Stacy Parker rearranges clothes Tuesday afternoon at Talula boutique, 3536 Meridian Crossings, in Okemos. Talula has been open in Okemos for about a year and specializes in high-end women’s clothes.
—With shaggy-carpeted floors and plenty of full-length mirrors, Talula boutique, 3536 Meridian Crossings, in Okemos, bears much resemblance to an avid shopper’s bedroom.
Jeans are folded in piles on mismatched chairs and benches throughout the store, and shoes lie on the floor in front of a mirror.
“I want people to feel like they’re just hanging out with their friends,” owner Shelley Anderson said.
“I didn’t really (make it look like a bedroom) on purpose.”
The store sells women’s clothing from high-end brands such as Chip & Pepper, 7 For All Mankind, For Joseph and La Cité, along with shoes, jewelry and other accessories.
On Friday, Anderson gushed over customer Vicki Schroeder, who emerged from the fitting room’s velvet curtains in a pair of 7 For All Mankind jeans.
The Okemos resident, who hadn’t visited the store since it moved from Eastwood Towne Center about a year ago, said she wasn’t shopping for anything specific.
“(The store is) unique, definitely,” Schroeder said.
“I don’t know anywhere else in town that you can find the higher-end, designer-type stuff.”
Anderson said the coziness of the store is part of what draws customers.
“I think people come here for help,” she said.
“They love having the personal attention.”
Anderson, 47, got her start in the clothing business more than 20 years ago, when her mother started marketing her own style of dress. At the time, Anderson was living in Colorado and working as a ski and tennis instructor.
“I saw that my mom really needed help promoting this, so I started doing it with her,” she said.
The pair started manufacturing clothes and later opened shops in Meridian Mall in Okemos, but they closed them about six years ago, Anderson said.
Even though Anderson said she and her mom stopped shopping together when she was 12 – “My grandma took over because my mom … told me to buy stuff I didn’t like,” she said, laughing — she said they worked well as business partners.
“We’d fight and laugh and fight and laugh and got along fine, but I have much different tastes (than her),” she said. “She’s fine for an older customer, I’m for a more hip, younger-minded customer.”
Eventually, Anderson had an offer from someone who wanted to back her in starting a new business, so she opened in Eastwood, where she ran Talula for about five years.
About two years ago, Anderson opened another store in Charlevoix, Mich., under the same name.
Alana Reome, an Okemos resident who was browsing the store Friday, said Talula reminds her of shopping in the Los Angeles area.
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“You feel like you can come here and get something and I’m not going to see five people walking down the street with the same thing on,” the 35-year-old said.
Reome said she wasn’t looking for anything in particular, but especially likes the store’s jeans, tops and jackets.
“I like to look at everything and see different brands,” she said.
Anderson said she wants Talula to be a neighborhood store where customers of all ages feel welcome.
“All along, my theory has been to buy clothes not for a certain age group, just for a certain attitude,” she said, “and to try to have it so that moms and grandmas and kids can all shop together — and make it homey.”
