On the cutting edge
Boutique attempts to fill demand for one-of-a-kind clothes
For Ashley Taylor, the opening of her new boutique was literally a dream come true.
A hairstylist and already a business owner in Port Hawkesbury as operator of the salon Cutting Edge Studio for the past three years, Taylor said clients often expressed frustration about the lack of apparel options available locally.
“Everybody would bring up the same thing — every time you would go out, we all have the same clothes and every time you go to a function, you see yourself dressed the same, you can’t be different here, you can’t find any individuality,” Taylor said in an interview.
Clients proposed she try to do something about that.
Those suggestions must have registered in her subconscious because she did have a dream that she had opened a clothing store.
“I told my partner, ‘This is what I dreamt about and this is what it looks like and this is what I think we should do,’ and he was like, ‘If you want to do it, go.’
“That’s how the ball got rolling.”
Planning began in January. Despite a lengthy background in the salon business, Taylor said there was a learning curve moving into retail.
The boutique also required extensive renovation with the inside of both the existing salon and the new space gutted.
“There’s a few bumps in the road when you’re doing construction,” Taylor said.
Now called Cutting Edge Studio and Boutique, the businesses are located alongside each other in the Port Hawkesbury Centre shopping mall. The boutique has been open for three weeks and Taylor said she is receiving positive feedback from longstanding clients and new customers as well.
“Business has been fabulous, clients are saying they can’t believe that there’s something in town,” she said.
In an effort to offer something to appeal to most tastes, the boutique is stocking sizes from XS to 3X and trying to appeal to shoppers with varied tastes.
Taylor said they are trying to fill customers’ desires for unique clothes by only ordering limited numbers of each item, for example possibly only one in each size.
“When that’s all gone, that style’s gone, you can’t get that anymore,” she said, adding, “They’ll ask us, ‘Who else bought this?’”
The store also carries some men’s accessories, as well as women’s apparel and accessories.
The studio and boutique employs six people.