Shop Style Your Senses is ONE!!!!

You guys! 365 days ago to this very hour, I published my very first post in Shop Style Your Senses. It’s been a venture that I haven’t shared too much about here on the blog, but over the past year it’s become such a huge part of my life and something that I’m so proud of that I wanted to share more of the story if you’ll indulge me. Fair warning….this post totally got away from me and turned into more of a journal entry for things that I want to remember from the past year. Thanks for being a part of our story…

I went to college for Fashion Merchandising with a minor in business (which made a lot of people in my small Louisiana town scratch their heads). In my final senior project I wrote “I want to own a boutique in Dallas, TX” as my ultimate goal. I knew I wanted to own something and I knew that clothing was my passion. I loved how it was an outward expression of who I was and how I felt and wanted to share that with other women. I graduated, moved to NYC for a PR internship, decided I wasn’t cut out for NY and moved back south. I found a listing on Craigslist for a woman who wanted to sell her contemporary clothing boutique in Dallas and was willing to teach the right candidate the business for a year before selling. Needless to say, I taught myself everything and it ended up not working out—but I learned a ton about buying and the industry as a whole. I continued working retail and landed myself on a buying team at JCPenney (corporate in Dallas) and learned the massive scope of big box retail and took a deep dive into retail math and Excel. I also picked up photography as a hobby and learned how to work a camera, lenses and Photoshop. A few years later, we decided to move to Charlotte for Dan’s job and I was 7 months pregnant with Landry. We agreed I would stay at home to raise her and that was that. I had always read blogs and began pecking away at my own in my free time—hoping that it would serve as a journal to document our move that maybe my mom would read. A few viral posts later, I had a business. A blog. For 6 years I made a full time living showing my outfits, projects and home decor. I worked with some of the top brands in the world and was so insanely fulfilled by it. I’d wake up at 4:30am and work between naps and mothers day out school and then work again until midnight. I truly couldn’t image being more blessed chasing this newfound dream.

Two years ago, we decided to move back to Texas and plant roots. Soon after the move, I felt a pull at my heart to own that boutique again. As I became more grounded in my faith, I stepped back and couldn’t help but admire how the Lord had perfectly woven it all together. Every step that I thought was in a direction off my “path” was actually a step in the right direction to a path that had already been planned out. Now was the time. I was feeling chained to share clothes from other retailers, yet I knew that I could bring quality clothes and accessories to the table that were still on trend and affordable. I knew that it would be a massive undertaking both mentally and financially and I knew that the risk of failing was high, but I also knew it was now or never. Ellen had just started working for me in between teaching jobs and I sat her down one day and asked if she was on board. She casually said “yep” and we started figuring out what we potentially needed. A tax ID? Inventory? A Printer? Hmmm how will we ship things? How will we invoice? Wonder how we will get paid? The list of questions was LONG and we took about a month to answer most of them. This was November 2018 and we planned to launch February 2019. I had an old private Facebook group with about 700 members in in and we decided to launch the whole thing as sort of a “beta test” in that group to get a feel for how people would respond. Truly, I thought that this would always be a side gig to the blog and that it could all be maintained in my large hall closet and home office (below). Our first post was a cold shoulder leopard top at 6am on February 4th 2019 and the rest was history…

This is the home office where 3 of us would work all day. We processed inventory, planned posts, shipped orders—you name it—from this 400 sq foot office. This is also our first batch of inventory. I bought so cautiously, having NO idea of the response. I think our first buys were 12-18 pieces of each item. Below is my hall closet that wraps under the stairs. It’s where we stored all of the inventory. Then eventually in the guest room, then we built out shelving in the garage.

I should also mention that I lost my grandmother on 1/3/2019 right before launching and it really did shape the story. She was one of my best friends, and truly helped raise me. I bought some of our initial inventory at her bedside as she slipped away from us. I prayed over every piece that she would be proud of me for taking this step and that she would watch over this process and I know with absolute certainty that she has and that she’s smiling down so big.

Also, I was basically blonde….wow

These photos were the day of the launch. I shut it down at 2:45 to pick up Landry and take her to ballet. We went out to celebrate completely selling out of everything that we had posted on launch day. Dan was out of town and I remember putting the girls down to bed and sitting on the floor of the office and shipping orders until the wee hours of the morning.

Omg—people actually responded!! Shipping out our first orders!!!

This was on 2/6 (Landry’s birthday). I remember coming home that night and putting them down and plopping down on the office floor to ship orders again. I had Dan in there with me putting stickers on bags and processing earrings. It was a full on family effort.

More evidence that everyone chipped in…my mom on the floor shipping late at night as we enjoyed a glass of red and tried to get all of the orders out.

