Designing The Dress by Nicole, Part II: The Shop

In Part I of Designing The Dress by Nicole, I talked about the process my wife and I went through to establish an identity for her new boutique. As challenging as that was, it was nothing compared to what we went through to actually pull everything together. While Nicole was hunting down the latest designers and picking out each and every dress, accesssory, and gift she wanted to carry in her store, we also had to think about how we were going to merchandise everything. Before we could start laying out the store, we of course had to settle on a location.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
Early on in this process, my wife knew that she wanted to be part of a thriving community with a lot of foot traffic and of course, no other bridal shops. She didn’t just want to avoid competition, rather it was about filling a need in the area and making sure that she could carry the lines she wanted to carry without encroaching on another shop’s territory. Couple those qualifications with a tight budget for rent and buildout, and it becomes a lot harder to find that perfect space. Eventually we settled on downtown Wheaton, IL, a historic town with a lot of charm and no other dress shops! Now all we needed was to decide on a space.



Initially we focused our efforts on a new building that was still under construction, because a lot of the older spaces needed too much work, and this space came with a generous build-out allowance. I began working on a floor plan that would provide ample space for all the dresses, as well as a private space for bridal fittings apart from the smaller general fitting rooms. Nicole wanted to shelter her brides from the chaos of a large bridesmaid group fitting or a group of teenagers shopping for prom dresses. At the same time, she wanted the sales floor to appear open and uncluttered, so I tried to keep enough space between the fixtures to prevent cluastrophobia.



In keeping with the identity of the store, I chose a mostly black and white color palette. Since purple is my wife’s favorite color, at this stage I also tried to incorporate some purple accents. We had by now been picking up pieces of furniture and various decor accessories here and there, trying to be as thrifty as possible while maintaining a consistent look for all the pieces (thanks craigslist!), so I included a few of them in a 3D model I created to help us visualize the space. Using 3D Studio Max, I was also able to simulate the lighting in the shop using photometric lighting data and mapping out the location of the store to include accurate amounts of sunlight. Enough of that techno-babble, though, here are some pretty pictures...




We're done, right? Nope!

Unfortunately, this space was not meant to be. That generous build-out allowance was quickly swallowed up by the building’s developer, who would have been doing the work. We found ourselves way over budget, and we were forced to move on to other spaces. The good news was that there were several other possibilities in downtown Wheaton, so we only had to go down the street to find our next possible location.



This was a much longer, narrower space, but I was able to make it work. However, it needed a lot of updating, and no matter what we did we couldn’t meet our budget without sacrificing too much of our intended look. Also, due to the strange shape of the space, it was not the most space-efficient, so we would have been paying rent on a lot of unused square footage. Luckily, while we were trying to get the narrow space to work another location became available just a few doors down. As Goldilocks would say, this one was “juuuuust right”...



The location we settled on, 131 W Wesley St, was a corner space with great windows, an original tin ceiling and hardwood floor from 1922, and built-in cabinets with shelves for accessories and hangbars for dresses. The only major renovations we had to do was to build some fitting rooms and finish a small back room. Because the space includes a basement for storage, we were able to utilize every square foot to its full potential. Once we had a layout that we liked, I prepared drawings to apply for a building permit, making sure to comply with all ADA guidelines.



To the built-in cabinets we added crown molding, halogen lighting, and a few coats of black paint. Behind the dresses is a black and white damask wallpaper, chosen over the purple paper in earlier concept renderings because we decided that a more neutral background would be better for multicolored bridesmaid and prom dresses. We painted the walls ivory with black trim. The chandeliers were replaced with pendant lights from CB2, which we wrapped in ribbon and black lace for added drama. A single black and crystal chandelier hangs over the cash wrap. A row of waterfall T-stands and rolling racks runs down the center of the store, led by a round table that greets customers at the entrance of the store.





The back room was converted into a fitting area with two medium-sized fitting rooms and a viewing area. The floor in this room, damaged years ago by a fire, was covered in carpeting, which we replaced with carpet tiles from Interface FLOR. In each fitting room, four black shag carpet tiles create a soft inlaid area rug for bare feet, and a large IKEA Hovet mirror leans against the wall. The final shop design is a quaint and inviting space that retains its vintage charm and hopefully feels right at home in downtown Wheaton.

Next up: Part III of Designing The Dress by Nicole, The Website!