Lovers of Morrissey, animals and merchandise were treated to an exhibition of all three on Saturday, as the singer hosted a pop-up store at the Sugar Mutts animal shelter in New York.
Morrissey announced details of the store, which is selling limited edition T-shirts, posters and dog apparel, on Facebook. He wasn’t actually manning the “Mporium”, but that didn’t stop people lining up outside.
Matt Gross, 35, had been there since 8am, two hours before opening time. “I’m a pit bull advocate and I also volunteer at a shelter,” he said. “So I feel like this is tailor made for me.”
Gross, who said he had two Morrissey tattoos, was due to see the former Smiths singer at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn on Saturday night. He emerged from Sugar Mutts with a dog-sweater bearing the legend “Be kind to Morrissey or I’ll kill you” and a human-T-shirt that said: “All over Brooklyn some hope and some despair”.
The T-shirt carried a picture of Morrissey with a dog superimposed over his face, and a cat superimposed over the dog’s face.
Morrissey is donating a percentage of sales from the Mporium to Sugar Mutts, which rescues dogs from “high-kill shelters”. His representatives approached the shelter ahead of his New York show, having held a similar pop-up in Manchester in August. By happy coincidence, Amy Marciano, the founder of the shelter, turned out to be a longtime Morrissey enthusiast.
“I was a fan ever since I was a teenager,” she said. “I had Morrissey all over my walls in high school. I love his ethics and his quirky personality. I’ve always loved his music, of course, so I was just thrilled.”
Marciano said she regularly plays Morrissey’s music in the shelter. It is “perfect for dogs”, she said, “because it’s that great mix of upbeat alternative rock’n’roll and melancholy introspection. It’s a good mix.”
The animal shelter-cum-pop-up store was bustling. The dog-sweaters were available in a range of sizes and seemed to be doing particularly good business, as was a purple dog-sized bandana.
Frances Eby, 58, bought a T-shirt which had a famous image of Morrissey with a cat on his head and the words: “My life with Fanny the wondercat”. Eby was originally going to be called Fanny, she said, after her grandmother, but her parents backed out.
Eby had travelled from Maryland to see the Morrissey show. She was with her friend Diane Seltzer, whom she met in 2007 through a Morrissey message board called “Mozketeers”. “I’ve made lifelong friends through Morrissey,” she said.
Seltzer, 48, had purchased a necklace which had a pendant in the shape of a cat. The cat had “Morrissey” engraved on it. She and Eby were planning to go to Saturday’s concert with their friend Carol. Carol had not made it to the pop-up store because she was already waiting outside the Kings Theatre.
She had been there since 7am, Eby said. Neither early morning rain nor the promise of animal-themed merchandise could keep Carol from getting a good spot in the crowd.
“She’s OK with it. She’s done it many times,” Eby said. “She’s done it in the snow and everything.”
