New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
CT boutiques face the new, weird world of pandemic fashion
Melissa Mallone opened her fashion boutique, “Plain and Fancy,” in March of 2020.
Yes, really, March 2020, the beginning of the pandemic, when no one had even conceived of the phrase “toilet paper shortage.”
Her store survived the pandemic, and in a year made famous for Zoom meetings featuring pressed blouses and statement earrings paired with pajama bottoms, Mallone said her customers haven’t really been interested in yoga pants and sweatshirts.
So, if that’s the case, what are boutiques doing in a pandemic?
“[People] don’t want to wear loungewear anymore,” she said. “They want to be dressed up.”
She even tried selling loungewear for a time and found herself feeling uninspired.
“So I kind of scaled back, because I feel like every time I went online, that’s all I saw and I was sick of it, and it wasn’t exciting me, so I didn’t buy it [for the store].”
Mallone started selling clothes in 2012 on Facebook Marketplace. She was just looking for a way to get rid of some of her old stuff to make room for the new. When she started going full force with Plain and Fancy last year, she found people were looking for a boutique experience more during the pandemic than ever before.
She offers free delivery where she drops pieces off personally to each customer. She has a personalized store set up in her house for individualized shopping sessions, with racks of clothes and a bathroom set up as a dressing room if customers want to try anything on.
“I think with that personalization and customer service that they are not getting now that everything is online shopping, it’s just a different feel and a different vibe. The customer service aspect is everything right now,” she said.
Before the pandemic, Mallone set up pop-up shops anywhere she was invited, even occasionally at pizza restaurants, where she started to make relationships with customers.
“People love boutique shopping,” she said. “People love novelty, they love seeing stuff that they’re not going to see when they go into TJ Maxx and Marshall’s. I give that to them and they absolutely love it,” she said.
“I feel like I’m bringing something to my community that isn’t already there.”
In Bridgeport, Amanda Kelley and Virginia Semeghini run Witch Bitch Thrift, a vintage and thrift boutique specializing in unique, colorful pieces.
The boutique started in September as an online store operating out of Semeghini’s living room, but it grew quickly, and they realized they needed to move into a physical store space.
“That’s when we realized we could offer that added experience of having people come and chat and make appointments, but keep it safe because it’s still a pandemic,” Semeghini said.
Currently, the store operates online, on Instagram and by appointment at the brick-and-mortar location, where Kelley and Semeghini personally curate an experience for customers.
“People might not want to go out and shop like a normal shopping experience, going to a store and being with a bunch of people. And I think that having that (appointment) service guarantees they can have the store to themselves and shop safely and not feel crowded,” Semeghini said.
They agree with Mallone that customers have not been coming to them looking for any kind of loungewear.
Their clients are looking for an outlet to feel like themselves again, according to Kelley.
They’re trying to help people find their own style and lose any preconceived notions about what fashion should be.
“We get a lot of people who are saying to us, ‘I’m looking for clothing to help me feel better about myself again,’ or to ‘help me feel like myself again in a time when I just haven’t,” Kelley said.
The store sells clothing for every body type, and there’s a big focus on creating accessibility and community for everyone. Kelley and Semighini create mystery bundles for clients based on their interests and style.
There’s also a request form on their website where customers can request specific items. So, if someone’s in need of a floral skirt in a certain size, Kelley and Semighini can go out and try to find it.
“We’ve really tried to focus on the local thing. We kind feel like new kids on the block, even though we’ve lived here a long time,” Semighini said.
“I think that this is a whole new game for us, trying to do a lot of outreach with the community. We really want to make this a space that’s safe and good and a place where people want to come and hang out.”