Brian Curee: 0:11

All right, welcome back to the Vero Beach podcast. This is part two of our interview with Ashley here at the Apricot Lane Boutique. We're excited to learn more about the behind the scenes, and I was just talking with Shauna as you're away taking care of your baby. How?

Ashley Borenz: 0:25

old is your baby? Four months. I have a 17 year old too, riley. She's my, the love of my life. And then we had him and I do not feel.

Brian Curee: 0:35

I feel so much older than I did when I had her. I was.

Ashley Borenz: 0:39

I didn't miss sleep or anything, but with him I'm like, oh my God, so were you in your twenties when you had Riley. Yes.

Shawna Curee: 0:45

Yes, so when you're in your twenties, you just bounce right back Like no big deal.

Ashley Borenz: 0:50

It's like, oh, four hours, no big deal. I am like, oh, now, I'm like I need to go to bed at eight.

Shawna Curee: 0:56

Hey, we go to bed at eight and we don't even have a formal, so we have these pictures from our son's first birthday so I would have been 25, I guess, and I stayed up all night long getting ready for this party. And I look back at pictures and I'm like that's what I looked like when I stayed up all night long, like now, when I stay up all night long, I look like I'm about to die, which I am about to die, me too, me too.

Brian Curee: 1:20

Well, we were sitting back here and I was like. I was like I think this is the break room. Is this the break room?

Ashley Borenz: 1:24

Yep, okay, cool, slash my office.

Brian Curee: 1:30

Okay, break room slash office. I told Sean I was like where you go hang out with some of the employees and stuff and we're just kind of checking out some of the clothes hanging up. And we noticed your 3D style wallpaper on your computer over there too.

Ashley Borenz: 1:40

That is so cool, isn't that?

Brian Curee: 1:41

cool. It is very cool. I was like it feels like I can just jump in the forest. Everybody else listening is like I don't know what they're talking about.

Shawna Curee: 1:59

I thought we're talking about clothes and boutiques. They were, but it just reminded me so much like seeing the clothes hanging up there, like getting ready to go out to the floor. Do you guys have to steam things that come in? Yes, so that was a big part of my job. I was looking, I was like I didn't see a steamer, but I was like I bet those are waiting to be steamed.

Ashley Borenz: 2:12

Yes, we have several steamers here, and yet those, those definitely have to be steamed. Almost everything has to be seen.

Shawna Curee: 2:19

This is all crunched in there together, and that's how they were doing it in the 90s, so not a lot has changed.

Brian Curee: 2:24

Starting into this part of our conversation, maybe you could explain to us what it's like to run a boutique on a day to day basis.

Ashley Borenz: 2:30

It's, you know, just as boring as any other job and just as exciting, some days depending. For me it's very hectic because I got to get the baby, I got to get all this stuff. Luckily I have a very strong manager, so she gets here, she opens up, get the customers in, get everything ready for the day and then, unless we have a lot of orders, come in and then we have to put the orders out, get them in the system and that's that's about it, and then just rotate the store as the needs come for different promotions and everything and how often do you get new clothes.

Ashley Borenz: 3:00

I try to get new clothes every month. June and July were our slow months, so I'm just starting to get in for July and then I'll get in for the fall season.

Brian Curee: 3:09

Oh fun. So what do you do if like clothes that don't sell? Do they stay here or do you send them back, like how does that work?

Ashley Borenz: 3:16

For the most part we try to run through them and then right now I'm doing a big semi-annual sale for the summer stuff and some of the stuff that kind of lingered from the opening. We're up to 75% on that and then if whatever doesn't sell off of that, then I'll end up donating.

Brian Curee: 3:30

Oh, okay, yeah, you should definitely come back soon.

Shawna Curee: 3:32

75% off, so yeah, I was just telling him like I'm coming back soon to shop so you open up in december.

Brian Curee: 3:39

Did you get to do like decorating for christmas and stuff last year? I know that was something that we got to do at the stores when I worked at a retail store, like the window stuff on the outside windows for holidays or anything like that that is something I'd love to get into, to like the, the chalk, paint and stuff on the outside of the windows.

Ashley Borenz: 3:55

This year we just bought little decorations, actually from TJ Maxx, because we're in the same parking lot Talking about window paintings and stuff like that.

Brian Curee: 4:02

You should talk to Shauna she has really good handwriting and stuff like that.

