The Woman Who Gave Me My Push: Courtney Cox

People always ask how I got my start in retail. Truth be told, I shouldn’t have. I really didn’t have a plan at the time. I didn’t foresee opening a store, or leaving my career in direct mail marketing. My vision has become clearer over the years and the only reason I’ve been able to go on this journey is because of my friend, Courtney Cox (née Courtney Reynolds). 

Many of you may remember Hysteria; it was a fashion institution, especially back in 2003 when I opened The Shoe Hive. I moved here in 1999 and became one of the first telecommuters, working remotely before anyone even knew what that was. I traveled a lot, but when I was home I would take a break and walk up Royal Street from my house in Southeast Old Town to grab coffee. 

Oftentimes I would pop into Hysteria at 115 South Royal Street and shop. Courtney worked there part time during college and when she first moved back to Alexandria. Shopping is literally how we became friends. We laugh about it now, but she says when I popped in she knew I would never leave empty-handed. That should shock no one reading this, of course!

She became an owner soon after the store opened and in my opinion she is the magic that made it grow. She introduced us all to Trina Turk, Nanette Lepore and 3.1 by Phillip Lim. I mean this was in the early 2000s when nobody had those brands– not even department stores. Hysteria grew so much under her watchful eye that she soon needed more space. This is where I came in. She called me out of the blue and said, “I’m moving and I think you should take over my lease and open a shoe store.” 

That was honestly it. I told her I had no idea what I was doing and she promised to help guide me. Not only did she show me the retail ropes, she turned over the three shoe orders she had placed for her store. This might not seem like a big deal, but it was. Honestly, I probably didn’t get how big of a deal it was until now. Acquiring great lines is one of the most difficult parts of opening a store. Nobody wants to carry to your new shop, and I mean nobody. Courtney handed me a pre-established connection to Sigerson Morrison, Dusica Dusica and Hollywould shoes and I was off to the races. 

This allowed me to go to a shoe show in Vegas called WSA. To show how little I knew about what I was doing, I marched into vendors like Emma Hope and Bettye Muller and asked for shoes for an October opening. They all laughed. This market was for orders that were delivered in March.

Eventually I figured it out, but it wasn’t easy. Courtney also introduced me to her sister, Nicole, who ran the store while I still had my other job. She also let me market my brand on her coattails. We (well, to be totally honest, I) referred to each other as sister stores, and she was my first collaborative marketer. Without her inspiration, her relegation of her brands, and her collaboration (when it helped me and not necessarily her), I would never have started or succeeded–or more importantly, persisted.

As you can see, she is the only reason I was able to open my store and the only reason I figured this retail thing out. Over the years we have remained close friends even though she moved onward and upward from retail. I also am amazed that once she started a new career, her business partner is my college roommate, Alex Deringer, and I didn’t even introduce them. It shows we live in a very small town. 

Here is why I think Courtney and I have remained so close–it isn’t some shared love of retail. It is that we are both dreamers. Okay, admittedly having kids has lessened some of our big ideas, but give us a few glasses of wine and a few napkins, and we’re going to have three new businesses drawn up that we want to create. Over the last 20 years we’ve come up with hundreds of ideas, and maybe three of them…are good ones. But still, I think that is why we enjoy each other's company. Courtney is always dreaming big and a lot of fun to be around. I have said it before: laughter is a currency to me and Courtney is rich in laughter.

Yes, she looks like a model and has the innate and indomitable ability to make a home beautiful, but at the end of day she’d rather just sit around with a cocktail and tell stories and laugh. She laughs big and she dreams big and that is why we will always be friends. Thank you Coco for starting me down this path and sticking with me for 20 years!