as Stella transitioned from the collegiate lifestyle, he gave her the bus along with its name, Steezy. 

The name came from one of his friends, a local skateboarder named Silas Strimple, who had died by suicide in 2021. At the skatepark, his friends called him Steezy because of the way he skated with “style and ease.” 

Stella hadn’t known Strimple, and at first she wasn’t sure about starting a business with a name connected to someone else’s memory. With the help of her dad and brother, she converted the bus into a mobile vintage shop and soon realized that the name belonged. 

“You never know what his life could have looked like,” Stella says. “So for us to be young and doing a business and trying to impact the community in a good way, I felt like keeping the name was appropriate.”

Yaroscak’s spray-painted words “Steezy Bus” are still on the back of the bus.

At first, Stella appeared at events about once a month, often selling out inventory on the day of. 

When she met Joey, Steezy expanded. The now-married couple originally met outside Kin Clothing Exchange, where Joey worked, when Stella brought Steezy Bus to a pop-up. The two instantly got along. 

The pair grew with Steezy Bus, and Joey saw something in the mobile vintage shop that Stella wasn’t quite ready to see herself: a full-time business. Joey encouraged Stella to leave her day job and promised his support.

“It was stated and reinforced immediately that this is Stella’s thing. I just wanted to elevate what she was doing and be a part of it eventually,” Joey says. 

Stella gave her two weeks’ notice while her father found a warehouse for her growing inventory — which, by that point, had taken over Joey’s apartment. 

The warehouse became a space perfect for by-appointment shopping.

“We didn’t realize how many people really struggle with self-image and the discomfort of being at a traditional store and picking things out,” Joey says. “People that don’t like shopping in a public place really enjoy coming in here.” 

Yet, the blue bus remains. Its name still honors someone Stella never knew but whose life unexpectedly intertwined with hers. And the clothes inside it continue to move from one person to another. With the warehouse, Steezy has outgrown some of the limitations of the clothing-filled bus, but they intend to keep it.

They still don’t want a traditional storefront with regular hours. Instead, they’re looking for a larger space. The couple constantly thinks business, so much so that Joey calls some of his ideas “borderline delusional.” 

But that’s part of entrepreneurship, he says: imagining something before you know exactly how to build it. 

“Encouragement to entrepreneurship is huge for both of us,” Stella says. “It was hard for me to get the motivation to step out and do it, but I’m so glad that I did.” 

Steezy Bus location, hours and appointments can be found by messaging @steezybus on Instagram. Read a longer version of this story at EugeneWeekly.com.