Shawna Curee: 4:05

I do have good handwriting, but I've never done that. But I'd be willing to learn.

Brian Curee: 4:09

You know, there's actually someone that we're wanting to get on the podcast. As we were talking about before the podcast, we do a lot of stuff like virtual reality and stuff and mixed reality. There is a local person here in Bureau. They wear a mixed reality headset which is a Quest 3, and they can see what they want to paint and they paint with that headset on, so it overlays it on top of the wall.

Shawna Curee: 4:32

It's like tracing. That's cool. It looks so cool when she's doing it. Her name's Crystal. She does like really cool paintings on like garage floors and stuff like that and then epoxies over it. It's something epoxy. Is it unicorn epoxy or something like that.

Brian Curee: 4:44

But that's something you could definitely do, like you could do it yourself, like you could put it on the headset and then just paint.

Ashley Borenz: 4:49

Yeah, I watched my daughter with her Quest 3 all the time. I never thought of. You should play Beat Saber. Yeah, exactly, yeah, they can be useful things too.

Ashley Borenz: 4:57

There's a lot of useful things you can use it for Is there anything else about behind the scenes that maybe you'd like to share that we really have no idea about? Mostly behind the scenes that people don't realize is that buying clothing for a store like this, especially because we want to keep up with the trends, the seasons, the styles and what's not working for Vero Beach or for what customers coming in now, it's constant searching. If you're not planning to go to a market and actually feel and touch the clothing and see what's coming out first, you're constantly searching on the vendors' websites, looking for new vendors, talking to people local. That's a lot of the behind the scenes that people don't realize.

Shawna Curee: 5:34

So while you're looking through clothes and thinking about what people here in Vero Beach would like. Are you thinking also of like a big age range, or do you kind of stick to like a more narrow age range?

Ashley Borenz: 5:44

I have noticed that a lot of stores will stick to their one style and one age group, and I really. The reason I wanted to open a boutique is because I have a 17 year old daughter. Yeah, you know, shopping with her is always okay. We'll go shopping together and it turns to be okay. We're shopping for her today, right, and then we'll have to go shop for mommy, because I walk into the place that she wants to shop and I'm like I'm not going to find anything here, right, exactly, my dream is a kid to walk in a 17-year-old and be able to find something, her mom in her 30s or 40s be able to find something, and then grandma be able to find something.

Brian Curee: 6:19

Oh.

Ashley Borenz: 6:19

I love that and so far I feel pretty confident in it. But I know I need to work on it constantly because everybody's style is different. You know, some people come in and they'll just not like anything here or think it's anything's age appropriate for them. But some people come in and they like everything.

Shawna Curee: 6:42

It's really just learning your customer learning what she wants, and my biggest goal is to always change and be flexible for them. Yeah, I love that vision. I just like that picture of thinking of multi generational shopping experience. That's really fun.

Ashley Borenz: 6:49

As women, that's what we like to do together. We like to shop together, and I love shopping with my daughter, but it's a compromise every time we go shopping.

Brian Curee: 6:58

Is there any way that you collect feedback from people to kind of learn if they didn't like stuff because it wasn't the right type of fashion for them at their age, like their age group?

Ashley Borenz: 7:08

We ask every time Some people come in and they're like, oh, nope, too young for me, and we'll be like, oh, come, this way we can show you some other things. Sometimes I'll just ask, like what are you looking for in jeans? And I just like to hear that, because I know that my style especially growing up here in Vero and going to these boutiques, I'm like I wish people just had my style. So I like to hear from each individual what their style is and I think a lot of the times that I'm looking for clothes I have a very particular style. My manager, best friend, jamie, has my sister, my daughter, so I think of all of us when I'm doing the shopping, like what we're looking on them, because I don't want to make this Ashley's closet, yeah, so that's the. That's my biggest thing is making sure I ask everybody what, what is their style, what they like.

Shawna Curee: 7:53

That's so smart and I really appreciate that, because I personally, you know, kind of historically, have had such a hard time finding clothes that I feel like I look good in. I'm short, my legs are kind of short. There's not a lot of things that I feel like, oh yeah, that looks great on me. Or, you know, you can never tell from looking at something on a hanger too. But I like that you have women around you that you're kind of thinking about that with too, because I do feel like every now and then you come across a place and you're like this is one style period.

Ashley Borenz: 8:20

But it's awesome that you're kind of thinking through all of that and it's also great talking to women about stuff like that, because then you feel less alone.