How is this even real life??? We shoved packages in laundry bins and mail crates. My neighbors thought that I was a total nut job and the mailman had to completely adjust his route to allow for daily pickups like this in his tiny truck.

The mailman would come around 1:15 and take the shipments off of the porch and then around 1:30 the UPS man came with new inventory. It was always a revolving door and there was never a time when it felt “done.” My whole house was becoming the Shop, so we quickly began looking for warehouse space—which was so out of my realm of possibility.

I love this photo because it’s such a good representation of what life was like then. Lawson was sick that day, so we “worked” together at my desk.

After a solid month of looking at a bunch of duds, WE FOUND A WAREHOUSE!!! Omg omg omg. I signed a 3 year lease at 5 months into the business. Talk about scary. I could still kind of throw up thinking about it. We got a 3,000 square foot space and literally never thought in a million years that we would fill it up. I needed to buy desks, chairs, tables….all the things. We joke around because one day I simply asked the girls in the warehouse if there was anything else I could buy to make the processes easier and they said “maybe like a trashcan.” LOL! So funny now, but looking back it was all such a blur, I felt like we needed something new everyday that I couldn’t possibly have known—from hand soap to a microwave, fridge, industrial printer and shelving.

Adding a photo space to the warehouse and a cute baby girl who was always my little shadow…

This is how so many nights looked. Our village stepped up and Landry would play at friends houses and Lawson would run around the warehouse like a banchee as we tried to get everything in order. There were far too many Chick-fil-a nights and far too little sleep, but we finally got all moved in!

Here’s how the new Fall inventory looked all set up in August. A far cry from my hall closet…

The Fall was truly a blur. As I was looking for photos to share in this post, there really weren’t many because I don’t think that we could slow down enough to take them. On July 29th we launched our website so that people who didn’t want to shop on Facebook could still access our inventory. That, along with having more inventory, really kept us busy! On the website we began launching monthly curated collection drops and it’s been SO much fun! In total, we post between 120-150 new arrivals per month so that really keeps me busy buying!

In November, one of our vendors flew Ellen and I out to LA to really learn the production process and how to start creating our own unique designs for you guys. We sat down with 10 of our top vendors and designed quite a few original pieces for you guys that will begin arriving this Spring. My next goal is to design and manufacture our own products—which will take some time, but putting it out into the universe will hold me accountable 😉

On any given day you can find me doing any number of things around the warehouse. Most of the time I’m at my computer buying inventory or behind the camera trying clothes on and photographing them, but I could also be going to town with my ghost buster vacuum. Being a small business owner is harder than I ever imagined, but also more rewarding than I thought possible. This year has come with quite a bit of celebration, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that it’s not always rainbows. There have been employees that didn’t work out, major misses with inventory and a whole lot of me learning this new role both from a business and mother’s perspective. The Lord has been so faithful to me and this has really been a humbling experience, knowing that I am broken and imperfect in so many ways has made it so much easier to lean in on Him through this all.

We really do have the best best team in the world! They’ll probably kill me for posting a photo here, but these are the actual people who buy, pack and ship your orders, who answer your customer service emails and who keep the website running. That’s the beauty of buying from a small business to me, we are a team of moms who squeeze working in from drop off to pick up and they do an amazing job!!! They keep me laughing hysterically, motivated and really encourage me to take the leaps. Again, the Lord has been SO faithful.

Dan has really stepped up so much this year to help me chase this dream. From packing lunches and taking the girls to school to pickups, take out dinners and even helping me when they are off of school—he’s really been been a great partner and been so supportive. ((This is from MLK Day when they were both off and they came to surprise me. Landry always insists on a pic in the photo room))

I had our mailman (Green) take this photo of Ellen and I just a few weeks ago as we sent off our biggest shipments ever. Not going to lie, I cried. Not to mention, this girl has been SUCH a rockstar this year. She’s learned the business so well, really handles all of the daily operations and truly keeps us going. Ellen, you are such a blessing!!!

Today, as we celebrate ONE YEAR, we also launched another huge release that we’ve been working on for months now! WE HAVE A MOBILE SHOPPING APP!!!!! Whatttttt?!?! Pinch me! It’s available in the App store and will truly make your shopping experience with us seamless and easy! I hope that you’ll download it and give it a try because everything that you see in the app today is 50% off!!!!!! Use code “HBD50”

If you are already a customer, THANK YOU for being a part of this story. Thank you for your support and taking a chance on us…it means the world! If you haven’t shopped with us yet—come give us a try! I think you’ll be impressed! If you’ve made it all the way down here, thank you for reading this post!!! xoxo- Mallory

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