Upstairs expansion at Mid High Market caters to students with a taste for Ohio State fashion

Upstairs shopping selection added to Mid High Market store. Credit: Courtesy of Sheron Colbert

Mid High Market, located at 1758 N. High St. across from the Ohio Union, added upstairs shopping to expand its collection of Ohio State clothing to students in August.

What started as a clothing store with a supermarket theme will now have an additional floor upstairs dedicated to Ohio State clothing items, Dalton Willis, part-time designer and leader of photography, video and media at Mid High Marketsaid. Willis said the expansion includes more men’s clothing, Ohio State gear and vintage clothing. Customers can expect a rotation of vintage items, new designs and colors.

“Rotating what we have already and then new designs as well, as some get played out and tired of,” Willis said. “We’re always trying to do new stuff even if it’s just a new color.”

Willis said the design of Mid High Market’s first floor interior and apparel is inspired by founder Austin Pence’s first job working at a market. The second floor and its new items will have a different theme.

“We tried to bring the theme here, and he’s always had a passion and interest towards these supermarket theme designs,” Willis said. “Oranges in store, soup cans, cereal boxes, stuff you see in a market.”

Willis said the goal of the new floor is to provide more Ohio State men’s clothing options. There will be new designs alongside the already available vintage items, he said.

“Right now it’s a lot of girl stuff, other than, like, the vintage racks, but with the vintage stuff we’re trying to refill it every week,” Willis said.
Willis said student interest in Ohio State apparel influenced the expansion. He said the store chose to expand beyond the outdoor pop-ups held on occasion to a full-time supply upstairs.

“With Ohio State stuff always doing well, usually we’re outside with it as well, but we dedicated the whole section to Buckeye stuff,” Willis said.

The upstairs had previously been used as a media space for Mid High Market, where photoshoots for new apparel took place and merchandise was stored, Willis said.

Shaun Barket, a fourth-year in fashion and retail studies and an employee of the store, said trendy and creative clothing items are popular among Ohio State students during the football season.

“We sell a lot of stuff for party gear,” Barket said.”Tank tops, crop tops, skirts, shorts, stuff like that sells really well.”

A popular unisex hoodie with the slogan, “Damn it feels good to be a Buckeye,” is popular among students and additional shopping upstairs has helped them sell more, Barket said.

“Whenever we restocked those they sold out in the same week, so when we opened the second floor it really enabled us to have those in stock all the time,” Barket said.