Walking into Gary McIntyre’s sublimely hip shop, Modernlux, I feel like buying everything–even though at 32, I have yet to buy a single article of clothing for myself.

The store looks old and new at the same time, as if it had been pulled from a time capsule and freshly sprung from bubble wrap. Something about it has the feel of an old sci-fi potboiler novel, complete with a tentacled monster attacking a damsel in distress on the lurid cover. Yet it also feels like a place where My Morning Jacket would shop.

But one cannot help but be bugged by this question: Is Hampton hip enough for this place? Take a drive through my neighborhood–the Confederate flags and Nailin’ Palin bumper stickers would seem to indicate a hard “no.”

I stop a woman outside, a young pretty nurse in scrubs, and I ask her if she would shop at Modernlux. She peaks inside, tugs the right corner of her mouth with her pointer finger, then shrugs and says, “No, I like what I like. I like Target.” She speeds on before I can ask her why. And I’m left wondering if the fate of Modernlux can hold up against the powerful forces of mass marketing.

But then I consider that Granby Street is less than a half hour away. I note that McIntyre has been slinging fine beer and hawking wicked sweet wares for however many long years here in the Seven Cities. I mean, who doesn’t know Gary? And I take into account how savvy he is catering to both the unshaven hipsters who have to band many crumpled and sweaty dollars together just to buy one epically weird record, and to the grown-up persons with kids and jobs and a sense of style, who can come in and plunk down a couple hundred dollars and get a nice deal on a profoundly kitsch armoire.

The thing that really makes me take pause: As an adjunct at Thomas Nelson, I meet around 150 students every semester. Many of them are young, and I’d be lying if I said most of them were hip. But some of them are hip. Enough of them to support a store like Modernlux. And I suppose the challenge is up to them: You want cool stuff in your town? Support it.

McIntyre sees Modernlux as a destination place, and I concur. With the Taphouse Music Series finally bringing some non-Jimmy-Buffett music to downtown Hampton, Modernlux could become the nexus of all that is hip on the Peninsula. And that is exactly the sort of thing we need here. Tucked next to bar/restaurant Marker 20’s muy bueno patio, I can imagine streams of beer-buzzed people flowing into the boutique: hipsters, rednecks, jarheads, pudgsters like me, everybody.

Modernlux is located at 47 East Queen’s Way in Hampton. For more information: 757-434-2215; shopmodernlux@yahoo.com.