Wear Black. We can help.
Die With Your Boots On was established in 2018 to keep Salem’s dark subcultures in clothing as black as their hearts. Originally the brainchild of founder, Amber Newberry, the small brand has grown over the years and expanded from a small boutique on Pickering Wharf in to a large scale space with a stage for events on Church Street. Die With Your Boots On is a small family-owned business. Amber Newberry and Nick Izzo, the owners, along with a handful of dedicated weirdos, do everything from photography, social media, and graphic design, to running our Salem shop, to answering customer service emails, to modeling the clothes, to packing up and shipping your order.
We are committed to helping you be your true self expressed through your clothing. No gatekeeping. All bodies are beautiful. We want you to see yourself represented in our photography and marketing. We’re now accepting applications for models HERE.
Partnering with emerging artists to create collaborative pieces featuring original art is an important part of what we do. Our Salem shop is filled with creations by local and not-so-local work by artists we love and admire through wholesale purchasing and consignment partnerships. It is our hope that in collaborating with other artisans and small businesses, we can grow together.
We also support our staff's creative efforts and stock many items and art prints made by the amazing people who work at Die With Your Boots On!
Something that is also of great importance to us is charitable support. We believe in giving back to our community, as well as national and international causes. Here are a few organizations we donate to throughout the year: HAWC Northshore (Healing Abuse, Working for Change), NAGLY (Northshore Alliance of GLBTQ+ Youth), ACLU, NAACP, Black Lives Matter, Color of Change, and more. Frequently, we host offers or items that are in our shop to help drive donations to some of these organizations such as lapel pins, books, shoes, or other specialized products. We also love hosting and sponsoring events to help raise money for local organizations. Die With Your Boots On owner Amber is the founder of GRAYSCALE, a first of its kind Indie Business Summit geared toward alternative and gothic business owners, brands, and artists.
A FEW BRANDS WE CARRY
Brett Manning Art, Cat Coven, Foxblood, Trued Apparel, Demonic Pinfestation, Laserbrain Patch Co./Lapels & Spells, Black Mast Apparel, Seventh Ink, Strange Cvlt, Charla Tedrick, Weasel Wear, Witchwood Bags, Y.R.U Shoes, T.U.K. Footwear, Demonia, Pretty Snake, The Pretty Cult, Wax Poetic, Putre Fashion, and many more!
We are authorized dealers for all of the brands listed. We source these products directly from these artists and brands.
LOCAL BRANDS
We also put an emphasis on small business, lesser known and underground artists, and locally made products. A few of our local vendors include Trued Apparel, Eternal October, Bats in the Belfry Crafts, Mall Goth Trash, Cosmic Unicornz, SewBaloo, FunDead Publications and more!
We are authorized dealers for all of the brands listed.
BY OUR EMPLOYEES
Linden Walker Studios, Goody Mourning Art & Sundries, Rainbow Carrot Art, Sad Nymph Maille, Shannon Keelan Art, Shelbeads, Bats in the Belfry Crafts (owned by our in-house graphic designer Tiffany Leobell!)
ABOUT THE FOUNDER
After years working in various retail businesses spanning small businesses to corporations, Amber Newberry decided it was time to put what she'd learned working for others to use: Everything from making pizzas to selling video games to wrapping handmade chocolate to wicking jars for locally poured candles to hocking footwear was all useful work history as she set about planning and building out the bones for Die With Your Boots On.
At the time, Salem had been without a local goth clothing shop for a few years (since the closure of the legendary Fool's Mansion on Essex Street). Amber often jokes that she kept waiting for someone to pick up the mantle but after waiting, she realized it might be a sign that it was up to her to make it happen. In 2018 she went to work on a gorilla marketing campaign that featured riddle solving to gain access to a mysterious website selling mystery packages.
Once Amber had signed the lease for the original location at 77 Wharf St (now The Ossuary), she partnered with co-owner Nick Izzo and now-Marketing Manager Laurie Moran to begin the build out. Between their shared passion for brick and mortal retailing and pure grit, the doors were open one month after the keys were in hand.
The store was an immediate success with locals and travelers alike and visitors to the Salem shop supported the business from afar, buying from the online store and keeping a close eye on the Die With Your Boots On social media. Amber continues to pour herself into her small business through actively supporting the local community, pushing for greater diversity in sizing from the brands she works with, and pushing others like herself to build their own businesses. If you know Amber well, you've probably heard her say "Climb to the top and drag everyone with you", a mantra she still lives by today.
A few of Amber's other projects include: FunDead Publications, Sepulcher Press, Daughers of Darkness Night Market, and now the GRAYSCALE Indie Business Summit. When she's not busy with Die With Your Boots On and The Ossuary, she's playing video games, reading, or wandering the local cemeteries.