Brian Curee: 8:27

I was curious about that because we were just talking about this the other day with our son about apps. We were joking. We're like we remember the days when apps were free. Now if you download an app, it's like, hey, you can try it for free for three days and then it's $10 a week and we're like I'm not paying $10 a week for an app, so we just automatically deleted it. And he said it would be smart if they asked you why you removed the app so people would know like how many times a remunerant just because they're trying to charge for it weekly. So I was curious when it comes to the clothes, because that's some really valuable information for you to gather to help you prepare for the next order that you're going to be placing.

Shawna Curee: 9:38

I noticed when I was coming in that there's a sign on the door that says that you can get someone to help you with styling. How does that process work?

Ashley Borenz: 9:45

We would do like a shop one-on-one appointment. What we find is especially me. I would stick to one style and if it doesn't look the way I think as soon as I put it on, then it's no go. Or if I look at it and I'm like no, I'll never wear that, I won't even try it.

Ashley Borenz: 10:00

So it's very hard to get out of that box. Having a stylist appointment would be that person to help you get out of that box. I would start with what? What's your favorite pair of pants, what's your favorite top? And then I would show you things that would go with that, things that you probably wouldn't want to wear, but that way you could see how it would work. I hated high rise pants, but I've realized that putting on high rise pants with the right shirt yes, exactly Will be flattering, but it's that idea you have in your head.

Shawna Curee: 10:27

Exactly, and if you try high rise pants with, like a longer shirt, it looks hideous because it's hitting you at the wrong place, yes, and the pants are hitting you at the wrong place, so you get things that you don't want.

Shawna Curee: 10:40

So I was shopping with my sister-in-law and her mother a couple months ago and we were in a shop and they would look at things and they would say this would look so cute on you and I was like that will not look good on me. And then they got something else and they're like this would look so cute on you and I was like, no, that won't work, I already know. Well, then they were like yeah, they were like just try it on. I was like I don't want to get my hopes up and they're like just try it on. So eventually I did try on, I think, five things just to prove them wrong, and I liked all of them. And then I was like, oh no, what am I going to buy? Because I can't afford all five of these things. But you're right, ladies, I want to encourage you like come and make an appointment. You think you know, but you really don't.

Ashley Borenz: 11:20

And if it's anything, it's a self-esteem booster. You don't have to buy anything and you get to try clothes on and just have a fun day. I mean like growing up everybody, like when you're a little kid, you're like well, when I get older I'm going to have these fun shopping trips with my friends. That never happen. So it is like a little girl's dream come true.

Shawna Curee: 11:40

I could see it really being helpful to, like teenagers who really don't know what kind of style would look good on them yet. That would be a really smart thing to do and kind of get that insight and know, like, what kind of clothes will look good on you and get you kind of out of your box a little. And I feel like, even as new styles come along, you can incorporate little things. You can still, like, have a classic style with just little bits of new fashion. That's what I kind of like to do, yeah me too, yes.

Brian Curee: 12:04

So, ashley, as we get ready to wrap up this episode, you talked about Ashley's closet, so what would you say are some of your favorite brands and pieces that you have in the store today?

Ashley Borenz: 12:13

I love the Elon. This is an Elon dress now. It's just very.

Brian Curee: 12:18

Elon like Elon Musk or.

Ashley Borenz: 12:20

Well, it's pronounced. I'm probably saying it wrong, because everybody corrects me, but it's either Elon, it's some people say Elaine, but it's Elon.

Brian Curee: 12:28

Not the Tesla guy right.

Shawna Curee: 12:32

No, I think he's not styling dresses.

Brian Curee: 12:34

I was like I didn't know he did that.

Ashley Borenz: 12:36

I love that they have very flowy, nice dresses made of cotton. Our Love Stitch is a very cute brand, very like nice colors, very flowing, nice to wear for older ladies like myself. I'm 41, so I like something that covers stuff and that's just like free, flowing and really pretty with a pair of jeans easy to put on. I also love our mustard seed. We have a ghillie that one I might be saying wrong too, because people, some people say jilly. That's just silly, it is silly.

Brian Curee: 13:11

This has been a great second episode. I can't wait to get into part three, where we're going to talk about Vero Beach what you love about Vero Beach and talk a little bit more about the community as well.

Shawna Curee: 13:19

Until next time neighbor.