Spring St. staple: Island Dress Shoppe
Downtown St. Marys has changed throughout the years, but one store has remained a constant.
For more than 66 years, the Island Dress Shoppe has been a staple on Spring Street.
Mary Moran has owned the store for 35 years, with her mother owning the store before her and the name has never changed.
“Someone owned it 20 years before [my mom],” said Moran. “It’s always been the Island Shoppe and it’s always been downtown.”
The location has changed over the years, with the original store being in the lot where the current city building sits
Moran’s father then purchased Fort Barbee and the storefront was located in the first floor of the building.
“He owned the whole building. He bought the building to put the store in,” she said.
After her parents retired, Moran ended up buying the store’s current location at 132 W. Spring St., where it has been for more than 30 years.
The Island Dress Shoppe has found its niche, specializing in dresses for mothers of brides and grooms for their wedding days.
“People come from all over to get dresses. It’s our specialty,” said Moran .
Customers come all over from western and southern Ohio to parts of Indiana, including Fort Wayne.
“We have the biggest selection of dresses and we can get them in different colors. We do alterations and we can do the jewelry for them and shoes,” she said. “They can get the full package when they come. That’s our big drawing card.”
Moran said the store’s biggest form of advertising comes on the bride and groom’s special day, when guests see mothers and grandmothers wearing
her clothes.
“Our thing is when they go to a wedding and there’s 300 people there, that’s our best advertisement,” she said. “When that mom looks great, they want to know where she got it. I do have a lot of moms who got their dresses for their children then they’re coming back and they’re the grandmothers now. That’s neat. Since I’ve been here a long time I’ve seen a lot.”
Moran said that she’s able to get dresses in quickly, taking only about a week for them to
arrive.
“We have a quick turnaround there,” she said.
In addition to dress wear, shoes and jewelry, Island Dress Shoppe also offers casual sportswear including Ohio State gear.
The store’s busiest times of the year are directly after Christmas and into March, said Moran.
Earlier this year, she said they were really busy at the beginning of the New Year and then when the coronavirus pandemic hit in March, Moran still ended up doing private appointments because there were still families that
were going ahead with their wedding days.
“We were able to hang in there and keep busy,” said Moran.
Having been around since the 50s, Moran said the store has experienced plenty of changes with the downtown.
“I always say you hear a lot of negative about our downtown but we’ve been here,” she said. “Hudson’s have been here. Albert Sporting Goods … there’s a lot of us that have been here for a long time. A lot of businesses have been family owned. With Albert’s, it was their parents and now its their children; same thing with Hudson’s.
That says a lot, too. Not too many people can say that.”
Remaining downtown means a lot to Moran. She recalled one time when the owner of the St. Marys Square wanted her to move into that complex.
“He called me and wanted me to come out there near Kmart,” she said. “I’m like, ‘No, I’m going to stay downtown where I’ve always been.”
“When I started, I was in my 20s, so I was like the young kid on Spring Street and now I’m the old one on Spring Street,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve been here a long time and hopefully it will be longer yet.”