Free at last

Even for those of us who decided to skip Burning Man this year, there’s still a certain burning envy. We have to balance responsibility with fun, but the empty heartache is a little hard to handle as we watch all those cool, overloaded vehicles heading through town. But wouldn’t a Utilikilt fill that void for the whole year? Paper Moon is found in the Plumgate Shopping Center at Plumb and Arlington, 827-9933, and Utilikilts can be found on the web at www.utilikilts.com.

What does Paper Moon do?

We’re a boutique store. We sell lots of little, unique odds and ends that you typically won’t find in other stores, ranging from paper products—including gift wrap, stationary and so forth—to cards, to art, jewelry and clothing, soap and different bath products, candles, wallets—you name it, we’ve got it. The custom side of it is we do custom printing. The printing, we mainly cater to wedding clients, meaning wedding announcements, engagements, wedding invitations and so forth. But we also do baby announcements, regular parties, bridal showers. You name it, we’ll do it.

Well, that all sounds very interesting, but the thing that perked up my interest is that you guys somehow got Utilitkilts, and you’re the only place in Reno that’s got them, right?

Right.

How did that come about?

I don’t really know. The owners, Philip and Laura Romero, they’ve been big Burning Man fans for years. All of their employees joke that they’re modern-day hippies. You know, they run a business, but they’re really eclectic when it comes to personality and style. You kind of get the feeling just by looking here in the store. And they’ve always done a lot as far as Burning Man goes, but this year, they decided to branch out and do a little more, and try to get more Burning Man-style products in for people. Because they’re always looking for things, and the midtown district has a lot of stores that cater to Burning Man, and they wanted to be a part of that. They actually own a small property down on Virginia, which is where we opened our temporary store, Burning Moon. We opened it for the month of August, and we put all the Utilikilts and all the Burning Man supplies down there. That was set up for the month of August, and they did phenomenally well. People were calling right and left, mainly for Utilikilts, but then they saw everything else they had to offer. And it all stemmed from the fact that the owners love Burning Man. And they knew they could pull it off.

The Utilikilts are still being sold through Paper Moon, right? So tell me what you know about Utilikilts.

I know they’re extremely popular. It’s a toolkit that you wear. It’s got all the necessary pockets and pouches, and all the little goodies for men—and women, but mainly men—to hook anything they want up in there, whether be it food or tools or drinks or whatever.

And what styles do you have?

We have all the canvas ones. We’re actually running low right at the moment because we exhausted our supply. But we have the canvas ones. They start at about $150-$160, for the basic model, but we also have the Workmen’s model. Then there’s the Survival, which is kind of the granddaddy of them all, is $290, I believe. The Survival is the biggest and the baddest. It’s got all the extra pockets, all the extra clips, all the bells and whistles.

So even if people pick this paper up on Thursday, they’ve got a shot at getting a Utilikilt for this year’s Burning Man?

Correct.